[hartattack]

6.WHERE TO FIND TOG
Another thing that was raised was about my questioning the fishing in eastern Long Island sound and the use of extremely heavy sinkers to hold bottom. First, fishing in this area from roughly Six Mile Reef, to Fishers Island, is highly specialized. It is unique since this is one of the few areas where you have to fish a 'window' in the tides. I have only seen one area with tides as strong, and that?s at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay off the Cape Henry wrecks. Vineyard Sound off the Elizabeth Island Chain comes close, but I have still found it fishable in a running tide. If you have no idea of how to fish the tides in this area for blackfish, then you better find something else to fish for or learn to adapt. This might be the toughest area to catch blackfish in deep water from. Once the blackfish move off the beach, to waters of over 100 feet in December, there are only a handful of wrecks to pick from. With a handful of deep water wrecks like the Potato Barge, Berrateria, Thames, Hatchett Pt, City Services, and 2-3 relatively unknown large wrecks, there?s' not much to pick from.

And before captains from that area, start reaching for their Digitalis heart medicine for giving out such secret information, anyone can purchase any wreck publication from the Long Island fishermen, by Pete Barrett, and Tim Coleman, or go on the internet, and do searches, or pick up a Capt. Seagull chart to find the numbers to these spots. One thing that has happened with the advent and widespread use of the loran, and GPS ..their are very, very, few unknown spots, especially if they are large wrecks.

Spring Blackfish...Rockaway Reef and the wrecks and rock piles along
the east beach.
Fall Blackfish...By far the Sandy Hook reef...second choice would be the wrecks between the channels if you did not want to run that far south. North Shore...area around Six Mile Reef
Late fall and early winter...Southwest Ledge off of Block Island.
Fishermen buoy area second choice. Western edge of 17.
Winter...New Grounds/NE 17 fathoms/ Barges south of the BA' Buoy
Early Spring....Farms area and Long Branch, period
. Best wreck...every wreck has its day!7. FINDING SPOTS
What?s a good place to fish? Anything on the chart would tend to be over fished, and in my experience, fish tend to be much smaller. For instance, I fish the N Fork and the popular spots out there are all just off the north side of Plum. There are too many boats on these piles and they all hold small fish which and tend to get fished out early.

The best spots I have are small piles, out of the way that are very difficult for the "weekend warrior" to anchor on. These always seem to produce the best fish both quality and quantity.

First grab a chart of your area. I use chart view or Maptech software, which is one of a number of good programs that you can store on your computer to view NOAA charts. The most productive areas for blackfish usually are ones where you see contour changes, where shallow water spots, lie next to channels, or just deeper water. Up in Buzzards Bay, we found points of land that stick out, that had rocks around them, pretty productive, and usually these areas are the first you try when you start fishing a area that you are not familiar with. An example of this was Woods Hole channel which connected Vineyard Sound on one side to Buzzards Bay on the other. Also look for spots on a chart, where you see lumps surrounded by deeper water. Once on the water look for visual signs of rocky bottom or even wrecks...Lobster pot buoys are the best indicators of rocks/wrecks in a area. Finally, look for areas marked rocky bottom on a chart.

Once you got that all down, it?s up to you to investigate these areas. Go and run your boat with the bottom machine on....this is the best way to find your own cherry spots and honey holes. You do not have to find bottom that comes up 5-10 feet to be productive for blackfish. Up in the sound, a few boulders, spread out, are good enough. Watch your machine while you ride along, and watch for
Hardness of the bottom, and even better, tails, which show even harder bottom. All a tail is, when you see this when you ride along, is a thickening of the bottom, that extends downward. This could just be rocks and stones that come up no more then a foot off the bottom. Areas like this get little pressure, so give them a shot. If you are looking for bigger fish in the Sound, use fiddlers and hermits for your bait, instead of the green crabs early in the season. Shallow water happens to be very productive for big fish. When I fished off of Woods Hole back in the 80s, we would fish rocky bottom spots as shallow as 7 feet of water, to catch some pretty big fish...This was in late October, and the first week of November up off Buzzard Bay. But remember, if you start seeing a vast majority of small fish, push out deeper, increasing water depth by ten feet on each drop till you find fish. Another thing about rocky bottom spots, is that sometimes, you just have to sit there, and build up the life.

Blackfish move around, and you can sit on spots for an hour with a pick of a few fish, then all of a sudden, you start bailing them for a while. Watch the tides, depending on the time of the year, since incoming or outgoing water vary due to the temperature difference of the water, it can shut fish down. In October, I will try my shallow water spots first, see what size fish I was catching, then push out further into deeper water. You should realize by November, the bigger blackfish will be off the beach, which means going out into water deeper then 60 feet. Experience is your own best teacher with this, and you have to go out, and fish a number of spots in different depths to see where the blackfish are setting up. Then you develop a MO on how the blackfish move around in your area. Use one hook rigs as I mentioned before.
So what do we learn from this? First, get charts, of the area, and develop a game plan, on what spots you are going to both look for and fish. Instead of running all over the ocean wasting time, get highlight type markers, and make indications on a few areas where you want to check around for productive bottom. Watch water depths, especially as you get later in the season. Bigger fish move off the beach once we get into late October/early November, which means, you have to look for bottom in deeper water. Remember that many rock piles are good productive blackfish holding spots. It?s nice to drop on a spot, and you start to lock and load with the fish climbing up the line. I have seen, and this goes for fishing up north, where there are rockpiles all over the place, and you just sit, and pick a fish or two. Make a note of this and move on. Maybe it?s the time of the year, maybe its water temp...come back at another time, and recheck it. We have seen rock piles, where you anchor up and catch bergalls to the point, where your blue in the face...but if you see them slow down, or stop, stick around, since sometimes, that is a signal that some blackfish may have moved onto the piece. If you sit on a rock pile and see nothing happening with the hard bait, put some skimmers down and see what happens. Sometimes this acts like a chumming effect, and gets fish into a feeding mode...the smaller fish start then after awhile, switch back over to the hard baits. Early in the fall, scup and seabass, can clean up on the softer fiddlers and hermits, so bring both the soft and hard baits.
Finally take note where other boats have anchored up. And when I say take notes, that?s all it means. Do not run over to an anchored boat just to get the numbers. Courtesy is the main point I can tell you when it comes to wreck fishing. Check out the spot on another day. With black fishing if you learn from/or using a 'ground' up approach' instead of everything given to you on a silver platter, you will be a much better fishermen. You start to think, and become a more
Efficient and productive fishermen on the water.