Bountiful Flounder

The flounders are biting, not only in Lake Montauk and at Shinnecock, but in deeper water off Block Island.

Fishermen aboard the Blue Fin IV charter boat from Montauk reeled aboard two very large flounder on Tuesday, one weighing nearly five pounds. The Blue Fin and other Montauk boats are now running split cod and flounder trips.

Kathy Vegessi of Montauk's Lazy Bones party boat reported good flounder fishing in Lake Montauk, the flatties responding to the traditional chummed corn, and biting on clams and mussels. She reckoned the strong showing could have to do with the clammers working the lake, stirring the bottom and perking the flounders' olfactory sensors.

Altenkirch Precision Outfitters in Hampton Bays reports continuing flounder action in the Shinnecock Canal and new action at the South Race and at Buoy 9 off Pine Neck Point, as well as cod up to 15 pounds southeast of Shinnecock.

A Mystery Still

Montauk's Viking Fleet of party boats will not be running its regular Friday cod trip because of the annual Coast Guard inspections. Saturday and Sunday trips are scheduled to go as usual, however, at 5 a.m. from the Viking Dock.

There were several responses to last week's mystery fish photo, but none hit the mark. The identity of the orange fish shaped like a small monk (alias goosefish) remains a mystery. It's clearly not an orange roughy, the guess of Tom Hashagen of Shelter Island.

Nor is it a red fish. That's what Joseph O'Connor of Montauk thought it was. Kaitlin Daniels of Sag Harbor thought an angler fish. Right shape, wrong color. Daniel Padovano of Concordia College in Bronxville suggested the fish was either a sculpin (alias sea robin) or a wolf fish. Alas, it's neither.