Legend of the Surf

Editor's Note: 

Back in 2012, I had the opportunity to interview a living legend of surf fishing. By that point in time, though he’s too humble to acknowledge it, Pat Abate had long earned a reputation throughout the Northeast as a bonified surf sharpie; a member of the old guard with a knack for sniffing out big striped bass. It was also a time when Pat owned River's End in Old Saybrook, one of the more premier fishing outfitters in southern New England. For someone like me, who was at the pinnacle of my surf fishing effort and interest, it was an awesome experience to hear some of Pat's insights and stories. He eventually sold River's End and retired, allowing for more time on the water instead of behind the counter. It should come as a surprise to no one that Pat is not only an awesome angler, but also a salt of the earth kind of guy who is still plugging away in the surf. 

One of the walls in River's End is adorned with hundreds of lures that would make any striped bass fisherman drool. Above the ones for sale however, hang special, battle-worn plugs—each with their own story to tell. Pat pointed to a cracked green needlefish and said he found it one day at Southwest Point on Block Island. With a black Sharpie, Pat added some mackerel markings and took it with him fishing later that night. In Dories Cove, in a howling northwesterly wind, the newly found needlefish accounted for eight giant striped bass up to 55-pounds! The magic finally ended when the lure's side cracked open after hitting a rock on a fateful backcast. Pat said it lost its “mojo” and he retired it as one hell of a conversation piece.

Sitting in his office, I asked Pat about a blown-up surf casting photo hanging on the wall. As the story goes, years ago while napping on Nauset Beach, a crew from Sperry shoes knocked on the window of Pat's beach buggy and asked him to take part in a photo shoot. Next thing he knew, Pat was being photographed casting a needlefish in the suds while wearing Sperry shoes two sizes too small. They must have forgotten they also outfitted him with a mic and Pat could only laugh while hearing the crew second guessing that "he's too old for this” and "we'd better shoot from the rear.” In the end, Pat became “Mr. March” in a Sperry sports calendar and his life-size poster hung for a while at the Kittery outlet store. It turns out that Pat can now add modeling to his impressive resume. 

KB: Who got you into fishing and how old were you?

PA: I was about 12 or 13 and living in Brooklyn at the time. I had an uncle who as an avid fisherman. I had fished for sunfish in Prospect Park and things like that, but he took me out fluke and porgy fishing and I got hooked. New York City isn’t the ideal place for saltwater fishing, though you’d be surprised how many people travel the subway with 10-foot rods to the beaches or party boats in Sheepshead Bay. At that time, you couldn’t drive until you were 18, so you really had to depend on public transportation or someone over 18 to take you.

KB: Do you remember the first big striped bass that got you hooked into surfcasting?

PA: Well I was hooked into surfcasting years and years before I ever caught a big striper. I fished the Rockaways and places like that and, to us at that time, a 10 or 12-pound striper was about as big as we’d seen. It wasn’t until a trip to Nantucket in ’67 when I caught what I considered to be a big bass, a 29-pounder. I think I got it on a Rabbit plug, similar to what today you would call a Robert’s Ranger. At that time they were made of wood. A friend of mind had made some that he saw in a Saltwater Sportsman article. That was my first big bass; breaking the ice was the hardest part. But there weren’t a lot of big bass around then. The only guys that I knew who caught big bass were the guys that fished the jetties. Those were the idols to a surfcaster at that time, the Al Bensten’s and those guys.

A younger Pat with a nice bass from the rocks.

KB: When and what made you get into the tackle shop business?

PA: I sold some tackle mail-order back in the early 80’s; odds and ends, droppers and stuff like that. Then I got into River’s End in ’86. I was going to be a silent partner and then I turned into an unsilent partner [laughs]. My job was transferred from Connecticut to New York and I struggled to get into this lifestyle of commuting to the City. I tried it for one week, didn’t like it and quit. Been here since then...

KB: Were you always in this location?

PA: I started out with a partner named Sherwood Lincoln and we had an 800-sq. foot shop down the  street. It was an un-insulated building with a woodstove to heat it. You couldn’t leave the shop for more than 12 hours unattended because the pipes would freeze. So we basically never closed [laughs]. This is River’s End’s 27 th year in business. We kind of grew by drips and drabs. When this building became available, it took about eight months to renovate it. Now we have just under 4,000-sq. feet.

KB: After all this time behind the counter, what’s your favorite part about the business?

PA: Being behind the counter [laughs]. I hate the paperwork and I had no idea when I got into retail. All I thought was that you had to sell stuff. I had no idea that you had to buy the stuff to sell it and you had to pay for it. But there’s an awful lot of behind the scenes stuff that you never see. Like any small business, you’ve a lot of paperwork and it takes a lot of time to buy the right stuff at the right place, and keep the shelves stocked.

