Striped Bass Fishing is ON FIRE! Tournament Countdown | Charter Reports and Gear Updates

The countdown is on! We are now just 4 weeks away from the 2nd Annual Striped Bass Invitational, and this year’s event is bigger, better, and more exciting than ever. Captain Gaige kicks off Episode 83 by reminding anglers to get registered this week and join us on June 27th & 28th for an epic two-day catch, tag, and release tournament right here in Huntington Bay. This event isn’t just about competition—it’s about conservation. Every striped bass caught and released helps support valuable fisheries research as we work together to tag more fish than last year’s impressive total of 65 striped bass. With a $2,500 Grand Prize, plenty of sponsored giveaways, and serious bragging rights on the line, now is the time to secure your spot at StripedBassInvitational.com.

The striped bass fishing has absolutely exploded across Long Island, and the crew shares the latest reports from aboard Sand City Charter. The bite is red hot right now, with quality fish feeding aggressively and anglers enjoying some of the best action of the season. Captain Gaige breaks down what’s working, where the fish are holding, and why now is one of the best opportunities of the year to get out on the water. Sand City Charter is currently booking trips seven days a week, and we’re excited to announce that we’ll soon be running at least one Open Boat Trip each week, giving individual anglers a chance to get in on the action without chartering the entire boat.

This week’s boating safety segment focuses on a simple but critical question every boat owner should be able to answer: Do you know where your seacock is? Captain Gaige explains why understanding your boat’s through-hull systems could make the difference between a minor issue and a major emergency on the water. Whether you’re a seasoned captain or a first-time boat owner, these practical tips could save your boat—and possibly your life.

We also preview the gear and tackle we’ll be discussing at the next Bay Rats & Buoys Fishing Club meeting. If you’ve been thinking about joining the club, now is the perfect time. Meet fellow anglers, share fishing reports, learn new techniques, and become part of a growing community built around fishing, boating, conservation, and good times on the water.

Grab your favorite beverage, sit back, and join Captain Gaige for another fun-filled episode of Bay Rats & Buoys!

https://sandcitycharter.com/podcast/

Transcript

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What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Bear Rats and Buoys. I'm your host, Captain Gage. I am here in Huntington Harbor on a Sunday. That's how long it took me to get this podcast going this week. We have been so busy with charters. We'll get into the fishing in a minute. We're going to talk about what you got to do to your boat, where you got to look, you got to check a few things. Some people ran into some problems, and I think I'm going to be able to give you some advice to take a look at your boat and learn about your boat. A few things that you need to know to maybe help you from some sort of disaster. And some disasters did happen in the last few weeks for a couple people. So I'm going to try to help you with that. Also, we got the fishing league and we have the tournament coming up in just four weeks. So we got a lot to talk about, a lot going on. I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. I am getting out of here in a little bit because we do have a charter today. Super busy. And like I said, the fishing is lights out right now. It really is. It hasn't, it's it's insane. And I could put up videos here and show you some really cool fish that we caught this week. They're real big. We had uh one, I'd say out of the last 30 bass, one was a slot, and 29 of them were over. Um we did manage to tag a bunch of fish and release them, so that was kind of cool. But in the meantime, we got the tournament coming up on June 27th and 28th. That's gonna be Saturday the 27th and Sunday the 28th. You can head over to stripedbassinvitational.com to register your boat now. Got to get in early, guys. Uh, we need to know how many people are gonna be in the tournament. Don't wait for the last minute to register. Uh, I would jump in early if you can. That would help us out. And uh we're getting organized, you know. We got to get all the tags ready and all the stuff that we're gonna give out from the sponsors. So we need to know how many people are gonna be in the tournament this year. Last year we had 20 boats. Uh, I know a couple of the guys that were in it last year already reached out to me, said they're in. Uh, and a couple guys reached out and said, hey, you know, I got a wedding, I got this, I got that. So totally understand, man. Life happens. Uh, super busy. We got um Greg Sharp coming out with us today, the CEO of the World Series of Arm Wrestling. He'll be on the boat today catching some bass with us. That's gonna be a ton of fun. But let me tell you guys, the last few trips that we've been on, it's been absolutely lights out on the striped bass. We did have a charter with some bottom fishing on Wednesday, which was kind of cool to get a family out that comes out with us three times a year. Um, but the bite wasn't like red hot, it wasn't like insane, you know. Thank God they caught