I fished with Sean and his 11-year-old son Cohen yesterday. We got a late start and didn’t get going until after 11. We started fishing the Eastern Long Island Sound reefs on the flood tide and picked away at bluefish and stripers for a couple of hours. When we had a lull in the tide, both wanted to get some giant porgies for their family BBQ so we spent an hour loading up the cooler with porgies to 3 lbs. Some of these fish were in the 17-18″ range. Anyway, once the tide switched fishing switched dramatically as well. Instead of picking away at a fish here and there, the outgoing tide was getting them a gator bluefish at nearly every cast. These are the first really big bluefish I’ve seen on the reefs this year. All their bluefish on that tide were at or over 10 lbs. with some in the 13-14 lb. range. All toll they caught maybe 25-30 big bluefish and a half dozen nice stripers, plus a cooler full of giant porgies. All of their fish were caught on light tackle using 15 lb. braid to a 15 lb. fluorocarbon leader. I was switching them between 1 oz holographic diamond jigs reeled fast just below the surface and one once jigs loaded with 5″ paddle tail minnows. These big Bluefish seemed to have a slight preference for the jig/paddle tail combo. By the end of the day, Cohen outfished his father about 3 to 1 and by evening both were arm weary from all the fish. Check out this video of Cohen casting to, hooking and landing a striper.
