Yak Toggin'

A relentless wind ushered in Connecticut's fall tautog season. Blowing hard from the west, it limited when, where, and how anglers could target blackfish in the Sound for days on end. The only calm window during opening weekend was supposed to be early Sunday morning. The wind was predicted to subside for a few hours before ramping up again as it shifted east. I loaded up my kayak and gave it a go. 

A stunning dawn sky made the trip even before wetting a line. As I anchored to a familiar patch of rocks in around 15 feet of water, there was a magnificent sunrise at my back and an unexpected pillar of light along the shoreline to my front—an A+ start to the morning.

It was a high incoming tide and my game plan was to jig crabs with the lightest weight I could get away with. Lucky for me, a pile of sizeable blackfish was parked on the structure directly below. Vertical jigging from a kayak oddly reminds me of jigging through the ice—I'm crazy about it. On the very first drop with a small green crab, and every drop after that, the action was immediate. Within 30 minutes of fishing, I had a limit of 16" to 18" tautog bleeding out on my stringer. 

While still relatively early at this point, the wind was changing and I didn't want to be on the water much longer. At the same time, I had a solid bite going and felt the urge to hold out longer for a larger specimen. I put the Asian crabs aside and reached for one of the last few greenies. The age-old 'big bait, big fish' theory was to be tested again. 

When I set the hook on the next good hit, it soon became apparent that this tog was in a different class than the rest. It was heavier, pulled harder, and peeled more line off my reel, yet I was lucky it stayed up and away from the craggy bottom. Though it wasn't a high bar to begin with, when the blackfish finally surfaced, it was clear this was my biggest ever of the species. I celebrated like it, too. 

It measured 22.5-inches long from its broom tail to its impressive crab-crushing mouth. Known to be slow-growers, this tog was likely older than my kids, and was getting released back into the gene pool whether I had my limit or not. It was a short trip and this was a hell of a note to end it on. The wind did eventually shift east and pick up substantially. A friend fishing one of the local breakwalls said it was blowing so hard that he had trouble staying anchored. 

With the fish I took home I was able to share a few filets with friends and family, as well as savor some ourselves. Later that night, in a cast iron pan on the grill, we fried tog nuggets for the kids and tog tacos for the adults. It was the icing on the cake of a truly memorable day.