a bunch of fish because going out and getting skunked on bottom fishing would be tough. That'd be rough. That'd be a rough pill to swallow. But uh the striped bass fishing is absolutely insane. Top water action has been incredible, but you gotta be out there at the right time. All right, so everybody hears about it, you're gonna see the videos. I haven't posted any pictures or any videos of what's been going on out there. Um, I've been so busy with the charters. So I'll catch up to that this week and show you guys a lot of the top water action and the size of these fish that are blowing up on the top. These are all 40-inch bass, and uh a lot of them have sea lice, so you know that they migrated, they were coming this way. And uh let's see how long they feed. So, right now there's been feeding frenzies, they've been killing it on mackerel, all right, and they're feeding heavy on the mackerel. So, guys that are putting down spot and some other baits, they're not taking them as easily as they would take a mackerel, all right? They are taking them, they are feeding. We're catching them, and we're getting them on umbrella rigs, mojos, and topwater action. So that's been and floaterspoons. So that's been the four techniques that we've gone out and used on the charters. And it's a ton of fun when you do topwater action with guys and you're throwing out really light tackle and light rods, and they're reeling in 39, 40, 42-inch fish that all have some weight to them. These fish are fat. They're feeding, they are here gorging. So let's hope they stay. The bait is here. There's a ton of bait. Uh, I know today they were reaching out to me, they were feeding on peanut bunker out there, and uh, so there's a ton of bait in the water. We're seeing it, we're marking it. And at the top and the bottom of the tide, they've been blowing up on them. So if you're getting out there on the incoming, you gotta know where to work. You can't go out and work the same areas that you would go work on an outgoing tide. So these are the things that separate. There's a lot of times we get out there, we're like, where is everybody? Why are they over there? You think there's fish over there, we don't see them hooking up with anything, and we're over in our own little area hooking up, and there's a reason for that. So that's why you want to join the Bay Rats and Buoys Fishing Club, because we're gonna show you guys in the club exactly what we're using. We have awesome secret weapons. Like, we put a secret weapon out this week that was lights out one of the best things we've used so far for the season. I mean, it caught two 39-inch fish in one shot. So we were doubled up on a tandem, which really doesn't happen too often. Um, in fact, we were doubled up with two fish coming on on two rigs uh a lot. So it's really cool to see they're really feeding out there, but you got to know what to use. Um, the colors, the clarity, the sun, whether it's cloudy. So you need to learn all that stuff. We will teach you here on Bay Rats and Buoys the podcast, because I try to educate you guys every week on what we use, what we're doing, what's working. Uh, this week I could tell you the umbrella rigs and the mojos crushed it. Top water action blew up, it was insane. So we threw out, you know, uh super strikes, we threw out any kind of topwater plug was getting crushed, especially one that looked like a bunker. Um they were killing that. So I hear guys are getting them on the eels too, you know, which I'm not a huge eel fishing guy here on the North Shore. Um, but I hear they're getting them on eels, they're getting them on spot, they're getting them on mackerel, and of course on bunker. So if you can get out there with those four live baits, you're gonna catch fish, no doubt about it. If you're out there at the right time and you see what I saw here last week, I'll put it up here on the video. I may not put it up in the video if I get this video up fast because I'm sitting on the boat. I'm probably gonna get this one up quickly, so I'm not gonna put a lot of B-roll into it. Check out our social media feed and you'll see all the fish that we're catching, all the stuff that we're doing. All right, so if you don't see it in the B-roll here on this week's episode, you will see it on our social media feeds that we start to post because the rods, we have insane videos of the rods bending. Those Oakley Meta glasses that I have, the Vanguards, absolutely kick ass. Uh, Corey introduced the 360 Instacam to the boat this week. Uh, so we are getting some different perspectives. Well, we will film underwater. Now, let's just talk about your boat for a minute. Because, you know, even me, I run into problems. We all do. It's a boat. It's like your car. Everybody has a car, everybody has problems. You've all had a flat tire, you've all had a dead battery. Um, that's what owning a car is. Well, owning a boat, you're gonna have some different problems, you know. Um, Wednesday we had something weird happen with the engine, you know, something was going on. It felt a little weird coming back in. Thursday and Friday, we had nothing. Uh, yesterday it was blowing 30. We were out there, I'll put that video up here. We went out into three-foot shop, me and Andrew, because we wanted to put a load on the engine uh hooked up to the computer to see what was going on. And uh, you know, zero codes