The Wall

I have always admired the walls of tackle shops adorned with surfcasting lures. At one of my favorite spots, Rivers End in Old Saybrook, hanging above the plugs for sale are dozens of retired ones, each with its own story to tell. Not only are plug walls cool to look at, it's a smart and easy way to organize them. For too long I've stored my collection in large plastic boxes. I'm not saying that's not a good way to stay organized, it can be and often is. But to rifle through boxes when preparing for a trip can be time consuming and frustrating. Cherry-picking them off a wall is much more preferable to me. And when I'm not fishing, I can spend hours just playing with the lures like I did with green plastic army men when I was seven years old. 

So I recently went to one of those big box stores that shall remain nameless and, for under $40, picked up some 2'x4's, a large section of peg board and some peg board hooks and, voilà!, my new plug wall was born. It doesn't matter that I probably definitely surf fish with eels and bunker more than lures these days, the wall looks pretty badass and when I'm in the middle of a Chinese fire drill getting ready for a impromptu surfcasting session, at least it will save me a little preparation time.

Loaded Red Fins

Cotton Cordell's Red Fin has long been a top producer for surfcasters targeting striped bass in shallow waters where slender baitfish like sand eels are prevalent. Right out of the package, these inexpensive plastic swimming lures will catch their share of fish. However, a simple modification to this classic lure will greatly increase its casting (and catching) ability certain situations.

Red Fins are hollow and light, which make them not good casters. A stiff breeze in your teeth will render them pretty useless unless the fish are right in the wash. This is where loading the swimmers comes into play. "Loading" Red Fins with water, oil or shot will allow anglers to cast them much farther in snotty conditions. What to load them with and how much boils down to personal preference. Some prefer water because it's simple while others like oil because water evaporates too quickly. Some anglers choose shot due to the rattle it makes inside the lure.

Surf fishermen have been loading Red Fins and many other hollow-bodied lures for decades. One such surfcaster, Steve McKenna of Rhode Island, has experienced incredible success with loaded Red Fins over the years. I recently caught up with Steve at Rivers End Tackle and filmed him showing how he currently loads these proven fish-catchers. Another modification not shown is swapping out the cheap hooks and split rings that come on the Red Fin for stronger versions, which is highly recommended when targeting trophy striped bass.

A loaded Red Fin is just another tool for your toolbox. There will be times when using one will be completely unnecessary, but there will also be nights featuring a heavy onshore wind and striped bass gorging on sand eels where a loaded Red Fin will be just what the doctor ordered.

 

The Longest Day

This story original was posted on CTFisherman.com in November 2007. It is an account of my final surfcasting trip of that season, which turned out to be very valuable in terms of knowledge and experience gained. Although written before the The Connecticut Yankee existed, I thought the piece was worth sharing here. 

The longest day began at 1:30 AM when Paul pulled into my driveway. He wouldn’t let me into the truck without a pair of Korkers, so I knew we were headed a serious fishing destination. We soon departed for Long Beach, NY, to pick up the third and final surfcaster. After loading Chris’s gear into the truck and awing over his Beach Master plug collection, we’re driving over sand in no time.

There was an hour of darkness and a few hours of flood tide left when we arrived at the widow-maker jetty at Breezy Point. I was told that too many good surfcasters have died here and to follow my partners closely. They weren’t kidding–this was by far the hairiest patch of rocks I had ever laid foot on. After a 10 minute white-knuckle walk, we were not greeted by the lone angler tossing plugs off the end. With the help of a full moon, I soon glanced at one of the strongest rips, within casting distance of shore, which I had ever seen. The three of us posted up on different rocks and began a rotation of tossing eels, letting line drift in the rip about 100 yards, and retrieving slowly.

As fishy as this place looked, it was slow going. I eventually landed an obese 26” striper, which little did we know it would be the only fish of the trip. At the first hints of daybreak, our live eels were replaced with bucktail jigs. There are stacks of books written on this style of fishing, yet I have just begun to wade into it. From what I could tell, these guys, with their hand-tied three and four-ounce bucktails and pork rind trailers, knew what they were doing. As good as the action at this spot was only a week before, it seemed the fish and bait moved offshore. Soon the rising sun revealed acres of birds working on the horizon in deeper water. The boatmen pouring out of the harbors must have had banner days as we could only watch with disgust.

The rest of the morning we had show-and-tell with our plug bags, made trades and test swam custom lures. I am sorry to say that after several seasons and many striped bass, my Team Daiwa surf rod snapped while making a routine cast with a pencil popper. Our educated guess was there was a hairline fracture in the blank and that particular cast was the straw that broke the camel's back. As horrible as the snapping sound was, the thought of a new hand-wrapped Lamiglas custom rod built by a fellow club member in the near future cheered me up.

