Locals Tourney: Bass Start Big

The Montauk Locals striped bass surfcasting tournament got off to a big start last week, with the leader board already boasting a 42-and-a-half-pound bass caught by "Coast Guard Charlie" Flynn.

"I love it," said Joe Gaviola, one of the tournament organizers, of Mr. Flynn's hefty start. "He's one of the few guys who wears regular boots [as opposed to fancy neoprene bib models], and he caught it with a pencil lure," a simple surface lure rather than a bucktail, eel, or bunker chunk traditionally used for bigger bass.

Mr. Flynn was fishing Montauk's south side.

Great Promise

Mr. Gaviola said it had been six years since the annual contest had a 40-pound fish on the board at all.

Fifty-pound bass have already been landed by boaters this year, so the fall would seem to hold great promise.

Pope Noell has the second-place slot on the leader board with a 28-and-a-half-pound bass, and Greg Flanagan's 18-and-a-half-pounder is in third place.

Surfcasters can join the tournament up until two days before the Dec. 1 finale. Until Oct. 15, entrants can plunk down their $200 entry fee and go fishing immediately. After that date, there is a minimum two-day "sit-out."

This is to prevent anglers from jumping in only when the big fish hit the beach.

Boaters report that the bass fishing is still good, by most standards, but not as red-hot as it was. "Consistent" was the word.

Scott Gaeckle runs a fly fishing and light tackle charter service from Montauk these days. He has been leading fly fishermen to what has become known as Montauk Grand Slams; catching striped bass, bluefish, and false albacore all in a single outing - a marine fly fisherman's dream.

Mr. Gaeckle said Montauk continues to be surrounded by schools of peanut bunker - "small bunker, really; they are getting bigger" - bay anchovies, and silversides.

They Really Do Boil

Fall is the time when bass often come up to the surface, the topwater, and boil. They actually make a boiling sound as they turn and twist after baitfish.

Topwater bass boils have not been as frequent as in previous years, perhaps because of "a change in the bait," Mr. Gaeckle said. Boils of false albacore have also been relatively rare. As a result, casting blind has been the rule.

Schools of falsies are still spread far into Gardiner's Bay and west on the ocean side. They are schooling just outside the Three Mile Harbor jetties, and in the ocean as far west as Shinnecock, where anglers are casting for them from the Shinnecock jetties.

The fly fishing craze has spawned a new migration of fishermen to Montauk and the East End. A small armada of small boats has been launched in recent days from trailers, many with out-of-state license plates. The word is out.

Freida Reichert reports boats bringing "monster" bluefish, bass, bonito, and false albacore back to the Diamond Cove Marina over the weekend, and farther-ranging boats bringing back sharks and bluefin tuna from the Butterfish Hole, about 10 miles south of Montauk.

Norma Bock from the Offshore Sports Marina put a greater number of bluefin in the Fingers section of Block Canyon, and the Star Island Yacht Club reports bluefin in the 40 to 70-pound range in the place called the Aquarium, approximately 20 miles southeast of Montauk.

Pitcairn Honors Bennett

Ms. Bock said the Barbaric, a private boat that fishes from Offshore Sports Marina, traveled west all the way to the Hudson Canyon over the weekend and returned with a dozen mahi mahi and the same number of yellowfin tuna.

The Bounty Hunter out of the Montauk Marine Basin found a dozen yellowfin in the Fish Tales on Saturday.

Harvey Bennett of the Tackle Shop in Amagansett was a featured guest at the Cosmopolitan Club in New York City last night. Mr. Bennett was recognized by a representative of Pitcairn Island for donating fishing tackle to the residents of the island.

For those who might have forgotten, Pitcairn, one of the more remote islands in the Pacific Ocean, was the place where Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers scuttled the Bounty and settled after putting Capt. William Bligh over the side in a longboat.

Cast And Blast

Wait till they get a shipment of Mr. Bennett's lures made of the tubes used in angioplasty procedures. He is working on a new one, with his fly fishing partner, George Pharaoh, aimed at matching peanut bunker.

Mr. Bennett reminds local fowlers that the sea duck season opens for scoters, eiders, and old squaw on Tuesday. No more than four scoters may contribute to the seven-duck daily bag limit for seaduck species. The season goes until Jan. 20.

The snowgoose season opened yesterday and is broken into three sub-seasons. The first ends on Oct. 21, the second runs from Nov. 20 to Nov. 29, and the third runs from Dec. 2 to Feb. 15.

The Tackle Shop guru has announced the start of his "cast and blast" charters for sports who want to bag fish and ducks on the same trip.

RUSSELL DRUMM