8/22/04 Nantucket News from Capt. Lynne Heyer

Okay! I got the reel scoop. Unfortunately, Great Point was closed again. But the Gate House says that it's day to day, possibly a week. The least terns have hatched, but are not quite ready to fly. So that means if they settle in the tracks, the Point closes. I was also told that the access to the Point is closed at 7 PM . I am not sure what the scoop is there, but I imagine, they--like all of us--have lost their employees to help patrol the beach.

I did find out about the first and second false albacore and a few bonito have been caught out along the east side of Great Point. Frank Bender caught the first one on the 16th. The next day, his cousin also caught an ablie as well as a bonito. Tim Griffin stopped in today and told me that he caught an albie at the Bonito Bar on Friday. He was using a purple deep diving Yozuri and had a couple bumps and then hooked up. He was quite surprised when he finally landed the fish and saw that it wasn't a bonito. It was a nice fresh Albie. He said it circled his little boat three times. He also said that he should not have been out there. It was pretty rough.

With the weather nice and cool it should really spark up the fishing. Jeff has had some good flats days when the sun is shining. On Friday he landed four stripers on the flats with Rich Furman.

Capt. Shawn has been offshore as much as possible this past week. He and his clients, Carlos Ferrer and Dave Freeman have been successful with small and medium bluefin tuna. Their last trip out, they caught tuna on trolling, spin and fly gear. Dave's son, Paul even got into the action landing a few. With cool dry weather, look for things to pick up around the Island , and good luck fishing.

-- Capt. Lynne