and nothing came back. So it's crazy, you know, when something happens and you can't diagnose it right away. Um But, you know, I told you we had to fix the bilge, the bilge is fixed, the all-around white light fixed, all that stuff. So everything's buttoned up. It's June, coming into the end of May here. We're closing out May today. We're gonna start June off with a bang. We got great weather. Meanwhile, what did I tell you about May? I told you that if you get two weeks of fishing in in May, you're lucky, all right? Because May was fucking freezing. All right, you had to turn the heat on, then two days later you had to turn the air conditioning on. You were sweating your ass off, and then it was freezing again. And then you woke up, you went out in the morning, and it's 49, 50 degrees, and it's May. You know, so I'm not a weatherman, but I'm gonna say we're at least 10 days behind schedule from last year. 10 days to two weeks, you know, and I'm kind of glad that we put the tournament off until the end of May, because the weather's gonna be awesome. Moving forward, I think June's gonna be a great month to get out there as much as you can. You'll find your windows, you get out. Today's a busy boating day down here. That bay is gonna be booming, it's gonna be busy. Uh, guys are already texting me that are out in the sound, and uh the tide's just high right now, so we're gonna catch that outgoing tide, which has been the perfect bite. You get to that mid-eb and the bottom of the ebb, and the bite has been on. All right. So, some things that came up this week, you know, and I say to people, you know, here when we're in conversation at the doc when somebody had a problem with the boat, and I this is what I say to you Where's your seacock? You know, do you know where your seacock is? And do you know how many seacocks you have on your boat? And do you know how to access them? Because there's times where we may have issues with the pump on the live well, and we'll go down there, we'll shut off the, we'll open, we'll close the seacock, we'll take the live well pump off, okay? And then we'll open the seacock and let it flood in a little bit, okay? And then close the seacock, and then put the pump back on, and but you know, boom, and it's working. Usually there's something clogged down there. But let's just say we had a rough winter and you left some fresh water in your live well hoses that are going out. Guys, all the new boats, all that shit is plastic. It's all plastic. So if you left water in there and water cracked any of that stuff, you don't even know it's cracked. You're not gonna know it's cracked till it's sitting in the water. And down she goes. You know? So I was talking to guys here in my marina and I asked him how many seacocks you got on your boat. He's like, four. Two of them are a pain in the ass to get to. And I totally get that. You know, mine's really easy to access. In fact, Andrew was here working with me yesterday doing some stuff on the boat, and he was saying, you know, how easy everything is to get to on this boat. He was loving it. Uh, which is, you know, that makes it easy to fix stuff and to upgrade and to repair things. So that's the big question this week. I'm gonna put it on the tie. That's probably gonna be the title of this episode. Where do you know where your seacock is? And uh you know how to turn it on and off. And does it work? Because I know a lot of guys go to turn it on or off and the handle is stuck, which is no bueno. That is no fucking good. You want to make sure you get some grease, some oil, do something to them. Make sure that the seacock handles are turning. You know, that's really important. So let's make that this week's uh tip tidbit of advice is go look for the uh seacocks on your boat and make sure you know how to turn them on and off. It might keep your boat from sinking. Yesterday we had high winds, you know, there were boats up on the beaches. I was talking to uh one of the captains coming in on the big boat, and uh he was like, Yeah, they saw a sailboat spear in, you know, break off and spear into another boat. And uh, you know, I tell you guys all the time, check those lines. If you're on a mooring, you better get down there and check your lines because even the guys in the dock here didn't check their lines, and their boats were twisted in their slip. And when you got these high winds, you got to get down and check on your boat, make sure you tied it up correctly. Last time you rushed in, you didn't tie it up so good, and bam, she's all turned sideways, you know, in the slip, banging into your neighbor. And uh that's not the case here. The other day, so we went to go get gas, and we went to go get gas after a charter. We cleaned off the boat, we go back, we drive you know, we go back to the fuel dock. We get to the fuel dock, I shit you not. It goes from blowing 10, which is no problem coming into the slip, to blowing 35 with one foot waves in the harbor. There was a squall that came through, it was a downburst of wind from all the clouds that were coming in from the west. We beat in the rain, really didn't rain on us as much as it was raining over Connecticut. And when I tell you, I mean, I had to crab into here sideways, you know, keeping my stern into the wind. What I try to teach people is don't ever lose your bow. Losing your bow is the worst thing you could