Date : Saturday 5/14/2016
Location: Narragansett Bay, RI
Report Contributor: Mike Chace
What a difference one week makes ! The Tog Cult here in the North East is back in the water and finding fish. Yesterday’s dive took
place in upper Narragansett Bay. After 2 weeks of dismal reports from outside
with few fish seen and water temps still holding at 47-49 degrees in some areas.
Divers that have been finding blackfish have been finding few on deep rockpiles
and ledges outside, with not much consistency. It was a great move to head up farther in the Bay and hit some
areas that had a “some fish” 7-10 days ago.
My Captain for the day and dive buddy had already hit a
couple of spots farther south in the Bay before they picked me up at 9:15 and
had seen again “more fish” at those spots than last week and picked up a couple
of tautog each. We then proceeded to head to some rockpiles further north in the
Bay in hopes of better numbers and maybe a chance to greet some of decent size
bass that had taken up residence there in the last 2 weeks.
The next area to check held plenty of tautog 18 -22 inches in length and my two dive
buddies easily finished out their stringers with a third good fish. I managed
to take one while being selective as I was really hoping to put some new gear
through the trials and test new gear setups on this trip as well. I was just
waiting for a bigger target to tempt me so I could light him up and test a new
gun setup from a little further away but the visibility made longer shots
difficult to determine fish length in the hazy green murk, so I held off. Water
temp was 53 degrees and I was seeing as many as 8-12 fish on a drop in spots, a
welcome site. Visibility was about 6 feet.
The new Beuchat 5mm Rock Sea Trigo Camo Wetsuit is perfectly
warm at the 53 degree water temp and made diving for a few hours very comfortable.
This suit features Beuchat’s new Rock Sea Trigo Camo pattern which could be
possibly the best camo pattern designed for hunting our New England rocky
shorelines.
We proceeded to check one of my favorite early season
bass spot a little further north in the Bay. Although the tide had not risen as much
as I like to hunt this location, we dropped down to find many pods of tautog on
every corner. Getting a limit of blackfish was not going to be a problem but I
was keen to stretch the legs on the HammerHead Evolution2 Raptor Speargun and
take a bass with it here before heading home. One of my dive buddies saw one
undersized bass but none of us was able to find a keeper, before the wind switched to
blowing out of the south west and our captain advised us we had to pick up and
head in to avoid a sloppy ride back. The water temp was noticeably 54 degrees
in the final location. Fisherman have been taking some bass in the 40 inch
range in the upper bay so it is only a matter of a day or two I think before a
dedicated spearo or speara takes one up here. There is plenty of bait from squid to sea herring and lots of smaller offerings to hold the bass up here. Topping off your stringer with some fresh shellfish this time of year provides for some additional fun.
Hopefully I will get a trip in, in the next couple of days to
check outside the bay to see how things are progressing since last week.
Mahalo for a great day on the water with a couple of great friends Kevin
Sheets and Eric Cadorette, good weather and a bay full of fish again. I
wish you safe diving in 2016 and an exciting season.
Feel free to post up your own spearfishing pictures or reports over on our New England Freedive Spearfishing Co Facebook Page, here - https://www.facebook.com/nefreedive . We love to see what everyone is catching or seeing out there.
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