Fishing's 'fall blitz' brings excitement to Long Island anglers

It’s 7:30 a.m. on a chilly, late October morning and the northeast wind is pushing sharp-breaking waves hard against the shore of Long Island Sound as a sprinkling of rain further dampens everything in sight. At one of the easternmost beaches on the North Fork, Tom DiMauro is down on one knee, back to the wind, quickly unhooking what anglers nearby will later recall as one of the biggest false albacore they’ve seen this season.

“You’ve got to love fall fishing,” says DiMauro, a big grin on his face, as he uses pliers to remove the hook from the albie’s mouth. Struggling to his feet with the water surging around his boots, he holds his prize aloft for a quick photo session before launching the small member of the tuna family back into the waves to fight again another day.

“These fish don’t taste good, so anglers generally toss them back,” the 75-year-old retired transit worker from Baiting Hollow says before making his next cast. “It’s the thrill of the hookup, the speed of these fish and the determined battle that keeps me coming back for more every fall.”

Just a few yards to the east, Clayton McGoldrick, 21, of Southampton, has hooked another false albacore, his second of the morning. After a spirited battle that sees his albie make three strong runs of 30 yards or more each, he slides his catch onto the sand and lets out a loud and emphatic “Yeah!” before releasing it. A student in Stony Brook University Southampton’s Semester By The Sea Program, the Fairview, Connecticut, native spends plenty of time around the water but still can’t get enough of Long Island’s late fall fishing.

“This is the start of the ‘fall blitz’ around here,” declares McGoldrick, cool rain dripping from his wool knit hat. “It’s gotten off to somewhat of a slow start this year, probably due to warm water temperatures, but I think it’s ready to roll and should only get better between now and Thanksgiving.”

Following the migration

Ah, yes, the so-called fall blitz! For anglers it seems to cast a magical spell. As waters cool in late October and November along the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coasts, a variety of baitfish species come together in ever-tightening schools and spill out of bays and estuaries, funneling into ocean waters on a southern migration to warmer climes off the Carolinas and farther south. As they leave, the massive schools coalesce, more or less, into a giant chum slick that hugs the coast, ringing the dinner bell for larger predator species, such as striped bass, false albacore and bluefish, which are also starting their southward migrations.

“Simply put, ‘the blitz’ is prime fishing time for Long Islanders,” explained Paul Peluso, 57, a real estate broker from Center Moriches who fishes both in the surf and from his 21-foot Grady White dual console boat.

In search of the best action, he’ll cover an area centered on Moriches Inlet and spreading east to Shinnecock Inlet and west to Smiths Point along the Island’s South Shore. Typically, he said, catches build through October and peak in mid-
November, before tapering after Thanksgiving — barring major Northeasters that might push the fish out faster. “Most years,” he continued, “the bite lasts well into December — but don’t wait to get in on all the fun. Get out now while you can still fish in comfort.”

Joey Leggio, who sails his 23-foot Maritime Skiff out of Oceanside and spends a lot of time fishing farther west in Reynolds Channel and outside of Debs Inlet, agreed. “Right now, we should be a week or two away from the peak of the action,” said the 50-year-old retired firefighter after a late October trip with his fishing buddy Stephen Manswell, 52, an operations director at British Airways who lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn. They caught and released a pair of short stripers and several small blackfish, and they caught two “keeper” blackfish, one weighing 4½ pounds.

“Most anglers tend to target the stripers by the time November rolls around,” continued Leggio, “but there should still be some false albacore available, and bluefish really love to smash lures on the surface. Keep in mind, too, that bottom species like blackfish, porgy and black sea bass are still in season at this point, and they also put on the feed bag.

“If you ask me what’s best about fall fishing, I’d have to say it’s definitely the variety.”

Manswell agreed, adding that not only should the fish bite better over the next few weeks, but larger ones should be more prominent in the mix, at least until Thanksgiving. “That’s especially true for ocean waters,” he said. “With a little luck and an open mind, you might even catch a ‘Northeast Slam’ — that’s a false albacore, striped bass and bluefish taken on the same trip.”

Generally speaking, the fall blitz lasts from late October through early December on Long Island. It starts with a splash of bunker, bay anchovies, sand eels or other baitfish moving tight along the shore of the Sound and, starting at the eastern tip of Long Island, southwestward along the entire length of the South Fork and South Shore ocean beaches. A stiff northeast breeze that puts the baitfish at a disadvantage in a roiled surf or choppy seas is often the spark igniting the action. At the height of the best fall blitzes, stripers, blues and false albacore tear into baitfish schools with amazing ferocity. So fierce are the attacks that some baitfish actually choose to swim up onto the beach rather than face the wrath of their hungry predators.