KB: If you could travel anywhere in the world for fishing, where would you go and what would you fish for?

PA: My favorite fishing is bonefishing. The only time I fly-fish is for bonefish. It’s the most exciting fishing that I do. There are probably other things, but it’s accessible. Certainly I don’t have to invest in a couple hundred thousand dollar boat to get out to the canyons to tuna fish. You can go with the simplest of gear, walk the flats on your own, be by yourself, on foot, wading, and it’s 70% hunting, 30% fishing. You are in the middle of this ecosystem as well – there are predators, there’s prey, there’s bait; I find there are slow times, but every hour’s exciting whether you’re catching fish or not. You’re hunting when you’re not fishing, so you’re always actively doing something. I try to go to Acklins Island in the Bahamas at least once a year. It’s a very primitive island, very few inhabitants and almost all the flats are accessible by car.

KB: If you could only surf fish one state for the rest of your days, which would it be?

PA: If I had to pick a state it would be Rhode Island for the access. Rhode Island not only has the beaches, breachways and ponds, but there are a lot of different things going on in RI—basically a year-round fishery if you want to pursue it. I probably do most of my fishing within a five mile radius of the shop; it’s not necessarily the best waters, but it’s probably what I know best and what I have the best access to and, as far as time goes, the most time I can spend. It would be nice to be on Cuttyhunk or Block all the time, but you have to have the access, the time and everything else that goes with it.

KB: If you could use one lure for the rest of your fishing what would it be?

PA: Is a rigged eel a lure? [laughs]

KB: That’s a good answer! What direction do you see surfcasting headed? Is wetsuit fishing just a fad?

PA: I think what surfcasting has become is extreme fishing. It’s very much a younger man’s game; more aggressive fishermen do a lot better at it. I think wader fishermen are going to be in the minority. I think there are some really good fishermen now – if these fishermen were around when the bass were around, boy would they’ve hammered fish. But a lot of times people concentrate more on getting to a rock and falling off that rock and getting on that one rock. But when you really survey the situation, the best spot to be may be the rock inside of that that is reaching fishable water. I think a lot of people that are new to it seem to be more obsessed with getting out on a rock than getting to the right location. Tim Coleman, who I fished with for a long, long time, rarely even wore waders.

KB: Thanks so much for the opportunity, Pat.

Best In Show

Tomorrow is the first day of winter and it will feel like it. With the solstice comes the coldest air of the season so far. Nighttime lows in the single digits could make some good ice up north when the wind lays down. But thanks to the seesawing temps of late, I'm trying my darndest to temper excitement. Still, the old Jet Sled is packed with gear by the basement door, ready to go at a moment's notice. 

Waiting for ice strong enough to walk on takes time. Time to reflect on favorite catches of the year as 2024 winds down. I couldn't pick just one. It had to be two favorites, each a personal best of their respective species. One caught in the spring, one in the fall. One caught from shore, one in a kayak. Both with native names derived from the Algonquian language.

The PB tautog story has been told here before, and I'm fortunate to have captured it on video. The PB squeteague story, while much less documented, was nonetheless memorable...

When I was young, my late grandfather told me there used to be so many weakfish in Long Island Sound that you could walk across their backs. Hyperbole yes, but his point was clear. I'll never witness squeteague runs like he did, yet I'm thankful there remains spots they can be found each spring if you put in the time and effort. Earlier this year, while waist-deep in a May outgoing tide, I hooked, landed, and released the biggest weakfish of my life. Though not giant, she was from a bigger size class than any I had previously come across, and from a place that holds special meaning. A beautiful and impressive specimen that set a new bar; a bar I will be aiming to raise again next May. 

Squeteague

    Horseshoe crabs amble,
    Waves of weakfish hit the bar.
    Springtime on the Sound.

Artificial Intelligence

I love everything about American eels. They are arguably the most effective and versatile bait when targeting striped bass. Many a book chapter, magazine article, and blog post have been written about their ability to entice stripers into gulping them down like candy. An eel was responsible for my largest bass ever landed and I’m sure the same can be said by countless anglers up and down the Striper Coast. 

For a long time now, lure makers have been trying to, with varying levels of success, duplicate the American eel’s shape, suppleness, and action. I have been fishing eels in nearly every fashion possible for as long as I can remember and don’t plan on giving them up entirely anytime soon. All that said, they are expensive, can be a pain to deal with, and are sadly becoming scarcer as the years tick by.  

