The Benmar Fishing Report

Fishing for blackfish is about as good as it gets.  Guys who have some experience are catching limits and picking and choosing their keepers up to 10 pounds!  We went out today and just had a ball with about 50 fish coming over the gunwhales in about 4 hours.  The final limit catch was just a beautiful bunch of tog of 3 to 10 pounds.  The small “keepers” of 14 or 15 inches just got thrown back.  If you are a regular Benmar customer reading this you might want to give Capt. George a call to get out one more time this season.  Check the weather and just go!

The last three days have been pretty good weather-wise and the blackfish have been cooperating as well.  Most people are getting their limits and we have seen a number of fish in the 8 to 10 pound range.  We call the big ones “tiderunners”.   Although we have taken down the “Google Ads” for the remainder of the year, we are still in the water and accepting charters on a “weather-permitting” basis. 

Looks like Mother Nature is giving us a few days off.  Wind, rain and well-below-normal temperatures will keep us off the water until Monday.  We do have charters scheduled for several days next week and look for a break in the weather to get out there after some of those big blackfish that have moved onto our favorite reefs.  We expect that the porgies, blues and some stripers will also still be in our local waters. 

A good group of anglers today who spent most of their day bottom fishing for blackfish and porgies.  They returned to the dock with a nice cooler full of fish including a a good number of tautog up to 8 pounds.   We tried for bass and blues for a while but didn’t find them in some of our usual spots.  They still should be in our local waters, however, because they love to eat porgies which are still here in abundance.

The Gagliardi group had a pretty productive day on the water.  They limited out on Blackfish with several in the 5 to 8 pound range.  They also caught 4 ocean blues of the 8 to 10 pound variety as well as a ton of porgies although they only kept the biggest ones that could be easily fileted.  A good group who fished hard and didn’t mind when the wind came up and made a bumpy ride home.  All in all, a good day on the ocean!

High winds have kept us at the dock the last few days.  Sunday forecast is better so we expect to be out there after some bass and blackfish.

A beautiful day on the water with a great crew of anglers who knew their way around the gunwhales!  Leon and his buddies scored on multiple species….blues, blacks, stripers, seabass and a TON of porgies!  There will be some tasty filets going into their freezers when they get home!  As we hoped for, the fall season is bringing us the chance for a great mixed bag on every trip.  Give the Capt. a call if you like this kind of fishing!  We still have a few weekend dates and a good number of weekdays available.

We had a hearty group of anglers today who decided to brave the inclement weather and go out on Fishers Island sound after some blackfish.  Despite rain that was coming down pretty good at times, they fished right through it and bagged about a dozen nice tog up to 19 inches, 5 keeper sea bass and a bunch of porgies.  The bites were fairly constant and they did well considering the distraction of wind and rain.  The sea bass were a welcome surprise.  Generally, there are not that many of keeper size inside the Island.  So far this fall, there seems to be lots of fish around and we expect some great “brochure” type catches on upcoming trips!

Our anglers scored a nice mixed bag today with three keeper stripers up to 35 inches, 7 or 8 big blues, 9 keeper blackfish and, of course, lots of other fish that were returned to the deep.   Good action, good eatin’ and good times!

October 1st reopened the Blackfish season.  Capt. George took mate Allen and his buddy, Nightcrawler, out to see if any “crab crunchers” were around since he has a number of blackfish special charters comming up this month.  In two stops, the trio caught about 50 of the tasty, toothy, critters plus a bunch of big porgies.  A lot of the fish were throwbackers but it was no problem to come up with their limit of nice tog in just a few hours.   The Captain is running a blackfish special for $500 for the rest of the season so give him a call if you want to get in on the action and put some of those delicious filets in your freezer for the winter months.