On June 8th, angler Bill Proulx headed out for some bottom fishing with his longtime fishing buddy Ed Pyle. The two have a long history of big fluke success in Long Island Sound; in fact they have boated at least six double-digit fluke from one particular spot, including the record fish (and one that was perhaps bigger taken by Ed weighing 16.2 pounds on his home scale). “We were heading out for some sea bass fishing off Niantic, we got some keepers but the bite was slow.” The duo had also caught a pair of 23-inch fluke, so Bill rigged up with a Daiwa Rock Rover Jig, tipped with the classic squid and spearing combo.
“We moved into one of our favorite fluke spots as the tide was approaching high slack, we had a nice slow drift. When the fish hit I knew it was a good one and my drag was locked from winching in the sea bass, so I was able to get the fish off the bottom pretty fast.” Proulx said the battle was heavy but short and when the fish came up out of the 80-foot depths he knew it was his biggest fluke to date.
“I saw how big the fish was and I kept it deep and kept it swimming. I didn’t want her to start thrashing on the surface and risk throwing the hook. I called over to Ed that I needed the net but he was getting a bite and told me to wait a minute, I told him I needed the net ‘RIGHT NOW!’” Pyle stuck the net deep as Proulx lifted the fish, “When she knew she was in trouble, she tried to dive and swam right into the net!” He told me. “Once we had the fish in the net I figured it was maybe 12 pounds or so. We got back to the dock too late to weight it officially, but I had a pretty reliable scale in my truck that read 15.3 and we measured it at 32-5/8 inches! There was a small group of people there watching me weigh the fish and when they saw the numbers the place went silent, I looked up to see that they were all on their phones, looking up the state record,” he laughed.
Bill kept the doormat on ice overnight and the giant fluke weighed 15.35 pounds on an official scale the next morning. “The funny thing was, my son was on his way back from a trip to Nantucket Shoals when I caught that fish and, while they did catch some monsters, none of them were as big as the fish I caught in our home waters!”
When I asked him if he had any tips for anglers looking to catch bigger fluke, he had a few. “You want a slow tide, a half-mile an hour is about perfect. You also want clean water that’s free of runoff and debris. I like to target sandy bottom that’s close to structure,” he continued, “You don’t want to be right in the structure because you’ll just snag, but structure holds big fluke.” The last tip he offered was to fish whole baits, “I’ve used whole sea herring, whole mackerel, but my favorite is whole, large squid. I catch them myself and vacuum seal them so they stay in good shape.”
Congratulations to Bill for his fluke of a lifetime and record catch that should stand for a very long time!