Companies like Lunker City, Hogy, RonZ, Al Gag’s, Berkley were some of the OGs of my early days of fishing eel imitations, and they still make great baits today. However, it’s been intriguing to witness the arms race of long, slender soft-plastics come to market over the last 20 years. By names like Got Stryper, Game On!, Fish Snax Lures, JoeBaggs, Zinger Baits, and Gravity Tackle to name a few. There are limitless combinations of size, color, and rigging options available to today’s angler for nearly any situation they could encounter. So much so the choices can be overwhelming.

Over time, I have been building up my arsenal of soft-plastics and my confidence in using them. I am starting to find more consistency in my success and part of that can be attributed to selecting the right bait and rigging style to match the spot and its conditions on a given outing. Like in every kind of fishing that I do, it has been a fun, never ending journey of learning. The farther down this rabbit hole I go, the more I realize how much there is still to learn, explore, and experiment.

We’re on a loop. Enjoy the ride.

The author with a healthy striped bass that fell for a 13.5" GT eel rigged on a 1/2 oz. jig head. 

Triathlon Bass

While there was no swimming or running involved, this lazy man’s triathlon did have its share of driving, cycling, and walking. An end-of-summer fishing adventure with a good amount of time and energy expended to reach a chosen spot; effort that would pay off in spades just a few casts in.  

Wearing wetsuits and standing in water 50-yards from shore on a dark night, it was challenging not to think about the plethora of brown sharks that chomped striped bass catches all over Long Island Sound this summer. Jim, the trip planner and my host for the night, started with a live eel. I opted for a lure that punched through the light breeze to reach the dying current, which was going from right to left around a rocky point with an ebb tide.

This lure was an Xplorer, the brainchild of a talented angler and plug builder named John Stirpe. Made of resin with a portion of its core being urethane foam, it is a unique and versatile floating swimmer that digs on a fast or slow retrieve, flashing a super realistic paintjob. It was gifted to me by my pal Eddie, a fellow fishing and artifact junkie from Massachusetts. He has fooled a number of plus-size striped bass over the past few seasons on Xplorers. Knowing I had coveted one for some time, Eddie generously mailed me a plug from his personal stash with the understanding that I would fish it hard.

Our first casts came right after full darkness set in. I was aiming to about 1:30 on a clock face. On my second cast, my lure had just splashed down and something whacked it, even before I had a chance to put my braid on the line roller. A good omen no doubt and I hollered to Jim to give him a heads up. While retrieving the very next cast, a fish slammed the Xplorer and immediately thrashed around on the surface. It then made a bee line right at me and I reeled furiously to stay in contact. When the bass realized it was hooked, she did an about face and flexed her muscles, peeling an impressive amount of line in the process.

This was the biggest test yet for my 'Montauk Eel Rod,' a Lamiglas blank cut and wrapped in 2015 by a friend and expert rod builder, Billy DiLizio. A rod soft enough to throw and feel lighter offerings, yet with enough balls to put the screws to big striped bass, which is exactly what I was doing in this moment for fear of having it bitten in half by the taxman. A strong fish, but beaten pretty quickly and still green when my Boga Grip clasped its lower lip.

In the faint beam of my headlamp, the bass did its best planking impression just under the surface, allowing me to snap a half decent photo with the Xplorer still in its jaw. Before letting her go, I lifted the fish quickly out of the water and watched the numbers on the scale drop to a hair below the 36 mark. This was a notable catch for me in a few ways. It was the largest striped bass I had caught in years, the largest ever landed on that particular rod, and my largest ever using an artificial lure. Stoked doesn’t begin to describe it. Do I wish I had gotten a better photo? Yes, but there was no good way to document it without bringing the fish to shore and risking its health and possibly missing out catching other fish. I took solace in how strong she bolted away for deeper water.

The fish were there as soon as we arrived, and likely before that, though they seemed to vacate the boulder field soon after, as the moving water grinded to a halt. Jim ended up losing what felt and sounded like another big bass on an eel and I had one more hit on the swimmer. That was it, though we kept trying for a while before the long walk, pedal, and drive back. My partner was on vacation and could have kept fishing for another 12 hours, but I had to be presentable at work the next morning. Still, I wouldn’t have changed anything. I floated on air the whole way home and for some time after. 

That was a memorable fish and experience, and I am grateful for the many cool pieces that came together to make it possible—from Jim organizing the trip, to Billy wrapping the rod, to John building the plug, to Eddie mailing it to my door. One of the greatest things about fishing is, you just never know what is going to happen on any given outing.  

Vacation Blitz

“Lotto fishing,” quipped the Cape Codder from across the street. “You need to be in the right place at the right time and get lucky.”