do when you're trying to dock your boat. So you either have to keep your stern or your bow into the wind. And if you're doing that, the wind's gonna wrap around your boat and you're fine, but the minute you turn sideways, you're doomed. That wind's gonna take you, and now you've got to do a 180 to get back into position. So never lose the bow. And uh, you know, we experienced that. It wasn't easy. I had to pull some, I had to pull some commercial toe captain shit to get myself back into the slip. You know what I mean? And uh, you know, that comes with experience. If I was a new boater, I'm banging into people's engines for sure. 100%. The dock poles are out, and you're screaming and yelling, and you know, you got that whole shit show going on. Which you all know what I'm talking about. Uh it was great to see Tony and Dave zipping by. You know, there were days everybody found their windows and got out. So it was nice to see Tony and Dave coming by in the harbor here. Uh we see Tony, Dave uh out all the time. You guys are awesome. I love to see you out there. You guys are boating, you guys are lunatics. But not a bigger lunatic than me. I'm the biggest because uh I actually went out yesterday in those, it was three footers at the lighthouse. In fact, Mike from Cito saw me leaving, and he was like, Where the fuck is he going? He's out of his fucking mind. And we were pulling out behind the Harbor Master, so the Harbor Master went out and went to the right, we went out and went to the left, and uh we had to run the boat at full throttle. You know, that's what we had to do. And uh it was me and Andrew had an epic uh fun adventure. I made it fun. I did, I made it fun for sure. You know, we didn't have to get wet, but I think it was more fun uh as some big boats were coming out. We had some fun and showed them that uh we were pretty nautical. And that's another thing, you know. Are you prepared? Do you have a change of clothes on the boat? Do you have a sweatshirt? Do you have a different sweatshirt to put on if you do get wet, you know? This is that time of the year, guys, you gotta be prepared. You know, have some food on the boat, have some snacks, you gotta have water. I just loaded up the cooler that's on the boat with water. You gotta have drinks for people, it's gonna get hot, you know. Do you have sunscreen? All these little things. You guys know what I'm talking about, but the big question is where is your seacock? Do you know where it is? And your scuppers, you know, if your boat's taking on water, can you clog your scuppers with something? Do you have something to do? I mean, a plastic bag will do it. You got garbage bags in your, you know, in your uh in your cabin or in one of the uh compartments, stuff plastic bags in there. But I always recommend having um even like a nerf football that you can rip off the foam and stick it in there because you could fit that into anywhere. So these are the little tidbits of advice. Now let's get to the fishing, alright? Check out these videos. I'm gonna put at least one of them up into here as B-roll. But guys, go to SanCityCharter.com and follow us on all the social media feeds Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. We are going to be posting videos of all the fish and everything that we are doing. Next week, you're gonna see every day you're gonna see posts of catching fish. I have I have a month's worth of content just from this week's charters alone. We had charter every day. Yesterday was the only day that we had a blowout, so you know, Mother Nature said, no, no, you're not going today. But I still went out. And check it out. Check out this video, the waves yesterday. It was a ton of fun. Um, but that's it. We're gonna keep this week short, man. Um, if you guys want to get out and catch fish, now is the best time to do it. Oh, here's good news too. I'm gonna start running an open boat here on San City Charter and get you guys out. I got a list of people that want to get out on an open boat and uh, you know, can't get three or four people together to get here on a private charter. So if you want to get on the open boat list, uh head over to sanscitycharter.com and on the contact page where it says uh four-hour charter, you know, six hour. I'm gonna put in there open boat. Just click open boat, submit today's date, whatever date you want, because it says what date do you want to go out on. You know, just put whatever date is good for you to get out in the comments. I'm good on Mondays and Fridays, you know, put that out, you'll make it on the list. I'm gonna start shooting out text messages to everybody saying, hey, Thursday, the weather looks good. We're gonna run from this time to this time. And if you want to jump on, bam, let's get out there because the fish are here. You gotta get it, gotta get them while they're good, man. Fishing is hot right now, red hot. Anybody can catch. If you're not catching bass out there, I don't know what you're doing wrong. I really don't. But what you're doing wrong is you're not coming fishing with me and Corey and learning how to do what we do. It's not hard. We will teach you, we'll show you how to do it. All right. Um, we even love showing Charters how to do topwater and flutter spoon and other techniques. We don't want to go out there and troll around for these things. Trolling is easy. The boat hooks up to the