Joey Leggio, left, and Stephen Manswell set off from Oceanside to fish in Reynolds Channel near the Atlantic Beach Bridge on Oct. 22; the day's catch included a blackfish and a striped bass. | Photos by Randee Daddona

How to spot the fish

Boaters, of course, have the greatest ability to get on the fish and stay on them until filling their limits or exhausting their arms and backs. Schools often come in waves during the fall, and different areas come alive at different points. In western Long Island Sound, it’s likely that the biggest schools of fish will be edging their way southwest toward Hell’s Gate, in Queens, and an ocean exit; and fish in eastern Long Island Sound tend to head east toward Orient Point, where they’ll cut across to Montauk before sliding ever south and west along the ocean beaches.

To find the fish from a boat, anglers say, look for the bait.

“Watch for diving terns and seagulls, which give away the location of schools of smaller baitfish, like bay anchovies and sand eels, being driven to the surface as predators stalk the schools or attack from below,” said Leggio.

That’s the classic sign that a blitz is either underway or about to explode, and a common sight as fishing hits
full steam in early- to mid-
November.

“If it’s big fish you want to catch, search out the bunker schools,” continued Leggio. “You’ll spot them as dark or purple patches beneath the surface, see them pushing up wakes in tight pods, and might even notice a mud trail in less than 15 feet of water as a massive school stirs up the bottom.” As the bunker schools thin out later in November, the remaining ones can really concentrate the biggest fish. The waters immediately west of South Shore inlets are a great starting point for finding fish on the fall run because it’s likely baitfish exiting the bays will head southwest along the beach, noted Leggio. He suggests targeting the bass and blues with surface lures like the Musky Mania 9-inch Doc and 7-inch Lil’ Doc (large, spook-style surface lures) or diamond jigs, and bringing along clam chum for fishing around the bay bridges for stripers if the ocean action takes a day off. For false albacore, he recommends Epoxy Minnows, Deadly Dick tins and small diamond jigs.

You’ll also want to carry some green crabs, Leggio added. That way, you can anchor over a wreck, piece of reef or other bottom structure and add a few blackfish and sea bass to your haul.

“I like to use spinning gear with 30-pound-test braided line to cast bucktails around bridges and structure or work poppers over surfacing fish,” he said. “When fishing around bunker schools in ocean waters, I’ll use the same setup to drop a flutter spoon below the baitfish and then alternate lifting it up and letting it flutter down again. That’s my favorite way to target bigger bass during the fall.”

Full tackle box

For shore-bound anglers, full-time surf-fishing guide Mark Malenovsky, of Sayville, who has a 60-pound-plus surf-caught striper to his credit, noted that as the season approaches Thanksgiving, there will be plenty of school stripers in the 15- to 24-inch class along the beaches. These are great for introducing kids and novices to the fall run action using diamond jigs, surface poppers and swim shads measuring 3 to 5 inches long cast with 12- to 15-pound-class spinning gear.

“If you want to catch bigger bass, there should still be some beasts coming down from New England in late November and early December,” he said. “For these, step up to heavier gear and concentrate on fishing big lures around schools of larger baitfish like bunker.

Malenovsky, who fishes well into December, said he carries diamond jigs with tubes, along with a selection of darter-style lures, bottle plugs and pencil poppers. While bunker often hold big bass, they tend to be on the move so you can’t find them every day, he added. Sand eels, on the other hand, will often hold for several days in the same area, increasing the odds of repeated large catches.

Back on the North Fork beach, retired correction officer Sal Cani, 69, of Rocky Point, is fast into his third false albacore of the day. “It’s good to see these fish finally lighting up this fall,” he says. “I can’t wait for the nights to get a little colder because that will cool down the water and heat up the bite.”

He says he plans to keep fishing along the North Shore with a white bucktail tipped with a soft-plastic Bass Assassin until about Nov. 15. Then he’ll switch to the South Shore until Christmas.

“I make that shift because the chances of catching bigger bass after mid-November definitely favor the ocean beaches,” he says.

As for DiMauro, he intends to keep casting for as long as possible, too. “At my age,” he says with a laugh, “there’s no telling how long your body will hold up — but I’ll stay at it until the fish finally quit.”