On the launch pad?

[JLH]

Hoping for good things! I took off Sept 22nd – 30th and am hoping for a chance at some quality fish in SoCo. Have another week off right in the middle of Oct.

[redlite]

You missed it.......The ship took off 3 weeks ago...........Sept 21st, gear gets hung up.

[tinyboatbigfish]

you crazy red i have been on the water almost every day and no big action yet but i can say any day now

[piemma]

Sept 15th and Mr and Mrs Mullet will be around. The big push is EARLIER than you think. Straggelers after Columbus Day. I know a lot of you guys disagree but I have the log books to prove it. Sept is better than OCT.

[BassDawg]

with piemma i must concur!!

my limited amount of basslawgs (3yrs)
indicate that Sept is the killer AND the beginning
of the staging before the big push S which has been

last week of Sept ~Cape Ann,
1st week of Oct ~DI,
2nd week of Oct ~the AQ and beyond.

but as the wise Flappy One suggests,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
ya just never know til it gets here. question is

will YOU be there??

[macojoe]

Last day of Commercial was today, 30 fish by noon!! Best day of the hole season! There coming!!

[piemma]

Thanks Bassdawg.
Kind of interesting. I remember many, many years in the surf when I would hear "They're still coming. They're on the cape. They're on the North shore. They haven't come by yet."
All this usually after a few nights in SoCo slamming large in mid to late Sept and then the "skunk". The real truth is that the big push is usually earlier than everyone thinks it is.
Years ago we would fish into late Nov. The day after Thanksgiving was usually the closing bell. About 1998 or 99 we found that we got the biggest fish in late Sept thru mid Oct. After that it was a fish here and a fish there. Yeah, every once in awhile you would get a small blitz of large but it was usually a lot of hours with very little return.
I remember one year when my deceased partner, Gil Gullitone, hammered 35 to 40 pound fish at Deep Hole on Oct 11 and 12. A few years later myself, Ollie and Mark (Get Fish) ran into a blitz at "The River" of 40s on Oct 15th and 16th. I can honestly state that I never have hit a huge blizt of large later than mid-Oct in the last 10 years.

Back in the 80s we could depend on the Block to heat up on the New Moon in Nov. We would fish the last and first "crescent". It was always great with a guarentee of a 40. That started to change in the late 90s and we finally figured out that we "missed" the move by a couple of weeks. The last year I really "worked" the Block was with RIRockhound, Spence, #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& and Stevie Van Staal in 2003. It was late Oct and we fished it for 3 days, around the clock. There was 1, 15# fish taken in the 3 days. That's it!

The point of this post is for you guys to not wait for the latter part of Oct and Nov. Hit it hard in Sept. and you will not be disappointed.
Now if you are talking Montauk, then November....well you be the judge.

[Back Beach]

Originally Posted by redlite

You missed it.......The ship took off 3 weeks ago...........Sept 21st, gear gets hung up.

On Sept 21, things will be heating up at west island.

[Flaptail]

There was a sea change last night in the fishes un-cooperative mood of late, went to bed in the wee hours with a smile for once after standing alone on a beach in the pouring rain by myself, suffering a bout of my stomach suddenly starting to jerkulate then with rain pouring down needing to you know what very quickly and very far from any sanitary facilities, whereupon nescesity overtakes dignity (good thing I packed some paper towels in my pocket for lens cleaning) and then suffering not one but two braid malfunctions which caused me to loose 60 yards of expensive braid someone up stairs took pity on me and my fortunes changed dramatically.

The one bad thing was having to leave still biting fish because of, ugh, work responsibilities today.

But it was a happy hour and a 1/2 drive home. ( WMOR plays some wierd sh!t around two in the morning.

[DZ]

Great advice Paul.

What I've found is that in September the local fish (those that "live in your general area") start to move. When they are gone you have to rely on other fish as they migrate through your particular area and that is always a crap shoot.

There is usually a slow buildup to our September bite and it has been very slow for me lately but I've managed to drop one nice fish each night for the last three I've fished. Indications are good - just hope I'm free when the consistant bite begins.

DZ

[NIB]

I've always been of the opinion Early Sept will see your large stragglers.Resident fish that take there time and seperate from the smaller pods of large fish for whatever reason.Then once the migration starts big pods of smaller fish will put the larger ones off.As they don't want to deal with the competition for food.Of course there is the rare occasion where U get 15 6-10 lbers then a 30..
Up there in the RI Mass area.I think it is possible to encounter your larger fish as they join together for their migration.As far as timing goes I could not say personally.In my experience first week of Oct.+/- has produced some nice fish for me..

Here in NJ in the fall larger fish have been hard to come by.We used to enjoy a late run in Nov-Dec if the sandeels where present.It was possible to score a large then.That bite has not really materialized in more than a few years..It is belief of many that the larger fish take a off shore track.Kind of a Montauk to Cape May path.. On the tails of larger baits and large
schools of sandeels that don't seem to migrate inshore as they used to..I have encountered small pods of bunker with better fish on em.It is a rarity though and a fish that breaks the 30 lb mark is a good fall score.Of course this is just this surfmans perspective..

[numbskull]

[QUOTE=Flaptail;619106].... after standing alone on a beach in the pouring rain by myself, suffering a bout of my stomach suddenly starting to jerkulate then with rain pouring down needing to you know what very quickly and very far from any sanitary facilities, whereupon nescesity overtakes dignity (good thing I packed some paper towels ...
[QUOTE]

That ought to get the fish moving for sure.

[ProfessorM]

Originally Posted by Flaptail

There was a sea change last night in the fishes un-cooperative mood of late, went to bed in the wee hours with a smile for once after standing alone on a beach in the pouring rain by myself, suffering a bout of my stomach suddenly starting to jerkulate then with rain pouring down needing to you know what very quickly and very far from any sanitary facilities, whereupon nescesity overtakes dignity (good thing I packed some paper towels in my pocket for lens cleaning) and then suffering not one but two braid malfunctions which caused me to loose 60 yards of expensive braid someone up stairs took pity on me and my fortunes changed dramatically.

The one bad thing was having to leave still biting fish because of, ugh, work responsibilities today.

But it was a happy hour and a 1/2 drive home. ( WMOR plays some wierd sh!t around two in the morning.

Take me fishing I will bring the Charmin

[Back Beach]

Originally Posted by Flaptail

There was a sea change last night in the fishes un-cooperative mood of late, went to bed in the wee hours with a smile for once after standing alone on a beach in the pouring rain by myself, suffering a bout of my stomach suddenly starting to jerkulate then with rain pouring down needing to you know what very quickly and very far from any sanitary facilities, whereupon nescesity overtakes dignity (good thing I packed some paper towels in my pocket for lens cleaning) and then suffering not one but two braid malfunctions which caused me to loose 60 yards of expensive braid someone up stairs took pity on me and my fortunes changed dramatically.

The one bad thing was having to leave still biting fish because of, ugh, work responsibilities today.

But it was a happy hour and a 1/2 drive home. ( WMOR plays some wierd sh!t around two in the morning.

Truly %$%$%$%$ luck if I do say so.

[Nebe]

rockhound and I saw what I am pretty sure was mullet last night in gansett, so things may start happening. we fished a great spot at the right tide, although it was a weak tide with live eels and didnt get a tap.

[Back Beach]

I think we officially have liftoff in a few places.
Be sure to put a stocking cap in the vehicle. It going down into the low 40's tonight and tomorrow. My alpine bass cap went in the back seat this am...