My family and I were renting the same cottage that we have each summer for the last several years. While chats with the neighbor are minimal during our stay, I always take stock in what he says. A hardworking waterman, in summers past he had gifted us freshly-raked little necks. This time he offered fishing advice, or at least hope that something special could happen if luck was on my side.

There was a pile of striped bass feeding just offshore of the outer beaches, and they could easily follow bait to within casting range at a moment’s notice, but you needed to be there when it happened. Reports from other anglers and tackle shops nearby confirmed as much. So, while it was a family vacation, I put in as much time fishing as I could get away with.

Our third day there was the Sabbath. We spent it at our favorite bayside beach. I brought my fly gear along and spotted a few spooky stripers on the flats during low flood tide. Despite some casts in front of moving targets, there were no takers. Come to find out, these bass have been dialed-in on crabs more than usual and I made the mistake of having only sand eels in my fly box. The lesson here being that you should always hit the local fishing shop at the beginning of vacation. Even still, it was really neat to see stripers hunt the shallows in August, and I hope the adrenaline rush from sight-casting never fades.

After the Bay, we went mini golfing, grilled burgers back at the cottage, then biked down the street for homemade ice cream. It was still early, around 6 p.m., when we decided on a whim to see the water again, this time the ocean. I put the surf rod on top of the truck just in case. I had fished and blanked on this stretch of shoreline the previous two sunrises. No signs of fish or bait that I could tell, but the large seals cruising the surf line hinted otherwise.

The evening beach crowd was in full effect when we arrived. Large groups of vacationers sitting in Tommy Bahama chairs, set up in half-moons facing the water. I spiked my rod and laid a blanket on the beach berm, but no one sat. We all stood there soaking in our surroundings, enjoying the waves crashing at our feet and the sun getting lower in the sky behind us.

My wife pointed it out first. A few hundred yards to our left, there was a large patch of water darker than the rest, parallel to shore with a commotion of birds flying around it. It was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; a bonified blitz that was slowly moving south towards us. I could see a line of fishermen at the water’s edge in the distance, but it was hard to make out if they were hooked up or not. To be honest, I didn’t freak out right away because the action looked beyond casting distance. Once I saw splashes tighter to shore, on the inner side of the main body of fish, I bid adieu to my family and began a brisk walk to intercept the melee.

The walk changed to a jog when bent rods came into view. The beachgoers I passed were completely oblivious to what was going on, at least for the time being. I stopped well short of the nearest angler, it was a kid from Canada who was catching hickory shad on epoxy jigs when we first arrived. The fish he was casting to now were striped bass, thousands of them gorging on unidentified baitfish.

The plug I had been using most on the trip to this point was a pencil popper in a green mackerel pattern made my 247 Lures. That was before I broke it off earlier in the day and watched it bob-away in shark-infested waters. What I reached for next was more sentimental, a flat-bottomed pencil turned decades ago by the late John Haberek.  I clipped on the Hab’s, leaned back and launched the furthest cast I could. A striper crushed it on the surface before a full turn of the reel handle. It had been a long time since I had hooked one in the Atlantic surf—it felt damn good.

When the bass came through the last wave and hit the wet sand, a few inquisitive kids stepped forward asking all kinds of questions. As instructed, they avoided the pointy dorsal fin and ran their fingers down the flank of the fish before watching it dart back into the wash. By now my family had caught up and served as a cheering section and paparazzi rolled into one. The highlight of the whole vacation was sharing the unfolding scene with them. A second cast into the outskirts of the frothing water produced a tight line nearly as fast as the first. Another bass, not especially large, but aggressive and punching above its weight class in the ocean currents.

The next 20 minutes went on like that...wash, rinse, repeat. Acres of boiling water sluggishly moved down the beach as anglers followed along, fighting and releasing fish, then leap-frogging others who were hooked up in order to get in position for their next cast. The noncombatants behind us watched in awe at what was taking place. There was good reason to be amazed. I had been visiting and fishing the Cape for more than two decades and had never stumbled into anything like it. Only once before did something remotely similar happen to me on vacation, about 25 years earlier with my Uncle Frank in Charlestown, Rhode Island, but even then, that blitz was all bluefish.    

While it all felt surreal, I was ready for this exact scenario, beaching a half dozen stripers up to the mid-30-inch class and dropping a few others. By the time we made it back to our blanket, the top-water action drifted far enough away from shore to make the decision to call it a night easier. A few anglers kept up in pursuit, but the damage was done was for us. My girls and I absorbed what just went down while enjoying the last frames of sunset.

