April 2020
Wow. What a state we are in, huh? So many changes for so many people as a new infectious disease makes its way around the world and through the cells and social systems of us humans. The news tries to keep you locked in with 24-hour coverage, and empty grocery store shelves reveal the small scale greed we're all capable of. It may, understandably, be overwhelming you; or, on the other hand, you may be bored out of your mind after weeks of being stuck at home with family. Maybe it's both. Certainty is certainly not a good game to gamble on at the moment.
Whatever your case, you are probably in need of some non-COVID19 content. Hence why you're here at this revived blog. Below is a post I wanted to publish years ago about one of the best long weekends on the water I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying. It's full of wind and salt and difficulty and redemption and stuff. Please, simply, take a breath and enjoy as I reminisce...
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October 2016
I went to Montauk, NY again this Fall (my 6th consecutive year) for the run of albies, stripers, and bluefish. This time, Zeph and Tiffany joined me (they'd been once before back in 2014). We were slated to do beach/jetty fishing for 2 days and fishing from a boat for two days. As usual, the first couple days were windy as hell. 20-to-40 mile-per-hour winds do funny things to your cast, and you gotta go into it knowing you'll get wet. We heard the jetty fishing was going off, so we stopped by a good spot on the way out. Right by the parking lot we saw a decent 30" striper cartwheel on some mullet right up against the rocks. We didn't think we'd have to walk far. This fish teased us, however, as we left after a short two hours without a hit not realizing the guys way out at the end of the jetty were hooking them left and right. We were tired from travel and needed food.
That night, I took Tiff and Zeph to a night fishing spot on a beach where it is usually calm and you can see the Milky Way overhead as you listen for stripers slurping bait or bluefish exploding in their ravenous way. We arrived to a pitch black new moon night with clouds covering all the stars and a 30mph wind right onto our faces. This spot, which often doesn't have much waves to speak of, was a rolling surf with this wind. I knew that stripers were around, and the wind would push bait right against the shoreline. The fish here will eat your fly as it swings up onto the beach; they'll bust on a pod of mullet right beside you when you wade. But we had no sign of them yet. We started fishing, turning and making backcasts into the wind. It was so dark I couldn't see Zeph or Tiffany fishing two dozen yards away. The wind was noisy and incessant. Now, I had done this fishing enough to be confident in such conditions, and to know how to get at least a minimally fishable (30-40') cast out in the dark even into the wind. I was confident the fish were swimming around me. But after a few dozen casts that didn't connect, I took a break, walked up to a sand dune where I left my gear bag, and cracked open a Montauk IPA. I sipped it while I rested against the dune. I'd been so busy and stressed lately that it was enjoyable to just be in one of my favorite places, doing one of my favorite things--night fishing for stripers--with my friends and companions. Pretty soon I saw Tiffany's head lamp come on, and she found her way over to where I was. She opened a beer and sat next to me. We chatted about the conditions and how funny it feels to bring a few ounces of wimpy graphite and a fly out to the edge of the continent, like a dull toothpick in a gun fight. But I expressed my gratitude for the magnitude of such an opponent, and my confidence that it would put its fish close to the beach tonight. We had arrived right at high tide when it started to flush out. There was too much water and too much speed right now. I had a feeling that when there was less vertical and a slower horizontal, our flies would be seen, even if I couldn't see my own fly in my hand in that night's darkness. Zeph was chatting with us too, now, saying he had a weird feeling on his line like he had an eat, but didn't connect. I was sure he had an eat, and his report had my confidence soaring.
I changed my fly to a long, skinny white deceiver. I walked back into the water, about mid-thigh deep directly in front of where I left Tiffany and Zeph. The current was different now; it was familiar. I'd been here so many times and felt my fly swing on this seemingly same line before getting it taken from my hands downtide. I made a cast quartering uptide and gave subtle twitches of 2" and long pauses as the fly wiggled its way around from one side of me to the other.
Suddenly, like a whisper,
*bump*
I stripped the line abruptly with my rod tip wet and straight toward the fly. The line and rod came alive in my hand! Some head shakes and a run, a change of direction....I didn't know if it was a striper or a bluefish, so I kept my rod pointed up to avoid getting chewed off. I walked backwards up to the beach and then reeled down as I re-approached the fish, repeating this process to bring the fish closer. I turned my headlamp on and spotlighted the fish. I could see the dorsal now--a familiar bassy shape--and soon the stripes on its side shown. Tiffany and Zeph gathered near as I slid the fish from the shallows onto smooth wet rocks that had been underwater a few minutes before. Everyone was stoked. I now had that familiar but elusive alien of a being in my hands--the firm lip, the beautiful eye, the well-proportioned body--that set of traits from a constellation of events and fluctuations over millenia and millenia incarnated in this fish...It's always special to hold a wild striped bass. Tiff snapped a pic and I lowered the fish back into the water, where it held my thumb firmly in the sandpaper-esque rim of its mouth until it realized the opportunity to bolt away and find some real fish to eat.
