NEWTON ROCK, JAMESTOWN, RI

“Tell them the truth because they won’t believe you anyway” From time to time, the words of that old timer come back to me because what I considered irrational at the time was unvarnished truth.

I had just been “caught” by two binocular fishermen who were at their usual location at the bait shop waiting to ambush anglers weighing in the day’s catch. I was tired and not in the mood to make up a story so I answered their audacious query with the truth. I figured at least 75 people saw us land those 30-pound fish in broad daylight off one of the most visible striper hot spots along the Rhode Island coast. I told them we caught the three bass off Newton Rock off the tip of Beavertail Point on Jamestown, trolling tube and worms. Their response: “Yeah, I bet.” I smiled and thought of that greybeard, a top-notch fisherman accustomed to having a posse out searching for him the day after he took a sizable catch to market.

In the mindset of many fishermen, the best fishing is usually in an out-of-the-way spot where no one could see you unless they knew where you were fishing. But that’s not always the case. Places like the Point Judith Rip and Newton Rock come to mind as spots where a fisherman can be on “TV” and still catch quality fish. Some of the best trips I have had fishing Newton Rock and the surrounding area have been while slinging eels after dark. The same things that make Newton attractive to bass are in play during the day as well, though I try to get there as early as possible before it gets worked over by the crowds.

One damp July morning several years ago, I was casting plugs into this area with an editor and had just boated a 20-pound specimen on a Gibbs surface swimmer while he released a 15-pound fish caught on one of his plastic jigs. I was about to make a second cast when I heard the whine of an outboard bearing down on us and turned to see an inflatable with two divers aboard nearly take the paint off my stern.

To make matters worse, they dropped their anchor and proceeded to make a dive on the place we were fishing. I called out to them and their response was a hands-to-the-sky “Sorry about that.” Those same Googans would be screaming bloody murder and calling the Coast Guard if we got within so much as 50 yards of their dive flags. My editor saved me the tribulations of a misdemeanor rap because my next cast might have seen me blast a four-ounce surface swimmer right into their cockpit and deflate their boat. That is the kind of thing that will happen during the day when someone sees you with a bent rod.

Of course, not everyone is as irresponsible as those idiots, and there have been days when I was trolling my tubes around Newton from the shore out to the 28-foot bump north of the bell and had other fishermen join in at a respectable distance. This is a great spot to troll a tube or deep swimmer, or to drift an eel, even under a bright July sun. My pal Captain Roland Coulombe caught a 41-pounder on a live eel fishing with me at Newton on a steamy July evening, right at sunset. A quick scan of NOAA chart 13223 should convince you why this is such a great location.