The fog was thick when we left the dock at 7:30 Monday morning; aboard were Konstantin Tsarev, a recent Norwalk transplant from Minnesota and his friend, Randy Barnos–also of Norwalk, who was celebrating his birthday.

We began looking around the Islands, but came up short, so we made our way towards the east just as the fog began to lift somewhat. We came upon a bunker school and popped lures into it, resulting in a catch of ten bass up to 15 lbs. as well as blues 6-10 lbs. All the fished were released.

The sun was brightly shining when we returned to our marina, and everyone was satisfied with the trip.

I’ve been an advocate of catch-and-release for the past several years, because it’s becoming obvious that the striped bass population has dwindled significantly, with fewer and fewer schoolies showing up each season. I encourage my clients to keep only what they’ll be using for their dinner table.

We fished on Saturday morning with Louis Rossouw, visiting from Johannesburg, South Africa. He told us that his “bucket list” contained “a fishing trip on Long Island Sound,” and he booked the date in conjunction with attending his niece’s commencement exercises at Yale University.

We left the dock at 7:00am, and we worked all the local haunts around the Norwalk Islands, using bucktails, but had no luck; so I decided to head eastward toward Westport and Southport, and working along the shoreline for a couple of hours, we boated six schoolie stripers. This was Louis’ first time catching a striped bass, and he was very happy with the experience.

My Bonnie was launched last week, and on Thursday my friend, Emilio Pandolfi, and I did some scouting, using sandworms and fresh bunker for bait. We started out at one of our favorite chunking spots around the Norwalk Islands, and with heavy chumming, we managed to attract one 27″ striped bass and two bluefish in the 3-5 lb. range.

We then moved to the other side of The Sound, where we blindcasted along the shore, getting two hits and missing both of them. We didn’t see any bait or birds in the area, so we went to the middle of the Sound and did some more blindcasting with no results.

Water temps remain in the mid-50’s, probably still too cool for much action. Needless to say, we were very disappointed with the day’s action.

Well, we pulled our Florida boat out of the water yesterday and we’re now getting her ready for a six-month rest. All in all the fishing down here was disappointing, mainly because of the dearth of sea grass all along the central east coast of Florida. The marine biologists and other scientists are still debating the cause of the problem, and we’re hopeful the mystery will be solved and the sea grass loss will be dealt with very soon.

Our Connecticut charters will begin in early May, and we’re very exciting about getting back into L.I. Sound.

On Friday our passengers were Bob Budinsky and his daughter, Elena, of Midland, Michigan. We started out working an inshore bar, where we found a nice mess of bluefish 3-4 pounds and some jacks and ladyfish. We then moved into the Inlet, where we got more jacks and blues. We finished off the day in the Sebastian River, where father and daughter enjoyed bringing in the ladies.

Saturday’s trip was with Gordon Nelson of Tennessee and his friend, Sharon Rosenfeld of Palm Bay FL. We started in the Inlet on the incoming tide, where there were a few bluefish, but we fished along the beach where they caught blues up to four pounds, some jacks and pompano. We returned to the Inlet and scored with jacks up to eight pounds and a rare event of a huge bluefish with others following behind—all in the 11-14 pound range. The one that was hooked broke off right at the boat. Much of the catch was taken home for a family barbecue.