Each of the next four days, we spent significant time along the Cape’s outer beaches and never saw another fish or bent rod, still marine life was all around us. We were treated to an incredible display of whales a few hundred yards offshore, humpbacks full-on breaching and bubble-net feeding for hours. Another lively sighting was a giant ocean sunfish, mostly exciting because its fin poking out of the water looked awfully like a shark fin as it passed us on the beach.

Toward the end of our trip, I visited a tackle shop to stock up on crab flies and replace the pencil popper I had lost earlier in the week. In comparing notes with one of the employees, he experienced the same blitz we did, and shared that the next three evenings at that beach were dead; no signs of life anywhere. In turns out, we were in the right place at the right time and got lucky. That’s lotto fishing for you.

Runners of the Tide

It has been an enjoyable start to the surf fishing season so far. The main reason being that my uncle and angling mentor is in the midst of a saltwater renaissance. After not sharing a tide in years, we have been out together this spring a half dozen times already—learning from each other while rehashing old memories and making new ones. Often it is not the fish that make these trips standout. Then again, sometimes it is unforgettable catches or bite windows that are engraved into our consciousness for years to come. 

For us thus far, this season has been all things squeteague—an intriguing and handsome fish that migrates to the same haunts each spring like clockwork, some years in better numbers than others. This year seems to be a very good year for weakfish in Connecticut waters. They are not everyone's cup of tea. Some can't stomach the crowds they draw. Others are after something bigger, or maybe they loathe the endless bumps from horseshoe crabs mistaking wading boots for potential mates.

While I hardly enjoy a packed beach, I'll put up with it a few times each May. Thankfully when prime tides are very late or very early, even the most popular spots can be a ghost town. Catching the inaugural squeteague of spring almost feels like getting a monkey off my back. They can be challenging, partly due to the finite window of time we find them from shore with any kind of consistency, and partly because hooks often lose purchase in their weak mouths after seizure-like headshakes. Patience and a loosened drag can help.

A big draw for me is witnessing the overall natural spectacle that is taking place; a convergence of fish, shorebirds, and arthropods that has occurred here each spring for millennia. Also, when everything lines up in your favor, you can experience a window of unparalleled action. Waves of weakfish charging up the beach and multiple rods bending in unison. A brief period with a bite so intense that you better make sure your offering is in the water and swimming well. 

We were fortunate to experience two evenings like that recently, where for about 30 minutes it was lights-out action. Up and down the waterline, all you saw were anglers in various stages of hooking, fighting, or beaching weakfish. I landed more in one trip than I had in multiple years. Some of them hit my jig only a rod's length from my feet. It was nutty for a little while and then it wasn't. That's the way it goes sometimes. And the more time you put in, the better the odds you'll eventually stumble into events like that. I am just glad that I was a small part of it, standing there right next to my uncle.

Winter Nights

On cold, dark nights during winter—after work, dinner, dishes, bath and bedtime—now and again I descend to the basement. Down the stairs, past the finished area strewn with toys, through a door and into a slice of cellar left untouched. It’s unheated, dimly lit, and all mine. A shrine to my hobbies, almost every inch of the room is covered with something outdoors-related. A cement-floor sanctuary to unwind, tinker, and prepare for trips and seasons to come.

A simple workbench is the heart of the room. Above it a pegboard adorned with dozens of wooden plugs and plastic lures—some more worn than others, but each tell a story. They hang upside down by their rear hook in two neat rows; organized first by type, then by color. Some nights I’ll swap out old, rusty hooks for fresh ones or take random lures off the wall and inspect them like a kid does his army men. It’s reassuring in a way to handle artificial lures in winter while thinking of tides I’ll cast them come summer. Some nights I’ll hover over the bench and snell hooks or tie leaders and tuck them in individual baggies. Better to do it now than rushing before a fishing trip.

Next to the workbench is an old, fold-out wooden desk. It’s been furnished into a fly-tying station with a daylight lamp, making it the brightest spot in the room when it’s on. The desktop has open cigar boxes stuffed with various spools of thread, wire, and lead. It’s flanked by plastic organizers on either side with drawers chockfull of tying materials. Oftentimes I’ll sit at the vise, usually with a bourbon, or lately tequila, and fill voids in my fly boxes of proven patterns that I lost too many of. While tying this winter, instead of listening to playlists, I’ve been enthralled with an audiobook, Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary, by Joe Jackson. It’s a fascinating biography of the Sioux healer and holy man, and a sad reminder of some dark times in our nation’s history.  