As Tiffany and Zeph grabbed their gear and spread back out, I hooked another fish. Another 'schoolie' size striper. What a blast. Two fish almost back to back on a night like this. I was in heaven. Tiff and Zeph chuckled at my luck, Zeph got into a new position down the beach, and Tiff took a photo. I offered Tiff the good spot, told her what technique I had been doing, and I went uptide of her by 60' or so. The wind howled and the waves crashed. A chill was in the air. This was Fall striper fishing. Soon I felt another grab and my rod doubled over. These fish were aggressive! I backed up onto the beach, and Tiffany showed up again with her camera. I told her to keep fishing. They were obviously out there, right in front of us, and biting now. We got the fish back in and started casting. Zeph tired of casting in the wind and went to the dune for a break. I went farther up the beach to a deep corner I knew brought the fish close some times, but was usually better on an incoming tide. A made two casts, then took a step downtide and repeat. This is swinging, and covering water methodically has its advantages. Finally I felt like I made a decent cast into the wind and my fly was doing its thing. With a few twitches, I let the fly swing all the way around the corner and 'dangle' (in swinger parlance) on a straight line. In the pitch black, I felt a grab so hard it was like some ominous sea dweller wanted to steal my rod and reel from my hand. I stripped back on the line and was into another bass. This happened 2 more times as I repeated my step-cast routine. I walked back up to Zeph and Tiff to check in. They hadn't caught anything. Zeph went back to the car to sleep out of the wind. I stayed with Tiff and tried to coach her into a fish. She had mentioned that she didn't know if she was getting her fly out there or not--the wind defeated her efforts and robbed her of feedback. So we turned on our headlamps and watched her cast. Sure enough, it wasn't going much past the rod tip by the time the fly landed (the wind pushed it back a lot). She said she had enough but would hang out while I fished. I was enjoying this perfect if noisy night of doing what I love, so I walked back out over a little shoal until I was waist deep. I made a cast, pointed at my fly, got tight to my fly and twitched it.
I felt the current pulling the line, and it was almost like I could feel the feathers of my fly dancing in the water.
It's amazing to me how much focus I felt in that moment despite all the noise of waves and wind, despite not having any visual clues. It was all feel, and I knew the only way to connect with a fish was to tune into that channel of feel not the channel where I watch or I listen or I expect calm. Everything is silent in that level of focus. *BUMP* I stripped the line and set the hook. The fish took off downcurrent and got well into my backing. My reel kept spinning. Thinking the giant bluefish finally showed up to dinner, I kept my rod at an upward angle and reeled when I could, walking backwards up to the beach. Soon, a healthy striper was at my knees as I knelt in the rocks with waves crashing against my back and the fish sliding around in the wash. I popped the hook out, Tiff took a photo, and I kissed the fish on the forehead. I didn't want it to end, but I knew it had to. Tiff and I exchanged a fist-bump, then walked up the beach and along the trail back to the car. Sandy, wet, and cold, it might not have been everyone's cup of tea. To me, it was perfect.
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The winds were heavy the next day, so we took it easy. We slept in, went into town for breakfast, and drove around the point and lighthouse watching the water and waves. In mountainous waves upon waves in the surf, flocks of birds swarmed and dove, and die-hard local anglers in wetsuits stood on tall rocks to cast bucktail jigs. The fish were there, and they caught plenty. It started raining hard, and I walked down to the beach while Tiff and Zeph stayed in the car. The beach was littered with the carcasses of recent catches. Some were large fish. Unfortunately, most seemed short of the minimum legal size limit. I chatted with anglers as they moved from spot to spot, and I saw the fairer-weather anglers in their 4x4 cars on the beach, drinking coffee and watching the scene with the windows up.
At dinner that night, I bumped into the larger crowd of fly anglers I've done this venture with in the past. They spent the day at the jetty again, where we got skunked the day before, and they said they must have caught 150 fish between them. I knew what I was going to do the next day.
