URI BAY CAMPUS, NARRAGANSETT, RI
A standing memorial for many shorebound fishermen of what happens when the idiot hordes abuse a prime access point, the old Bay Campus Dock has for maybe a decade been off-limits to the fishing public – a chain-link fence now sealing off the outer part of the dock completely. With the loss of access, there went an entire chapter of my early fishing life. The “Bay Campus” was the site of my first independent fishing forays in my early teens, a place deemed safe enough by my parents that they’d actually drop me off there and leave me for hours.
During those hours, I’d sling chunks of bunker out into the deeper water off the dock’s end and catch blues from cocktail size all the way up. As a matter of fact, the largest blue I’ve ever almost caught, I lost when an overzealous fellow fisherman tried to help me by grabbing my line just above the leader and attempting to lift my near-20-pound slammer up onto the concrete. That assist did not end well—though it did give me my first real “one that got away” tale. I still insist that fish weighed 20.
At any rate, though the access has been severely constricted at the Bay Campus, it’s still a solid, easy-to-access area, with fairly deep water within a good cast’s reach. Casting from the foot of the dock, the south side isn’t a bad place to sand-spike a long rod, after you’ve leaned into a good southeastward heave, depositing a fresh bunker chunk on the bottom a hundred or so yards out. Big blues patrol the area from mid-summer into November, and bass make appearances throughout the season. Early on, as spent river herring descend seaward along the west side of the West Passage, you might stick a surprisingly heavy linesider with a whole, fresh-caught squid or chunk on the bottom.
From June to the closing bell, I’ve caught hundreds of bass, including many keepers, precision casting along the shadow line of the dock, trying to land swimbaits, bucktail/teaser combos or a variety of plugs within a foot of the dock pilings, then letting the lures swing with the strength of a wee-hours ebb tide out into the light off the south side.
You’ll also find numbers of fluke along the shoreline. I used to swing by on my way home from night trips, often tallying a dozen slabs from 14 to better than 19 inches casting and retrieving strip baits or small bucktails along the sandy and cobble bottom north or south of the dock.
Some of the local surf sharpies work the place when the wind cranks out of the NW in autumn, taking large bass under cover of darkness and not broadcasting where or how they did it.
Although the best of the Bay Campus faded from the ever-shrinking list of open shore access points years ago, the place is still worth a look—maybe one night after you’ve sat through one of the fisheries hearings in the auditorium just up the hill. You can reach the Bay Campus off Rhode Island Route 1A, heading toward the water on South Ferry Road in Narragansett. Be courteous, mind the trash, and don’t even attempt to get out on the dock, no matter how good it looks.
