Inshore "Bones"

It’s time to make your bones? Atlantic “bones” that is. For some savvy anglers this is time to give chase to pelagic speedsters that grace our inshore waters. The first of those species to arrive is Sarda sarda, the Atlantic bonito. As of this writing the bulk of those annual visitors are slightly to our north on the south shore of Rhode Island, on the Vineyard, and south of us along the New Jersey beaches. There are plenty of fish in those locations because there is also substantial bait. Some very in-the-know Long Island anglers have been fortunate to find the first few fish and have also been very closed-mouth about exact locations. But I can tell you from personal experience, they are not yet in all the “usual places”. The best advice that I can offer those willing to search and find bonito is to fill up your gas tank and be prepared to run it dry. Bonito are cruising deeper water in the Sound and off the south shore and have yet to cycle into their more predictable inshore haunts. Since my boat is high and dry at the moment I hitched a ride with a friend and we ran almost an hour before bumping some fish! They were in a place I haven’t found them in years. There are a lot of reasons for that change of behavior but we don’t have room to go into that in this report. I’ll save that for another time. If you’d like to chat about bonito feel free to send along an email.
I took a break from the brine to join my brother-in-law, Ed on a trip to one of Long Island’s hidden freshwater ponds. Despite sweltering heat we managed a number of feisty largemouth and pickerel, and we were treated to a dragonfly mating ritual that just turned the bass on!