You need to raise those large bass

Capt. Rob Taylor of Newport Sportfishing Charters uses lures with no hooks to raise big striped bass.   

 Capt. George Latos of Coventry with his limit of fluke caught on the Frances Fleet.

Suzanne Sustello with a cod she caught this weekend at Cox Ledge.

 Capt. Bill Murphy with a nine pound bonito he caught Friday off the west wall of the Harbor of Refuge.

You need to raise those large bass

“What you need to do is get those big striped bass to the surface.” said Capt. Rob Taylor of Newport Sportfishing Charters, an expert using topwater lures for striped bass.  He shared some tips and strategies Monday night at a RI Saltwater Anglers Association meeting. 

To get large striped bass to surface that may be deep in the water column, Rob throws topwater lures with no hooks.  Yes lures with no hooks. “This gets the smaller striped bass chasing our lures.  It creates a lot of commotion on the surface. Then the bigger fish come up and push the small ones out of the way.  Once they are up, and have worked themselves into a frenzy, we start throwing lures with hooks. ”

This technique has worked for Rob and his customers time and time again fishing off Newport, Jamestown and Block Island.  The strategy of “raising the big fish” with lures that have no hooks is generally employed over structure.  Structure where there is a high/low water break with fast moving current and eddies that toss bait fish around making it easier for large stripers to ambush bait.

Some tips from Rob include using 50 to 80 pound monofilament leaders, as long as you can… five, six, seven feet tied directly to main line (50 pound braid) with a double uni-knot.  The lures are large spooks… 10” or so with middle and rear treble hooks.  

The idea is to get that lure dancing on the surface.  Rob prefers a walking the dog motion with the lure dancing or swimming from side to side as it is retrieved and then a brief stop.  He also is a firm believer in scenting his lures with “smelly jelly” (a type of bunker or Atlantic menhaden oil).  He believes that when the lure stops briefly the fish picks up the scent and strikes.

Visit Captain Rob Taylor’s website at www.nsfcharters.com .

Where’s the bite

Bonito are still here with spotty reports of false albacore now being caught.  Peter Nilsen, president of Rhody Fly Rodders, said he fly fished off Newport to the Sakonnet Thursday and had difficulty hooking up but Friday he fished with Capt. Bill Murphy and fly fished at the Point Judith lighthouse for bass and bonito and they did better. 

Peter said, “Missed a couple of bass on the rocks off the lighthouse. We then fished along the 'walls' of PT Judith chasing quite a few Bonito, but nothing... we then fished all the way west to Quonny and back with no luck. Tons of bait and birds all over the place, but no fish under them. Then we returned to the west wall area and chased fish all over the place. Capt. Murphy's spinning lure reached a fish before me and he hooked and landed a nine pound bonito.

There's tons of bait all over Sakonnet, Newport and along the shore to Watch Hill. I've never seen that much. Small silversides, large silversides, and peanut bunker. One or two guys in the area were reported to have landed Albies, so they are starting to show. With all this bait around, we should have a great fall of fishing.”

Dave Garzoli reports he hooked up with bonito Saturday morning. “Launched my kayak yesterday (Saturday) at the East Wall (of the Harbor of Refuge) for a few hours.  Ended up with two bonito, pile of scup and Black Sea bass. Bonito caught on ultra-light fresh water gear using deadly dicks.”

Manny Macedo of Lucky Bait & Tackle, Warren said, “We sold everything silver this weekend as anglers targeted bonito that came close to shore at the mouth of the  Sakonnet last week.  Deadly Dicks, Kastmasters, anything silver was selling.  We had some customer land bonito from shore too.”  Matt Conti of Sung Harbor Marina, South Kingstown said “We had bonito at the south wall this Sunday with just a few reports of false albacore being caught.”

Scup fishing has improved greatly with anglers now catching large scup once again.  Anglers are landing them by boat in good numbers and some shore anglers are limiting out (30 fish) at Colt State Park, and at Independence Park, Bristol.  They are catching some black sea bass too mixed in from shore using worms as well as squid.”

Striped bass fishing slowed during the day.  Manny Macedo of  Lucky Bait & Tackle, Warren said, “Bass fishing slowed down a bit at Block Island but customers are catching some in the Bay.  A customer caught a 29” fish at the Mt. Hope Bridge light house this weekend.  Most anglers are using eels. We still have customers catching large blue fish in the Bay and off the coastal shores.” Matt Conti of Snug Harbor Marina said, “Most of the action on Block Island is occurring on the southwest side with eels at night.” 

Fluke fishing.  Jon Stavrakas said, “Slow day fluking around Block Island (Saturday).  Started at East Grounds, light and variable wind, no drift, caught a few seabass, moved to south side of Block for similar conditions.  Fished north of wind farm construction.  Returned to East Grounds after breeze picked up.  Non-stop sea bass, scup, etc.  Kept two large sea bass to 4+ lbs.” I fished with a party off Newport Saturday with very little drift.  We managed to land three keeper size fluke, some shorts with multiple bottom tie ups, many skate and sea robins.  Wind and tide not in line and very slow moving water all morning.  Matt Conti of Snug Harbor said, “Customers are still catching fluke and nice keeper sea bass at the Hooter maker and on the southwest side of Block Island.” Capt. Frank Blount of the Frances Fleet said “Fluke fishing was good all week long… Some days more spread out than others but there were at least a handful of limit catches each day and on some trips there were quite a few limits. The boat also generally had no problem finding a good size sea bass for most of its fishers. No monster fluke this week.”

Cod and offshore fishing. “Cod fishing is still good at Cox’s Ledge for anglers.” said Matt Conti of Sung Harbor.  Rick Sustello reports on the RISSA blog, “I caught my first Mahi ever in RI while cod fishing out at Coxes ledge with my wife and Lary Norin. He also caught his first ever. No weigh-in because these were chicken Mahi's and nowhere near 6 lbs. really fun to catch and watch them run and jump. Caught it casting a 1oz silver crippled herring at some high fliers. Let it sink and fast retrieve. We only found smaller ones but tried a few other tricks to get deeper, but no action on anything larger.”  Conti of Snug Harbor said, “West Atlantis was the place for offshore fishing this past week with yellowfin, big eye tuna and swordfish being caught there.”

Black sea bass fishing is very strong.  In Rhode Island limit jumped to seven fish/person/day on Sept. 1.