After a few more fun but uneventful hours of running the beach looking for bass within casting range we called it a day. On our way home, we stopped in West End Bait & Tackle to poke around. We walked in on local sharpies swapping stories and smoking cigarettes. On the walls of this small shop hung what the owner claimed to be Long Island’s largest selection of custom plugs. Despite the overwhelming selection, I knew what my plug bag lacked and picked up my first Super Strike darter, a yellow over pearl tried and true fish-catcher.

Paul wanted more eels for his tank at home and we were hoping for a few monsters to skin as well. Sure enough with one scoop of the net, I saw Loch Ness stick her head out. She was not alone. In total we pulled out four huge eels, all over 20-inches long and thick as a brick. The young shop-hand said he would skin one for me, as I had never seen it done in person. He dropped in a few cigarettes into a bucket and the nicotine in the tobacco caused eels seizure and die within a few minutes. The sharpie-in-training then skinned the snake and put it into a Ziploc for my ride home.

After our skinning demo, an old timer with a handle bar mustache walked into the shop, sat down and started eating lunch. To no one in particular, he started spewing out knowledge that was hard to keep up with. For an hour we listened to this guy without realizing yet that it was Billy the Greek, one of Long Island’s most legendary striped bass anglers. Once I realized who we were listening to, I looked over my shoulder and saw his book on the shelf called “Night Tides.” That humbling experience was the trip’s icing on the cake and my only wish was to retain the information that was shared in that shop.

After battling choked New York highways and downing multiple Red Bulls to stay awake, I arrived back in my driveway at 8 PM, rinsed my gear and passed out to dreams about Long Island’s south shore. Although the actual fishing left much to be desired, I learned more valuable information in one day than some anglers do in several months.

The $25,000 Fish

In spirit of this weekend's WICC bluefish tournament, I felt motivated to put a few words and photographs together about the fish that so many anglers love to hate. Choppers, gators, gorilla blues, yellow-eyed demons; call them what you will, but pound-for-pound bluefish fight harder than any fish in Long Island Sound. Their famous acrobatics and drag-screaming runs help make up for the damage they inflict on terminal tackle and bait supplies. They can reach weights in excess of 20-pounds and are mean sons-of-bitches when it comes to removing hooks after capture. Bluefish are fierce predators that feed past the point of being full and puke up their last meal just to eat more.

In September of 2006, friends and I capitalized on a few-week span of great fishing for giant blues. There were fish ranging from 15 to 20-pounds gorging a large school of adult bunker pinned against a sandbar night after night. It was borderline stupid. Anything you tied on the end of your line was coming back battle-scarred, if it came back at all. The largest gator I caught during that stretch ripped two of three treble hooks off my Atom 40 plug and was puking up full bunker on shore. To this day it still ranks as the largest blue I've ever landed. That memorable chapter of fishing ingrained in me a deep respect for the mighty bluefish. 

This weekend's tournament kicks off at 12:01 AM Saturday morning and will come to a close at 5 PM on Sunday. All waters within Long Island Sound are open game and the heaviest bluefish caught on a hook and line will earn one lucky angler $25,000. Let me say that again--$25K for a bluefish! The tournament was originally scheduled when Hurricane Irene hit two weeks ago, so blues have had even more time to fatten up on the cornucopia of baitfish in the Sound right now. It would be nice to see some choppers on the leader board that rival the heydays of the tournament when 18-pounders were commonplace. I have never entered this tournament mostly because I don't own a boat and there is currently no surf division. I'm told a surfcasting category was given a shot a few years ago, but not again since. Perhaps the powers-at-be will try again in the future, especially if they looking for new blood.

Any Given Cast

Block Island is arguably the pinnacle when it comes to all-time fishing grounds for striped bass. Peter Vican's recent 77-pounder is just the latest of countless historic catches from Block waters. And since the island's fabled boulder fields are only a 14-mile ferry ride from mainland Rhode Island, trips on short notice are doable. With word of positive surf reports and a new moon phase ushering in, two friends and I committed to an all-nighter during the July 4th weekend.

