Rhode Island Fishing
Charter Calendar and Reports
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This Fishing Calendar
will help you determine what Species you may wish to target on your
Rhode Island Fun Fishing Trip.
The fishing
calendar in
Rhode Island starts in April and the last fishing excursion occurs
sometime in November.
Unfortunately Mother Nature has a
lot to say about the calendar, too. We would go fishing year
round in Rhode Island if the weather would allow for it. There
are plenty of holdover stripers in the local salt ponds and rivers
that we could target for light tackle fishing charters but its also nice not to have to freeze your
butt off catching them. What we have compiled below is
based on what typically occurs for weather in a given year.
April in Rhode Island begins with the recreational Tautog season opening on
the 15th. We begin fishing for them as we have commercial
licenses and its an excuse to find where they are and show that the
fish are there. We can take people out on charters for these
fish.
Sometimes we can go fishing for stripers in the salt ponds and
rivers, and can even catch keepers and take them, since bass season
never closes. It all depends on the weather.
May 1st the recreational Tautog season really gets going and we
take out charters to target these fish. There is no problem
finding them at this point and these are great fighting fish, a lot
of fun to catch.
Sometime in May Striped Bass will show up. Naturally
the first ones are schoolies with a few larger ones but still great
fun on light tackle. We never know exactly when they will show
up and typically we won't schedule a Striper trip unless we have a
reasonable expectation of the fish being around.
May 1st is when the Flounder season begins and we can run
charters targeting this species. Flounder is one of the best
eating fish we can catch in these waters, and is relatively easy to
target.
June is when the striper fishing really begins to heat up.
Once the bait is mature enough they begin to come out of the salt
ponds and the fish can go on feeding frenzies that last for hours
during the mornings. This is when we can see bass feeding on
the surface for long periods of time and sight cast to them with
plugs and soft plastics. In addition, the flounder fishing
really begins to heat up. There can be up to a two-week period
of mass schools of bait on the surface being smashed by Bass for
hours at a time. All of June is closed to Totaug
fishing. This is when to fish for blues in Rhode Island, as
they start showing up during the month, but they'll really be in by
late June or July. On June 12th the charter boat scup
season begins and we can target scup and sea bass.
July Fishing
is also pretty hot, and this is one of
our busiest times. We have Bass everywhere, flounder fishing
is getting close to its peak, Bluefish have shown up in great
numbers, and the sun is still not getting too high in the sky until
the end of the month. Recreational Totaug fishing reopens this
month, though we don't usually get calls for this type of trip.
We begin to see schools of false albacore and sometimes other tunas
in close and we can target them with light tackle in our smaller
boat, using spinning outfits or fly rods.
August is definitely our busiest month. Its not
unusual for us to be fishing every single day. During this
month it is important to leave very early when targeting bass for
the best success. There are usually plenty of marauding
Bluefish in gigantic schools, and Flounder fishing reaches a peak
during this month and is extremely productive. We see schools
of false albacore and sometimes other tunas in close and we can
target them with light tackle in our smaller boat, using spinning
outfits or fly rods.
September is also a great month for fishing.
The water is cooling and the sun is lower in the sky so we begin to see
more of the surface action we like so much, bass and blues smashing
large schools of bait. Flounder fishing slows down quite
noticeably in the second week and the season actually closes this month.
October
is another good time for fishing. Bass and Blues are still
around and feeding on large schools of bait found on the surface
along the South shore or holding on structure. Toward the end
of the month Tautog fishing gets very hot, it is not at all unusual
to reach our limits on Tautog for every trip in this month.
November is good for Tautog fishing. Sometimes the
weather is a problem but we still get good days and catch plenty of
Tautog in this month.
Fishing Reports:
April 23, 2008. Captain Chris and Captain Earl sailed to
the tautog grounds for an hour's fishing to see what was going on
there since they have a charter tomorrow (the 24th) and caught 14
fish in about an hour, including 8 keepers.
April 20, 2008. Our first charter of the year for Tautog.
We sailed this day and caught 14 tautog including 7 keeper fish.
April 18, 2008. Captain Chris and Earl sailed on their
second trip for tautog and caught over 19 fish total and limited out
on keepers, including 3 fish of 8-9lbs each. So the fish are
here, it's time to book. April 16, 2008. Captain Chris and Captain Earl sailed on
the first trip of the year to see if there are any Tautog out there.
After fishing for about an hour and a half we had three nice tautog
and managed to feed a few crabs to the others that we couldn't hook.
So the fish are there, and we will be going again on Friday April
18th.
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