Fishing Report: It's a Fish Fiesta on the Water

An abundance of fish in the waters, impressive catches and one of the most successful fishing tournaments in recent memory, courtesy of the Babylon Tuna Club, were some of last week’s angling highlights as a spectacular summer of fishing hits the midway point.

Babylon village held its 55th Annual Invitational Tuna Tournament and a great big congratulations goes out to all the winners, especially to the crew of the “Feather Edge,” who took home the big prize in the overnight boat category after catching a massive 88-pound yellow fin tuna.

“The fish was fighting us all over the place and it ran around for a bit…then just at the end it got chased by a mako shark, but we were able to bring it in,” said Jerry Vacca, one of the members of the winning team.

Pete, from Suffolk Bait & Tackle in Babylon, reported that last Tuesday a shop regular named Seymour fished east of the Fire Island Inlet with two friends and the trio had a great day of angling, limiting out on fluke. Seymour had the biggest catch, hooking up with a doormat 10-pounder which provided a hearty dinner.

That same day, Pete also reported that Billy Saverese, Capt Dave and their friend Matt wWent south of the inlet in 110-feet of water and  hooked up with a nice mako, estimated to be between 170-185-pounds. Pete said fluking has been very productive southwest and east of the inlet with fish coming to the scale between five and 10-pounds throughout the week.

This past Saturday, Joe Veit and Dominic, fishing aboard the Squid Hound reeled in over 20 fluke, limiting out on their keeper allowance, with fish ranging between four and seven pounds.

The bait combo of local spearing along with Peruvian spearing and cut squid did the trick. Pete noted that the local docks are all producing keeper-size crabs and for those younger anglers, the docks are a great place to catch snappers at the moment. 

“We still have plenty of local spearing and local squid,” he said.

While ocean fishing out of the Fire Island Inlet last weekend, an angler out for fluke landed a nice 7.75-pound flat fish as well as plenty of porgies to 16-inches and sea bass to 17-inches. Green bucktails coupled with fluke belly strips helped tempt the fluke.

While many large keeper fluke have been recently caught inside the bay, the larger ones have increased their numbers in the 70-90-feet of water range, just beyond the Fire Island Inlet.

On the party boat scene out of Captree, the Island Princess charter did quite well last week, especially with fluke action and sea bass. The Bay Princess also had a solid report last week as recent charters had customers catching fluke in the Great South Bay.