Porgies now pretty abundant at Old Field Point and Cranes neck Point. Select a moving tide and anchor in 20-30 ft around some hard rocky bottom. Put out a clam chum pot to just a foot off the bottom. Use high low rigs with small hooks baited with 2-3 in strips of clam. Action starts quickly. Every few minutes or so, shake your chum pot up and down to ensure a good amount of chum gets out and moving. If you do not have good action in 15 minutes, move to another nearby location in similar depth range. You will hit pay dirt within a few moves. The full moon this past week also produced some Bass for people. Drifting live eels over the shoals off of points is a common practice to land bass during lunar tides in particular. Three way swivel tied to the main line. Tie 4-5 ft leader with live bait hook to the middle swivel. Tie a 12 in leader to the bottom with a loop for your sinker. 4-5 ft section should be 50 - 80 lb test mono or flourocarbon if you want. Sinker leader is usually lighter, at maybe 30lb, so if it gets snagged, it will break off, before your main line does. Typically you would use a medium to medium heavy conventional set up here, but you could go with a strong spinning outfit, strong enough to hold 4- 8 oz of sinker on a calmer day or with less tidal current. Some trial and error to dial in your preferences. Pull up ahead of a shoaling area in the deeper water. Drop eel and sinker to the bottom. When you reach the bottom, just lift your rod tip up 1 - 2 ft to keep your eel off the bottom but very close to the bottom. As you drift with the current towards the shoal, you will be coming up off the bottom and therefore the depth will be getting shallower. You will reel two cranks to take up slack when you hit the bottom, thus following the natural slope of the shoal, but all the while staying close to the bottom. When the shoal drops off to deeper water on the other side of the shoal, the water depth will increase and thus you will have to let some line out, so you can continue to follow the natural contour of the descending water. When the fish strikes, it will feel like several hard hits while tugging downward. Do not let the fish feel the firmness of the rod. Dip the pole towards the fish as it is committing to taking the eel and when your rod tip is at the waters edge, strike upwards quickly and then reel as fast as you can to tighten up the line and to get the fish off the bottom. Give this technique a try 2 days before and after a full/new moon and see if you can land a big one. Try different areas and with time it will feel right. Buoy 11, Cranes Neck point and the Middle grounds area offers the proper real estate to do this kind of fishing.
Captain Eric R Huner
www.captainfishportjefferson.com
631-974-4933
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