Travisono

Fishing experts are optimistic about the coming season in South County despite unusual fishing conditions last year.

A massive amount of menhaden moved into Narragansett Bay early last season and kept large striped bass in the Bay longer than anyone had expected, according to charter boat skippers Steve Travisono of Seadog Inshore Charters and Ron Mouchon of Breachway Bait & Tackle, both in Charlestown.

Instead of fishing the reefs off Green Hill and Charlestown, where he found fish in other seasons, Mouchon said he was forced to fish to the east.

“I was fishing off Stinky Beach and Scarborough Beach” in Narragansett, Mouchon says. Big bass stayed close to the mouth of the Bay because the bait was there.

“Rock Hoppin’ ” Mike Frank, a Westerly surf fisherman who throws plugs only, caught and released several hundred keeper-size bass last season. Among the fish he released were eight bass over 35 pounds, including a 40-pounder he caught Nov. 1.

“Rock Hoppin’ Mike is a name one of my buddies came up with because we live in the rocks at Weekapaug and Watch Hill,” Frank said. “We wade out and wait until the last wave comes in and then pop up onto that last rock. The stripers are there, in the reefs looking for lobsters and other things to eat, and they’ll stay there all night long. But you can die out there. It’s dangerous. You have to know what you’re doing.”

During the season, Rock Hoppin’ Mike fishes for bass every day that weather allows. He works the surf from Watch Hill to Narragansett. Most of his large stripers came from reefs near Watch Hill last season. He prefers to fish from 11 p.m. to 4:30 a.m., midway through a falling tide, with a southwest wind.

Last year, he started catching bass during the third week of April when the bass were feeding on squid. By the third week of May, the night bite had begun. “I had to move around a lot,” he says, “because the fish weren’t in their usual spots. Overall, I had a very good season, but it could have been better. I managed to catch eight big fish; I normally do 20.”

He predicts that the number of large bass in South County’s surf will rebound this season.

Mouchon is also a striper specialist. “With the amount of peanut bunker we’ve been seeing, I think it’s going to be another fantastic year,” he says. “Last year was one of the better ones I’ve had. I just had to go to different areas to find the fish.”

Travisono is equally optimistic about other fishing opportunities.

“I expect a good fluke fishery,” he says. “There were a lot of 17- to 19-inch fish, and there were a lot of bigger ones, too — a lot of 20- and 21-inch fish. Every year, the size is going up.”

Sea-bass fishing was relatively slow inshore as dogfish replaced the bass in traditional fishing spots, he says.

Catching scup should still be easy, even from shore, but Travisono says it’s getting more difficult to catch keeper-size scup. He says, “There were still some frying-pan-sized fish out there when you found the right spot.”

“Bluefish? There were plenty — big ones,” he says. “There were small ones early, but by October, they were alligators. It wasn’t hard to catch a 10- or-12-pounder from the shore. We’ll see a lot of bluefish this year,”

For a brief time in September, fishing for bonito and false albacore was good, according to Travisono and Mouchon. They expect more of the same this year.

Rock Hoppin’ Mike talks about his surf fishing on Hot Bytes at projosports.com/hotbytes

tmeade@projo.com