I arrived at the boat to meet up with our members of the web site as this was a “busman’s “holiday as many of our website “fishing buddies” were playing hooky form work or school. With us were Bob Heller, Kathy (foots), Steve (Grady White) and more notable names such as “son of a sailor”, Tony T, SI Fisher and other friends of theirs. As a result there were 15 or so of us on this trip with Capt. Dave aboard the Peconic Star and optimism was high for doormats. It’s been a while but I was spent quite a bit of time with Dave in the wheelhouse catching up and learned quite a few things. Dave comes from a family of musicians, but we’ll get to how that plays in to the equation a little later.
However you do not see many shorts even at the 17-1/2 inch size limit for 2005. Most everything that bites is a keeper or so close if you could stretch a fluke 1/4 inch it would be. Dave explained it all to me in a very logical way. “We’ve been sailing full day for a reason for 20 years, it is the nature of the beast, but where in the world can you come out and catch 3 to 5 fluke per man or more and have them all be 4 to 8 pounds or larger. We see trips on our boat where the pool winner could be 10, 12 to 15 pounds and the second and third place fluke are just ounces, not pounds, just ounces away from being winners themselves,” Dave said.
Dave told me our trip saw the first tern of the season and by
the end of the day we saw two of them. We also had the first sea robin of the
year as well, both good signs the arrival of smaller bait and bluefish is just
a few tides or a day or two away from causing this bay to explode. We spent most
of our time fishing in the East Marion, Oyster Factory and close to home in Greenport
because this is the ambush point for fluke upon their
Even my good friend WABC TV Channel 7’s meteorologist Bill Evans explains the same principle with the trees and flowers. Bill says, “Because the weather was so chilly, damp and wet this spring, the pollen counts have been very low for this time of season, but hay fever sufferers should be forewarned that when we do get a stretch of warm sunny weather all the trees, plants and flowers will explode with pollen causing us all to suffer even worse than usual.”
The tunes on board were extraordinary. Capt. Dave, as I mentioned earlier, comes from a family of musicians so we had lots in common to talk bout being a musician myself. He had cases and cases of mini discs; I mean hundreds of them, loaded with hours and hours of tunes including the Ipod with 12 hours of music he had plugged in to one of several decks and stereos he had in the wheelhouse for today’s trip. No matter what race, creed or religion you are, there is something on every single disc for you to keep your toes tapping! The amount of time and effort that goes into each of these discs is massive and has to take hours and hours of time and caring, to put together. I loved the fact that we would hear tunes you knew were familiar, but not done by the original artists was fascinating and the sprinkling of fishing tunes mixed in was awesome. The large 15 to 19 inch professional speakers on deck were never too loud but had fantastic bass response the drivers were crisp and clear…although unless you’re a musician or are in to stereo systems you may not know what I’m talking about. Let’s just say it sounded great! Even if the fishing is slow on a trip you take, you won’t be disappointed in your trip and you will definitely expand your musical base of knowledge and learn some new tunes. Make sure to keep your ears open for those fishing songs sprinkled in too. Reach Capt. Dave and the Peconic Star at www.peconicstar.com or call 631-289-6899 ### Rich Johnson 05/11/05 5:53 PM Eastern read archived articles | submit an article for review
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However
I did learn water temps today (5/10/05) were the same as they were nearly two
weeks ago when they started fishing and bottom temps were even colder than they
were a week ago. Thus action has been very tough. Face it, the North Fork is not
the place anytime of year for action upon action of fluke like it is on the South
Shore. On the South Shore you can catch 40 to 50 fluke per man on a party boat
trip and shuffle through hundreds and hundreds of fish on a trip to keep a few
and perhaps a limit, but even on the best days on the North Fork and on the Peconic
star they sail full day for a reason. It will take a full day (8 a.m. to 3:30
p.m.) for 40 to 50 or 65 people on the boat to get limits and catch four to five
fluke per person. 
Dave
also said this is the first time in like forever, they did not have red hot fluking
on May 10 and there are several reasons for that. Beside the water temperature
issue, there was no small bait in the bay. Captains on the North Fork so far this
year have noticed an unbelievable amount of squid and we jigged dozens of squid
on today’s trip, along with adult sized bunker in the bay in numbers they
haven’t seen in quite some time. “We always thought fluke arrived with
the squid, and would then become active when the water temps hit the 52 to 55
degree mark. This triggered the giant doormats to start gorging on the squid.
This is not the case this year. It seems perhaps the arrival of small bait such
as spearing and bay anchovies play a larger dynamic role than we all thought,”
Dave said.
Our
trip was a struggle and saw a total of perhaps 25 anglers land a dozen keepers
with a 4-pound pool winner and a handful of shorts. Many, many squid were caught,
the lone sea robin, but no blues, weaks or striped bass. There were no bass reported
yet in the Race, the Gut or the Sluiceway and even the commercial pinhookers with
tags were struggling to find bass so far. Water temps in these areas were only
47 degrees as of our trip. There just wasn’t that much life in the area and
mostly because of the factors mentioned earlier…the absence of smaller bait
and water temps, both of which will improve on each tide, tomorrow or this weekend
could see the entire bay explode. 
However
our group and others on the boat, who recognized The Fishing Line, didn’t
seem to mind at all action was slow. “Why?” I asked several anglers
and the answer all came back to the same things…the tunes and the crew! The
crew of Kelly (19 years) and Dennis (12 years) have been with Dave a long time
and know the customers very well and are right there lickity split to help anyone
that needs a hand. The crew tales well tro newcomers and children and make al
feel welcome and at home.