Montauk has often been referred to as the “Fishing Capitol of the World” and it appears to be living up to that claim this season. Aside from the excellent sea bass, fluke, scup and striped bass action currently underway, along with some very good offshore fishing, the “Point” has added a couple of more remarkable catches to an already impressive list of fish taken over the years here.
Back on July 26, Joe Mole’ was aboard the Star Island based Fish-On captained by Peter Brancaleone when they came upon several big mahi hanging under some floating structure in the East Atlantis area. Joe cast a bunker chunk to the fish and got more than he bargained for when a fish that eventually weighed 56.5 pounds on Star Island’s scale took the bait. The big dolphin tops the previous record, a 52-pound fish landed by Richard Divika of Huntington on August 25, 1985, by 4.5 pounds.
Then on the night of August 1, one day removed from the August blue moon, Rich Kearns, fishing aboard Capt. Bob Storc’s charter boat, Caprice, fed a live eel to a 65.7-pound striped bass, one of the largest bass caught on Long Island in recent years. On the previous night, Capt. Bob had put Ben Lombardo onto a cow of 56.2 pounds. Montauk had been knee deep in big stripers several weeks ago, but the fishing had slowed considerably until this past week, when it heated up again. Thursday through Saturday nights saw many big stripers taken, most of them falling to live eels.