fish. You know, that's that's yeah, that's easy. To me, that's uh, you know, that's not really fishing. That's trolling. That's why it's called trolling and not fishing. So, summer's here, guys. We're a week over three weeks away from uh kicking off summer of 2026. Head over to sandcitycharter.com and sign yourself up up top on the left there in the menu. Click on tournament and you can register for your boat for the tournament. Get your team in now, register for the tournament. It's June 27th and 28th. We're gonna run a two-day event because this way, if there's any bad weather, we can get out there and we'll have two days to catch fish. Tag them. Last year we tagged 65. This year we want to tag at least 130. We want to double what we did, and we want to double the amount of boats that are in the tournament. Every year we want this thing to grow. Guys had a great time last year. You're gonna see commercials for the next three weeks for the tournament. StripebassInvitational.com. It's Bay Rats and Buoys' second annual Striped Bass Invitational, and uh we're excited to put it on, host it. Uh we have a ton of fun, and uh you don't gotta worry about me kicking your butt, you gotta worry about Chuck, you gotta worry about Matt, and you gotta worry about the winners, the champs from last year with Eric, Mike, and Andrew. Those guys have a target on their back, and I know, I know people that are going for them. They're gunning for them. They don't want them to win two years in a row. So if you want a shot at winning $2,500, that's the grand prize, thanks to JMC Food. All right. And uh second prize is $1,000. And third prize, third place is $500. And we got tons of great sponsors, so you want to get involved. Uh we'll teach you how to tag the fish at the captain's meeting. Uh, it's very easy. Guys said to me last year they had so much fun doing it. That tagging the fish and releasing them was awesome. And there's no better way to get rid of a big fish. You know, you can't keep it, it's over 31 inches. No one's catching a 27-inch bass. We haven't caught a 27-inch bass all season. We haven't had a short. Um, and like I said, last week we had one slot fish. They did go home with some nice fillets, no doubt about it. But if you want to get out there and catch fish, head over to SanCityCharter.com. Me and Cory will be happy to get you guys out. If you want to learn, come out with us. Charter us and come out. We'll teach you how to do what we do and put you on the fish so you could do it on your own. And if you want to come out on an open boat, San City is going to run an open boat. You will get the San City experience, which everybody is loving these days. You can check out the Google reviews. Um, we have a ton of fun out here, we really do. And uh looking forward to meeting you, greeting you. Uh join the Bay Rats and Buoys Fishing Club if you want to get in on the intel and all the secret weapons that we use, because the club really shares the intel amongst the members, and it is so cool to see this year how uh the camaraderie in the club is really taking off. There's a few guys that join the club that haven't even showed them to meetings, but yet they're still involved, you know, and we try to keep everybody involved. Uh we're gonna have another meeting this week, the first week of June. And uh, if you want to get in on the action, you could head over to San CityCharter.com. That's on the podcast page. You could join the Bay Rats and Buoys Fishing Club. Don't forget we also have the fishing league. We got a tournament, we got a club, and we got a league. So you have no excuses not to get involved. Your only excuse is that you're afraid you're gonna go out there and not catch any fish. All right, that's your big excuse. Now, here's another question for you. Do you know where your seacock is? Seriously. Look for your seacock. Open and close it. All of them. Check them out. Make sure they're working. Make sure there's no stress cracks down there. So, anyway, that's episode. I think we're on episode 82. I I didn't even look. I guys, I put the GoPro on. I sat down, I set up the mic, I sit on the boat, I bang it out. This is raw and unscripted. Um We're gonna have Daniel from Ocean Devil on one of the episodes coming up. I'm gonna sit also, possibly with Greg, the CEO of the World Series of Arm Wrestling. Uh, he is here for another day. Um, we're getting him out in a few hours. Uh in two hours, we're gonna be catching striped bass with Greg. So uh he will definitely be a special guest on board if he has time before he leaves on Monday. And uh that's it, man. We got a lot going on. Big shout out to JMC Food of East Northport and East of Talk It. Ceto of Huntington, are you a member? Head over to Ceto.com and join today. I recommend that highly. Just as highly as I recommend you, head over to JMC Food and East Northport East of Talk it. They're the best. 100% the best seafood place to go get seafood. Um, you'll love the staff there, they're fantastic. And Ocean Devil. Me and Corey are going to be spooling up all the rods for San City with Ocean Devil Parade, and we're gonna show you the process as we do it on every single one of our reels. All right, and we're gonna show you why we're doing it and why you should do it. And that's it. I'm gonna leave you there on this note. Where's your seacock? Captain Gage signing off over and out.