Leading up to the one night binge, we spent hours rigging eels, changing rusty hooks, and tying new leaders. We were eager and prepared and hopes were high. The plan called for taking the last high-speed ferry from Galilee on a Friday night.  Between our bikes and wet suits, we planned on moving around and fishing hard. When the day came, we gave ourselves more than three hours to make it to the dock, which typically takes about 90-minutes. However, the rush-hour traffic coinciding with a holiday weekend had us rolling into Point Judith with just minutes to spare. We zigzagged between vacationers on our bikes and only enough gear to last 12-hours. The high-speed ferry cut more than a half hour off our sailing time, which is a bigger deal after pulling an all-night surf fishing trip.  

The extra $9 for the high-speed ferry out of Point Judith is worth every penny if you don't require a vehicle.

The Old Harbor area was one big party as our ferry pulled in. It was a little amusing realizing that we were there for a completely different reason than 99.9% of those around us (we only saw four other surfcasters all night). A good meal was in order before the long night that lay ahead. We chose a window seat at Mohegan Cafe & Brewery that allowed us to watch our gear left outside. The beer board on the wall read: "Striper English Ale"--it was then that I knew we walked into the right place. The round of clam chowder hit the spot, before wolfing down large burgers and nursing the rest our beers.    

While digesting we hashed out a plan of attack. We soon hopped on our bikes and rode out of civilization towards the southern half of the Island. It was a 15-minute mostly uphill pedal to our first stop. At least that mean the way home be would easier! The sun was just going down as we arrived and the fading light allowed us to sort of get our bearings before the very dark hours ahead. We locked up the bikes and changed out of our civilian clothes into wetsuits that we carried in backpacks. With the seal skins on, it was easier and safer to reach rocks that traditional waders would not allow. 

What a better way to start a Block bass-hunt than a Striper English Ale?

It quickly turned into a jet-black night and I could barely make out the silhouettes of my partners in the same cove with a good surf rolling in. The tide had been going out for about an hour by the time I let loose my first cast with a black needlefish. My friend Derrick hooked up right away using a sinking eel-skin popper that is better known for its swimming than its popping. While I couldn't tell at the time, it turned out to be a striped bass in the low-teen range. He and my other buddy Mike soon landed a few more of similar size on black needles and the eel-skin popper while I struggled using the same exact offerings. The biggest of their handful of bass was about 17-pounds, but the clock was ticking and the numbers and size of these fish were not enough to keep us much longer. We walked back to the bikes and headed west, leaving fish to find bigger fish. After another 10 minute ride, we rolled up to another classic south-side spot.

At this point in the night, we had been fishing for a few hours and I had not even experienced a bump. I was growing a little frustrated with myself before finally getting snapped out of a trance by the sharp jolt of a striper. The keeper-sized fish whacked an eel-skin stubby needlefish that had never produced for me before. It felt great to get the monkey off my back and better to know there were fish found at both stops so far. We kept walking and casting around another point then a cove with nothing to show for it. Finally, another teen-sized fish latched onto a 12-inch black Slug-Go and we managed a few more half-hearted takes before deciding it was time to see new water.

A bike rigged for fishing can really be an aid to surfcasters at places like Block Island.

By this point it was already 2:30 AM--the night was flying by. In reality, we had one more good crack at a third and final spot before false dawn. So we opted to head towards the ferry instead of moving farther away. After a nice downhill cruise, we stashed the bikes and bushwhacked down a lesser known trail along the east side of the Island. The smaller surf here presented easier opportunities to wade out to good casting platforms.  We hopped from rock to rock rifling through our plug bags for two more hours with only a handful of hits from small bass. The writing on the wall was starting to show. It's easy to forget that you can nail the best fish of your life on any give cast on Block Island, but we just had the feeling it wasn't happening for us that night. 

As a spectacular celestial show gave way to the first hints of dawn, our group switched to top-water lures hoping for a little redemption. My eels-skin popper was crushed multiple times on consecutive casts around first light, though the bass were small and had trouble finding the hook. Boats started pouring out of Old Harbor and probably fared much better than us in deeper water drifting live eels. It didn't matter though; the big yellow ball started peaking over the horizon and we were treated to a sunrise that was worth the price of the ferry plus the hours of effort put in the surf. 

Bubble weed and big surf can make traversing Block Island boulder fields a taxing proposition. 

After the sun came up, we stumbled on two buddies that we last saw while boarding the ferry over. They had very similar results to share, which kind of made us feel better and worse same time. A few text messages to another friend on the other side of the Island revealed better action, yet the same size class of bass. We gave up on the uneventful dawn casting and pedaled into what felt like a ghost town. Delirium began to set in as we waited for the breakfast joint to open. After the eggs and coffee gave us our fourth wind, we shot the shit at the ferry dock until it showed up at 7:45 AM. It was much spacier on the ferry ride back so we all grabbed our own booths and slept for what felt like a minute. The boat let us off and we rode with our gear one last time to our vehicles, all the while passing people heading to Block for a wild time. I cracked open a Red Bull and listened to a few classic stories from the parking attendant before leaving Galilee.