A collection of fishing rods stretches the entire length of another wall. A few of them are long, one-piece surfcasting rods, so it’s helpful to have a full walk-out door at the head of the room with easy access to my truck—a far cry from the situation when living on the third-floor of my in-laws for two years (the cooking was top-shelf, but getting a 10 footer up two flights at 2 a.m. took practice). Most of the rods have reels attached and rigged from the last time they saw action. Near the door on the floor is a large Jet Sled laden with stickers and packed to the gills with ice fishing gear. It has a hole in one of the back corners, but I haven’t sprung for a plastic welding kit to fix it. The ice gear hasn’t seen much activity this winter, but I’m not packing it away just yet. Eventually it will hang in the rafters out of sight until next November, when optimism is once again renewed for a proper hardwater season.

On the opposite wall are two metal shelving racks full of tackle boxes, plug bags, storage bins, camping equipment, and a cache of artifacts I’ve found at ancient Native American campsites and villages around the area. Much of it is debitage, sharp-edged waste material left behind when indigenous people knapped stone such as flint or quartz into tools. But some of the pieces are broken or unfinished projectile points and scrapers that weren’t quite good enough to make their way upstairs into my shadowbox table with the showpiece stuff. There are nights I’ll just go through this pile of flakes and chipped stone, sorting and studying them, and thinking how cool it is that someone else held them thousands of years ago. 

Yet another section of the room is taken up by a bait freezer, buckets, nets, walking sticks, coolers, and a clothing rack on wheels from which hangs fly fishing packs, waders, wetsuits, and a myriad of bibs and jackets. In the corner, from the ceiling, hangs my fishing bike; an old beater that is spray-painted black and customized with two rod-holders, basket, and rear rack. It doesn’t get used as much as it could, but the bike is ready to spring to life for a Canal trip or a ninja mission to a private stretch of shoreline.

The room is not big by any means, yet its space is certainly maximized. Not much bare wall space is left—some of the last of it used for a framed photograph of my largest bluefish, caught and released on a September night 14 years ago. The plug that fooled that fish, a white Atom 40, is wired to the frame below the picture, full of teeth mark battle scars. On nails in the concrete block hang lanterns, chaffed leaders, and antique cookware, and sprinkled around the room are retired flies or lures, fishing keepsakes from a time gone by.

In spring, summer, and fall, there are plenty of nights I run down to the basement only to grab gear and go—I won’t think twice about tinkering with tackle or tying flies. But in winter, when the cold is numbing and wind is honking, on occasion I get the urge to spend hours in the place carved out for the things I love to do. Whether it’s a garage, trophy room, attic, tying room, or mancave, every outdoorsman has a special spot they store the things they are passionate about. I’m fortunate for mine.

Stepped In It

Editor’s note: One morning a few weeks back I was sitting at work when I got a text from a buddy of a false albacore laying on a slab of granite. We didn’t know it at the time, but Aaron Swanson was putting together one of the best fishing outings of his life, all to himself, on a day where he originally set out to do something completely different. That’s how it goes sometimes. In this guest post, Aaron takes us through that memorable day on the rocks. 

I rolled up to the launch at 5:50.  There wasn’t a single boat trailer in the lot. Not a great sign.  A stiff breeze hit me as I stepped out of my car.  Shit.  The wind I’d hoped wouldn’t be as bad as forecast was worse instead.  I’d been keeping an eye on weather predictions since the previous day, counting on a four or five-hour window before things got really nasty and the seas built beyond a point I’d feel safe in a kayak.  The sweet smell of saltwater and baitfish driving into my nostrils provided me with a reality check.  I was not going to have a comfortable window.

In the darkness I noticed a single truck in the lot on my way in, but didn’t see the guy approaching until he was right on top of me.  He was eager to talk. He had been there since five hoping for a quick window before he had to work.  Like me, he checked the weather and saw the morning as his only shot for the rest of the week.  He fished the spot regularly and we were there to angle for the same little bonito that had taken up residence in the area.  We compared notes.  I asked the question I already knew the answer to. 

“No albies,” he said. 

The guy glanced up at the kayak lashed down to my roof rack. “If you can hear the waves in here, it’s that much worse out there,” he said, turning his gaze toward the islands sheltering us from the full extent of the blow. 

“I’ve got a Hobie Pro-Angler 12,” he said. 

“I’m sure you love it,” was my overtly jealous reply.  We went on to talk gear and other kinds of fishing.  I finally looked sheepishly up at my buddy’s wife’s kayak up on my roof. 

“Yeah, I’m just getting into the kayak thing fishing-wise,” I said.  After a few more pleasantries, he was off.  Headed to work.  A fishless morning.

