Confidence & Luck

Long before the first horseshoe crab bumped my wading boot this spring, I was wandering the isles of the New England Saltwater Fishing Show in Providence. I was there helping friends man their booth for Game On!—an up-and-coming lure company. As saltwater shows go, this is the big kahuna in our area. It’s a who’s who of the industry and its timing is ideal at the end of winter when anglers are itching for spring fishing around the corner. With an impressive selection of gear, tackle, and plenty of show deals, it’s a good opportunity to stock up for the coming season.

During downtime we took turns browsing the booths. It would’ve been easy to burn a few grand in mere minutes if I had it, but my line in the sand was $50. A sucker for wooden plugs that I don’t really need, I made it a few yards before dropping half of it on a mini, flat-bottomed pencil popper. I showed constraint over the next few isles until stumbling upon something a little more practical for my surfcasting needs—a bin of custom bucktail jigs made by Peace Token Fishing Tackle out of Cape May. The 3/8 oz. ones in chartreuse and pink screamed weakfish; my preferred size and color patterns for the elusive species that arrive in Long Island Sound around moon tides each spring. Still two months from their trial run, I was confident these jigs were catchers.

Fast forward through a crazy wet spring to mid-May and my first dedicated squeteague outing of the year. With wind whipping onshore and just one day removed from heavy rain, I could’ve should’ve turned around when I saw the deserted parking lot. A friend leaving as I rolled up confirmed it was dead out there, but I had come this far already and tossed my new jigs in tea-colored water for a half hour to no avail. The following night I returned and the couple tides in between had cleaned the water, yet the line of anglers remained sparse. I guess that happens when water temps are behind schedule and no weakfish reports have flooded social media. I welcomed the elbow room.

Despite an overflowing plug bag on my shoulder, the chartreuse Peace Token was the only offering I threw that night. I broke into my remaining stash of Uncle Josh pork rinds to sweeten the deal. The jig and pig combo looked tempting in the water. It didn’t cast as far as an SP Minnow or Mag Darter, but it casted far enough. The confidence was there, but so was lady luck. A couple dozen guys were out that night and for two hours of the incoming tide I didn’t see anything caught save for a sea robin. Then, after what felt like a thousand casts, there was life on the end of my line. As soon as my jig hit the water, something ate it on the drop. By the distinct headshakes, I knew what I had on and backed it up gingerly on the exposed sand. Derrick snapped a shot to document the moment and I released the fish, but knowing they tend to show in waves we were quick to get back out there.

That was it though; one and done and lucky as hell. That weakfish wasn’t big enough to earn the tiderunner nickname, but it was my best one to date. A beautiful fish and a rare one to me. Of course I returned on another high incoming soon after. A thunderstorm had just passed through and, for the first time I can remember, I was the only angler out there. The water was dirty, recent reports poor, and, I’ll admit, I wasn’t confident. It turns out I wasn’t lucky either as I didn’t even get a bump.

It helps when anglers are confident in their spot, their gear, and their offering. Some guys will tell you confidence is one of the more important aspects of angling. But it also helps to get lucky once in a while. When the stars and moon align and you are both confident and lucky, special things can happen—like catching your personal best weakfish on an otherwise lackluster night.

Confidence

Every angler has certain offerings that he or she is partial to; the first ones out of their box, bag or bucket on any given outing. Plain and simple, fishermen catch more fish when they're confident in what's on the business end of their line. Whether it's a live eel, a favorite fly or a plug dripping with mojo, it pays to believe in what you're casting. To build up that confidence, anglers must experiment. After all, you'll never catch fish on something if you don't give it the old college try once in a while.

A popular artificial lure that I have always lacked confidence in is the bucktail. Simple in design, it consists of a lead jig head with a single hook and ample deer hair tied around it. For added action and to lengthen the profile, it's usually tipped with a strip of pork rind or soft plastic. One of the cool things about the bucktail is that it can be used to target a wide array of species in both fresh and saltwater, but I'm most interested in their deception of striped bass. Despite the fact that there have been countless articles and books written about the art of jigging, and that bucktails have most likely accounted for more stripers than any other lure out there,  they still haven't played a prominent role in my surf game. Thankfully, I'm slowly starting to change that.

I wish I had a good reason as to why I haven't utilized bucktails more in my local fishing. It's mostly because the surfcasters I learned from on my home waters of Long Island Sound just didn't fish them all that much. Yet as soon as I branched out to places like the Cape Cod Canal, Rhode Island breachways, or the south shore of Long Island, I began to see how standard they were among surf fishermen, and for good reason too. All the aforementioned destinations have at least one thing in common, strong current. Bucktail jigs excel in places with current and any surfcaster worth their weight in salt will tell you that striped bass love moving water; it's like a conveyor belt for their meals.

While I've always carried various sizes and colors of jigs in my plug bag, in the last few seasons I've made a point of actually using them. The spring herring run in Connecticut tidal rivers provides optimal jigging opportunities as bucktails offer a close representation to this slender baitfish and there is no shortage of current to work them in. Sort of like nymphing in a trout stream, an angler must match the speed of the water with a properly weighted jig. In one highwater instance this past spring, a half ounce made all the difference between a skunking and a decent outing. That day I only had jigs in my bag up to two ounces, yet two and half to three ounce jigs were scoring the stripers stacked in a rip like cordwood. Thankfully a friend lent me a bucktail in the magic size that put me on the board. I still owe Paul a cold beer.

 

There was another time this spring when I was lucky to find a popular jigging spot nearly void of other anglers. The fact that it was a rainy weekday helped thin the crowd. I held down a prime position with another caster and we worked in tandem tossing our bucktails upstream in the whitewater, then letting the current swing them downstream with occasional twitches of our rod tips. The first hit I got was unmistakable, almost ripping the rod right out of my hands as the ripping current made this 16-pound bass feel twice its weight. After a quick photo and release, my very next cast was met with an identical fate, a jarring hit from another teen-sized striper almost as soon as the bucktail hit the water. It's outings like these that quickly build confidence in angler's offerings and presentations. Now I have to take my newly acquired jigging confidence and apply it outside of tidal rivers into the open surf. Baby steps, people.