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We were the first fly anglers to arrive at the jetty, but the tip was overcrowded with plug chuckers. These guys were casting 200' with 7" long topwater plugs, but caught fish on every cast when the lure came in close to the rocks at their feet. If only they'd let us fly anglers in there! Zeph and Tiff didn't want to fight the crowds, so they stayed back from the jetty tip and I moved up to the very front. There was only 1 plugger out at the last rock you can cast from. I told him where I was going to cast and stood on the rock behind him. I pulled some line off my reel and dropped the fly in the water against the rocks below. My slack line snapped tight and a fish was taking line--I hadn't even made a cast! They were pushing 6-8" mullet right up against the rocks... and they were thick in number but only at the tip of the jetty! As I tried to land the fish from atop the rocks with no one to help, I put the rod under my arm and handline the fish up. I've got 30# test fluoro for a tippet. As I grabbed the line, my rod broke about 18" from the tip. Damn, I just got out here!! But at least I had a fish. The plugger took a photo for me (below) and I told him I had to go back to the car. Realizing I would be leaving these fish that had eaten a fly at my feet, I decided to stay put and just fish the shortened rod! I hooked another fish immediately, but the 30# tippet broke when the fish bumped a rock outcropping on the way up. 2 fish, one broken rod and a lost fly. And I had left all my flies with Tiffany.... oops. What a mess--a fishy mess--I was at that moment. Things (or I) get so sloppy when fish are blitzing at your feet.
Soon another fly angler came up, and we helped each other land some more fish. Then Tiff and Zeph came up, and we started doing a rotation because there was only enough room for one fly caster, and we had to ward off the encroaching spin/plug crowd. The only fly-catchable fish were at the tip of the jetty, so we had to defend it for the flycasters. We respected each other's turn, didn't get greedy, and helped each other land fish. Eventually we had about 7 fly anglers in the rotation, so we didn't catch a ton of fish each. However, as a group, we blew it up! If you got the fly out there, it was getting eaten. We used the biggest flies we brought for this game--airheads, deceivers, and gurglers if they were 6"+. We didn't connect with every eat, but being up on the jetty we were able to witness every slash, follow, eat, etc. The birds were working and stripers were cartwheeling all over the surface as they chased mullet. It was a riot and something to witness. This went on for hours until the tide slacked and the current stopped.
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Finally on the boat, we didn't have to run far to find albies popping up. The pods would come up and blitz for mere seconds, and then would go deeper again. Shots were short-lived, and casts had to be nearly instantaneous. The boat wakes put the fish down, and they would pop up 100' over here or over there, or right behind the boat as we left to chase another pod. It's frustrating, exciting, and athletic fishing. It tests your patience, your mind, your casting, and your gear. We hooked up with a few albies apiece on the fly rod, including Tiffany's first! Tiffany had trained for weeks to get her casting speed and distance up. She trained with the exact 9wt setup we used so her muscles would get acclimated. It's always baffling how what someone can do in a parking lot or on a pond is so different from what they can do in essentially a rocking chair with waves, wind, and blitzing fish moving at ridiculous speeds. To watch someone struggle in this state when you've seen them cast a 3 weight twice as far on half as many false casts is painful. You want them to hook up--mostly for their sake, so they can feel the rush of clearing the line on a pelagic tunoid and the drag peeling song that comes after, but also because you know the sooner they hook up the sooner you'll be back in the bow making all the mistakes.
We each caught a few on spin rods and lures, too, making for a number of doubles between fly and spin gear. And, of course, we had many eats that just didn't come tight. What was weird this year was that upon hooking an albie, they would stay near the boat for nearly a minute before taking off in their expedient way. That meant you had to make already long strips to set the hook and then continue stripping large amounts of line back into the boat only to be cleared when the fish finally ran away. Normally, ablies eat and turn so fast that it's hard to ensure the slack line gets tight without wrapping on the reel, rod butt, etc.
When the albies stopped showing, we made a long run across the sound to some rocky islands where we blind cast for anything that would eat. One of these islands is a dilapidated structure built during the Revolutionary war simply referred to as "the ruins." We didn't catch anything at the ruins, but we saw a giant seal and some signs of albies and bass in the area. We ran to Orient Light, which is an old short lighthouse that is rumored to be haunted. It is protected by two big rock outcroppings that the current sweeps around. We caught a bunch of striped bass on jigs with paddle-tails working our way around both of the rock jetties from the boat. I tried like crazy with a sinking fly on a sinking line, and couldn't convince one to eat. i think they were tight to the rocks and wanted a nearly straight-vertical rise/fall of the bait. The current sweeping my fly line pulled my fly from the strike zone. Tiff also caught a black sea bass on the jig here.
Back at the hotel, I texted the other flyfishers to see how they did. Almost everyone had gotten skunked. I told Tiff and Zeph, and we felt very lucky and really glad we had fished with our Captain, Joe Hughes (www.captainjoehughes.com, www.captainjoehughes.blogspot.com). Some of the guys that got skunked are far more experienced with albie fishing than I am, too.
