Montauk Sportfishing Report 6/21/04

The official start of summer is only a couple of days away now, and the
first shark tournament was this weekend, so I guess you can feel safe to say
that it's time to go fishing. Unfortunately, not many people are doing it.
The party boats aren't carrying what they should be, and maybe you can blame
the new fluke regs for that a bit, but everything else is going great. So
why the dearth of customers? Supposedly the economy is picking up, but for
the boats in Montauk, it seems like we're in some sort of recession.

The results of the Star Island Shark Tournament are as follows;

FIRST PLACE OVERALL - DREAM CATCHER - 345 LBS. - THRESHER

FIRST PLACE MAKO - NICKS HIDEAWAY - 344 LB.

SECOND PLACE MAKO - KATEMS - 167 LBS.

THIRD PLACE MAKO - PERSUASION - 160 LBS

FIRST PLACE BLUESHARK - SUMMERTIME BLUES - 277 LBS.

SECOND PLACE BLUESHARK - SEA ++ - 244 LBS.

THIRD PLACE BLUESHARK - HEISHELSTAN - 236 LBS.

FIRST PLACE OTHER - DREAM CATCHER - 345 LBS - THRESHER

SECOND PLACE OTHER - GLADIATOR - 301 LBS - THRESHER

THIRD PLACE OTHER - LITTLE MAC - 294 LBS . THRESHER

For the past two years Star Island has run the tournament with a format that
allows the participants to pick which two of three days they wanted to fish.
This came about as a result of the death and lawsuits that resulted in a
tournament back up island in 2002, when that tournament and Star Islands
probably should have been canceled due to the weather. The last two years
Star Island had around 180 boats entered, whereas in previous years there
would be 240 or so boats. Now it appears that they may be switching back to
the old format of fishing on Friday and Saturday for next years contest.

On the inshore scene, fishing is pretty much of what you would expect,
decent fishing for stripers, with a couple of larger fish showing up,
including the HOOKER's fifty three pounder. Fluke fishing is better than it
need be with the three fish limit. No measuring necessary. If it looks
close, throw it back. It's not very likely that you'll have to wait very
long for one that doesn't need measuring.

There are still some doggies hanging around in the seabass spots, but not so
many that they can't be dealt with. Maybe by this time next week they'll all
be gone.

If you would like to have these reports sent to you directly, just drop me a
note at . And for more information about
fishing in Montauk, you can give me a call at 800 280 5565 or check out
http://www.montauksportfishing.com.


--

Capt Gene Kelly
Tropical Fishing Adventures
Montauk Sportfishing
800 280 5565
631 668 2019