Even though we didn't find the fish we were ultimately after, you can't win if you don't play. Pulling a commando all-night fishing trip is not everyone's cup of tea, but it's something you should experience at least once. And Block Island is a hell of a place to try it! One of these years I am going to hit it just right and have the best night of fishing of my life. You just don't know until you go...

Watching a sunrise like this makes all the effort worth it. 

Surfcasting...From A Boat

A large portion of Connecticut's shoreline is privately owned, which can make things tricky for surf fisherman on Long Island Sound. A big thing we have our favor is the public trust doctrine, which states that the area below the mean high tide line cannot be owned and belongs to everyone. Still, accessing this area can be tough if you have to trespass over private land to get there. An obvious way to get around the shoreline access issue is to fish from a boat and I was fortunate to be invited on one such trip a few nights ago. 

My friend and fishing guide, Captain Mike Roy of Reel Cast Charters, splits his time between surf and boating fishing. He trailers his Steiger Craft to striped bass and tuna haunts all over New England, but the eastern Sound is where he spends most of his time. On our most recent trip, it was an hour before slack low tide as we arrived to a nice stretch of rocky beach in front of multi-million dollar homes--not somewhere you would just waltz into on foot. Right away Mike stuck a small bluefish on a Lordship Agitator just as dark was settling in. Then we tossed a variety of offerings towards shore that were neglected, including eel-skin plugs, rigged eels, Slug-Gos, loaded Redfins, and bucktail jigs to name a few. Mike switched to a live eel and eventually hooked up with the first target species of the night--a decent striped bass of 13-pounds. We soon made the switch to live bait and started a slow and steady pick of stripers that continued through the night. 

Mike brought us to a couple favorite way-points in his GPS and we found willing fish at each stop. At the tip of one rocky outcropping, there was a rip where we drifted through and hooked enough bass that it warranted changing back to plugs. Eel-skin poppers got the attention of a few fish, but live eels still culled out the larger of the bass caught. In all, we landed six keeper-sized stripers up to 20-pounds. Not an epic night, but certainly a fun-filled trip with consistent action. At false dawn, we arrived back to the dock pretty much spent and made the hour drive back home for needed shuteye. I sure love surf fishing, but I'm already looking forward to my next boat trip. 

Poor Timing

Timing can be critical when it comes to fishing. In the weeks leading up to a recent Cape Cod trip, there were numerous reports of large striped bass gorging on mackerel in the Canal. In addition, the extensive flats of Cape Cod Bay were offering excellent sight-fishing opportunities for smaller stripers. Almost as if the fish were tipped off that we were coming, the bite shut off as soon as we crossed the Bourne Bridge. 

We planned a backyard camping stay with family only minutes from the "Big Ditch" and a short ride up Route 6 to good flats fishing. With our customized bikes, we pedaled up and down the Canal for two full nights and mornings. We bathed in bug spray, chugged Red Bull and retrieved hundreds of casts for one small bass between the three of us. During the day, we covered miles of flats despite a north wind and overcast skies that made sight-casting virtually impossible. We put a lot of eggs in one basket for this trip and were dealt a bad hand. With buckets of rain on the way, our sleep-deprived decision was made easier and we cut the trip one night short.

Poor timing or not, we had fun, gave it our best shot and gained valuable experience and knowledge about surf fishing the Canal and Bay-side flats.  Both fisheries are challenging and enjoyable in their own right and we still have a long way to go with each one. I didn't expect to waltz into epic action without donating some hours to the karma bank. Maybe next time.

Wood Is Good

Winter is a great time of year for saltwater anglers to catch up on things they put off during the long fishing season. I use my off season from the salt to make leaders, tie flies, rig eels, and swap out rusty hooks. Some crafty anglers use this time of year to create wooden fishing lures that drive both fish and fishermen crazy. A friend and local plug builder has taken this hobby and turned it into a full-time business. Lordship Lure Co. is quickly becoming a household name in surfcasting circles along the Northeast. Lordship is based in and named after a small waterfront neighborhood in Stratford, Connecticut. Each one of Ron's wooden plugs is handmade using the highest quality components. He has a full line of fish-catchers from eel skin Atom 40's to small needlefish to a fantastic top-water spook. Below is a look inside the Lordship Lure headquarters.



Local surf legend John Posh ties each and every siwash bucktail.