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The final day, we launched the boat earlier to beat the crowd and ran to where the albies were the day before. Zeph hooked one on his second cast and then it was Tiff's turn. The fish gave her a good hand by staying up longer and popping up in shorter range. Still, the pieces were hard to put together. It's not an easy game. Like I said, very experienced albie anglers got skunked the day before when we put a dozen in the boat. Finally, Tiff hooked up, but she held onto the line too long when the fish went to run and the line broke. We were rooting for her, so I tied on a new fly and she stayed in the bow. Again, it was run-and-gun and difficult. I was certain if Zeph or I had some of the shots she had, we'd have hooked fish, but what did that matter now? We had caught albies yesterday, and we all wanted Tiff to get redemption. After another hour or so, Tiff went to hand the rod off to me and told me she was resigning. She said she didn't think it could happen with the rod in her hands and she'd rather I get another fish. I refused the offer and told her to keep at it, because she won't catch another albie on fly if she hands the rod to me. She made a few casts as some fish showed on the surface, and with the fly almost back to the boat, an albie flashed sideways, ate the fly, and swam off like a torpedo. We all erupted in joy and laughter and shouting. It was like a microcosm of the cubs win the other day. With such high stakes, Tiff was nervous fighting the fish, but that fish got it's damn photo taken!
I hustled for my albie, but it didn't take too long. Oddly enough, it ate on a blind cast after the pod had left the surface. The fly was halfway back to the boat and I was going to pick up to re-cast when I saw the fish come out of nowhere and turn toward the fly. Somehow, I found the mental calm to leave the fly alone and let the fish eat it before strip-setting and clearing the line. There was a time--and there will be another time--that I didn't have this level of focus and reflex. But I did that day. OH MY GOD--I love this kind of fishing.
The albies stopped popping, so we scooted westward looking for any signs of activity. The sun came out, the temps zoomed up, and suddenly Fall had transformed into an East Coast summer. The bright sun showed the clarity of the water, and off the right side of the boat, we noticed a large dark brown mass under nervous water. "Whoa, what's that?" Captain Joe said as he steered the boat toward the object. It turned out to be a tightly-packed pod of a few hundred 12" long Bunker (or Menhaden) being visciously attacked by giant bluefish. As the pod swam by the boat, I could see fish missing chunks out of their body, doing what they could to stay upright and with the pack of others despite imminent death. Not having any flies or lures 12" long on board, I put on a 7" 'super mushy' fly that was blue-white and looked nothing like the bunker. I had lost all my good, large flies jetty fishing the other day. This was all that was left. I put on a section of heavy bite tippet ahead of the fly and attached it to my fast-sinking 9-weight setup and cast around the bait pod, letting the fly settle below the nervous fish. I stripped a few times and came tight to something--I had snagged a bunker! Bringing it to the boat so I could release it, a giant bluefish t-boned it and ran off with the bunker and my fly, so I fought back (not being stoked that it was a live-baited fish, but man is it fun to fight them), but after 2 minutes or so, the bluefish freed his dinner and I got my fly back. I made some casts to the outside of the bait ball and shortly came tight to another bluefish--this time without the aid of a bunker! This fish ate the fly no doubt, as I hadn't cast into the bunker pod but several feet outside and retrieved the fly away. Tiff doubled up by hooking a big blue on a 8" soft plastic lure on a jig. We got pictures, and Zeph took the fly rod. After looking for the bait ball again with no luck (we had drifted in the tide a good distance while fighting fish), we spotted some free-jumping bluefish. When you see this, you know that bluefish are roaming the area quickly aggressively searching for bait. A single blind cast produced a hookup for Tiff, and 2 strips later Zeph was tight on the fly rod. Zeph's fish was definitely the heaviest, and we had the pleasure of watching it regurgitate a 12" half-digested bunker onto the deck of the boat.
If you ever have a chance to catch bluefish, do it. They are the real toothy predators. They're the meanest things I've met, they are fast and stronger per pound than other saltwater fish, and their teeth will peel the flesh from your finger.
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We dealt with our share of Hamptons traffic on the ride back to NYC, but made it in plenty of time. In Queens, we stopped at an empanada place for some cheap eats and then dropped the car rental off. Once we got through all the nerve-wracking airport stuff, the flight back felt good as we recanted our stories of the trip to one another, drank some bourbon, and settled into the possession of another phenomenal trip and the indelible, embodied memories of Fall on the Atlantic.
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April 2020
I hope revisiting this memory with me helped distract you from the craziness all around the world and Web. Maybe it jogged a few happy outdoor memories of your own. Keep 'em front and center, and I'll see you on the water once this whole thing finally blows away...