I stood there alone, the wind’s chill suddenly apparent. I hopped back in my vehicle, stared at the chop lapping against the boats swaying in the marina, and contemplated my next steps. I hadn’t seriously considered an alternative plan to the kind of fishing I’d come to do.  I thought hard about taking the kayak off the roof and paddling out to the cut to get my own read on how uncomfortable the current conditions would be in my loaned, sit-in kayak.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would only be a waste of time.

I threw a shore-casting rod in the car the night before, yet wasn’t outfitted for a day of full-on surfcasting.  I had Crocs on. While I knew a few spots where I might have a chance at some bonito from shore, the prospect of that working out was moderate at best.  My thoughts changed direction completely.  After all, I really wanted to catch albies but their sporadic appearances over the last few weeks didn’t present many good bets.  I needed to do some driving.  I’d head to a place that I’d heard barely a positive word about in weeks.  At least I could fish there in Crocs. 

Flags that looked like they were stapled to sheet of plywood greeted me. The new destination proved to have even snottier conditions than I left back home. A couple of guys coming back to their cars from first-light forays didn’t have good news.  Their slumped shoulders and slow steps told the story before they opened their mouths. 

 “A lot of birds,” one guy said.

“Just birds,” I asked?

“Just birds,” he nodded.

I strung up the shore rod, threw on an extra layer and headed out.  The mat gray sky hid whatever was left of the sunrise.  When I hit the beach and climbed up on the wall of rocks the full force of the southwest wind hit me.  This was big water.  The swell was wind-whipped and the chop broke in little patches of whitewater that would obscure the pops splashes and porpoises I’d be looking for.  I encountered a couple guys catching school bass and cocktail blues as I hopped along the huge stones.  That kind of activity didn’t stop me from my mission out to the end of the pile.

There were a few anglers out at the end.  Some younger guys, also hooking small bluefish, and an older gentlemen who was struggling with his bottom fishing.  He had to work to keep his rig from washing back into the rocks or fouling with weed.  Eyeing my rig, he asked what I was there to catch.

“Bonito, I guess,” I said.

He chuckled. “No bonito here since first week of September,” he told me.  

I could only laugh.  While I was skeptical of the veracity of his statement, it sure did seem dead out there. I hung around for a while.  The older gentlemen told me what he’d caught earlier in the week. Told me the wind and the waves were bad.  He asked about my lure, hung up on my rod’s collector guide and where I’d bought it.  An hour passed without a cast.  I watched the younger anglers continue to catch bluefish and stuff them in a big black garbage bag. 

The heaving gray-green water, salty breeze, and bird activity were all pleasant to take in but I started to get bored of standing and waiting.  I tied on a small swimming plug like those the guys were getting blues on and made my way back towards shore.  Every few stones I stopped to cast and contemplate.   The retrieves with the plug found no takes.  I wasn’t that surprised, I wasn’t really invested.  My thoughts turned to what I might try next.  About a third of the way back on the jetty, I noticed what could have been few funny pops on the surface.  It was hard to say looking at the merengue whipped tops of the big rollers but it was enough to focus my attention. 

I watched a while longer, figuring my mind was playing tricks on me, seeing what I wanted it to see. It wasn’t, there they were.  False albacore.  A good-sized school porpoised through the wave tops, their pace and direction deliberate.  I cast at them with the SP Minnow I’d tied on looking for a consolation catch.  The wind knocked it right down, easily fifteen yards short of where the lure needed to land to intercept them.  A second attempt with the plastic swimmer also failed to reach but at least they were here. 

Turning my back to the wind, I tied up a new leader and proper tin.  I knew if I couldn’t see the fish feeding I’d be more likely to take my time and tie good knots.  I turned back around bail open, rod cocked, 60-gram white Colt Sniper ready to fire.  The fish had gone down.  I waited and walked farther out on the jetty following the path the fish had taken.  They were up again, back where they started and headed my way.  I waited until they were in range to cast.  Within three cranks of the reel handle, I was on.

I’m hooked into a little tunny and I wish I had a picture of my face because the shit-eating grin I had on had to be huge.  We had a good albie fight.  I made my way down the ice-slick rocks below the water line, grabbed my leader and hoisted my first false albacore of 2019 up on the rocks.  The colors on the fish buzzed electric blue and green like a neon window sign.  As I took a moment to appreciate and document the fish, it was hard to ignore the continued surface feed happening right in front of me.  I got the fish unhooked, tossed it back and was into another within seconds.  That fish, with a spirited effort late in the fight, managed to ride a wave into the rocks.  As I slid down to retrieve it, the leader parted from the tin.  The time it took to tie on a new one was the only thing that slowed me from hooking, playing and landing my next fish.  Another followed immediately after that.

