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Rhode Island Sound: spring fishing is best

Anglers planning a fishing vacation should mark the calendar for last two weeks of May and the first two weeks of June.

That’s the time when slugs of 20-pound stripers pour into Rhode Island Sound and Narragansett Bay, says Peter Graeber, manager of The Saltwater Edge, in a 2008 fishing forecast.

If you’re looking for bonito and false albacore, they generally arrive around the first week of August. Last year was the best Graeber has seen for bonito and “albies.”

“They were on baby bunker, silversides, you name it – whatever was in the water,” he says. “They were coughing up squid -- everything. They were ravenous. That intensity lasted through the second week of September.”

Generally, school-size stripers arrive in Newport around April 10, Graeber says. Then, migratory menhaden arrive ahead of the big bass in May. Last season was unusual, because large schools of menhaden stayed in the Bay for an unusually long time, and the bass stayed with them. “In the Bay, there were fish all season long,” he says, “but that stretch into early June was really good. I generally start to shift toward Rhode Island Sound around that time.”

Posted by Tom Meade  at 1:57 PM | Permalink