The fishing was red hot, like you read about.  Other than one guy I could see a ways back down the jetty furiously cranking a lure, I had these fish to myself.  There were a lot of them.  They were unbothered and feeding on the surface for long periods.   One specimen coughed up some evidence as to why they might have been so easy to fool.  They were feeding on all kinds of fare—spearing, squid, tiny bay anchovies.  The bait buffet precluded their often-picky predicament and led to the easiest albie fishing I had ever experienced.  A well-timed cast and a fast retrieve were all it took to hook up. 

By now, the group of younger anglers had figured out what was going on and although they had the right lures to get the job done, they weren’t hooking up.  After crossing lines with my new friends a couple of times (twice during fighting fish) I noticed they were tying their braided line directly to their baits.  Even though these fish were gorging and unpicky, they were still albies after all.  I asked the guy I was tangled with if they had any fluorocarbon.  He indicated they were without leader material of any kind so I cut him a six feet of twenty-pound fluoro and told him to cut it into three two-foot sections. 

I went back about catching fish in between dodging spray and keeping an eye out for any especially large waves.  The beginning of the outgoing tide pushing against the wind had really stood the water up.  The conditions were as exhilarating as the fishing.  The sun broke through the clouds for a short while.  Now I could see schools of fish riding through the waves chasing bait.  There were dead squid everywhere, carried along the current.  I witnessed one of the coolest hits I’ve ever experienced.  I saw a fish break from the school to chase down my lure.  When it caught up with it, the fish stopped on a dime, twisting sideways in the illuminated emerald water and exploded in a silver flash as my drag sang.

I started to realize I was approaching landing double-digit numbers of fish, not something I’d experienced before.  I’d had solid albie fishing from the rocks but the catch rate I was experiencing was downright ridiculous.  At some point after I reached and exceeded the landmark, I looked over to see the guys I’d given leader material to now hooked up and playing fish.  They were yelling excitedly to each other.  Wide smiles gave away their amazement at seeing the drags on their reels scream faster than what I could guess was anything they had ever experienced. They weren’t yelling like that when they were bailing bluefish earlier in the morning.

The onset of mid-day brought about some changes.  More anglers showed up.  Fish were breaking into smaller pods.  The feeds changed, surface attacks were less deliberate and more frenzied.  This was starting to look more like typical albie fishing I was accustomed to seeing.  Observation, rather than rushed casting, revealed patterns the schools were following.  I changed position and watched the fish do big figure eights along the jetty.  As I picked away at a few more fish, I found a surprise.  What I thought to be a small albie turned out to be a bonito, the species I’d originally intended to target when I’d left the house that morning.  That catch really felt like a cherry on top of an already impressive day.

By the time I landed what was my biggest fish of the day, the bite and conditions had grown challenging.  The good casts that were sure to connect hours earlier were now ignored.  The dropping tide left the water level lower against the rocks.  This change in angle combined with the heavy breeze and swell, made it difficult to put an accurate cast on feeding fish and keep your lure in the water for most of the retrieve.   I watched the increasing number of anglers cast, fly and spin, their presentations untouched.  Nobody was hooking up. 

I ventured back out toward the tip of the jetty to see if getting away from the crowd would help, but the scene was same.  Picky fish.  Tough conditions.  I encountered a fly guy on my way back.  He told me that the fish had lockjaw.  He said it didn’t matter he was throwing flies “this big” motioning a microscopic size with his fingers.   

“It sucks,” he said carrying on his way.

I didn’t have the heart nor the want to tell him what he’d missed that morning.  I’d caught 14 or 15 albies depending on if we’re counting the one lost to the rocks.  The bonito was the icing on my day’s cake.  I told my wife the night before I’d pick the kids up from daycare and I still had a good walk and a better drive ahead of me.  I floated back over the boulders along the jetty.  Once past all the other anglers I stopped to look back, take a moment, reflect, and try to commit as much of what I had just experienced to memory.

On the drive home, I considered the trajectory of my day.  Starting in once place, ending in another.  In fishing, especially when alone, I try to walk a very fine line.  It’s important to have a program. Specific plans paired with experience and timely knowledge can make all the difference between skunks and memorable days.  The other side of that coin is willing to be flexible and take whatever the day throws at you.  I think about the guy I spoke to in the lot that morning.  The one with a vastly superior fishing platform to the one I planned to use.  Seeing him bail on the same plans I had was a sign for me to make another choice.  Thankfully, I was willing to pay attention and the choice I made led to one of the most fun days of fishing I’ve ever experienced.  Sometimes you just have to tip your cap and be grateful that you stepped in shit.

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.