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.

Little Tunny

Just as I'll always remember the first little tunny I ever caught back in 2009, I'll never forget my first one on the fly rod either. During a marathon day last fall, two seasoned anglers reintroduced me to the insanely addicting tug of false albacore. This year they were determined to get me out again under more favorable circumstances and I was hellbent on landing one on the fly. A few weeks ago, as the bite picked up in the waning days of summer, it was time for round two. 

On a crisp Monday morning, the three of us launched in Blaine's boat from Niantic and made a beeline eastward under a brightening sky. It didn't take long to find the telltale signs of false albacore feeding on small bait tight to shore. We were treated to quick glimpses of their green backs arching out of the water like porpoises. Unfortunately, gorging albies doesn't always translate into tight lines. They can become so dialed in on a specific food item like bay anchovies that anything but the real thing can go neglected. Downsizing offerings and tying them on light fluorocarbon lines can help, but it's far from a guarantee as we eventually accepted before moving to find less finicky fish.

Next we motored out to the waters around Fisher's Island and started making long drifts in rip currents adjacent to the island. Small pods of little tunny were popping up here and there, but never in the same place twice. They were up and down so fast that we only had one shot per encounter if a well-placed cast was made. Heavier offerings like Deadly Dicks, Shimano Waxwings and Sebile Magic Swimmers were able to reach fish busting on the far outskirts of the rip, while lighter, more erratic soft-plastic baits like Albie Snax and Zoom Super Flukes worked wonders when they were close to the boat. It's nice having a half dozen fishing rods on the boat, all rigged with a slightly different offering, to help figure out what the albies wanted most.

  

We caught more false albacore in that first hour on the water than we did during the entire trip last year. It was not what one would consider a hot and heavy bite, but we came across surfacing fish at nearly every spot we visited. Like the little tunny, we did a lot of moving around that day, eventually putting over 100 miles on the boat by day's end!  



(Photo credit: Blaine Anderson)



(Photo credit: Blaine Anderson)

 

(Photo credit: Blaine Anderson)





Every time we cut the engine and drifted close enough to a patch of boiling water, I reached for the long rod and tried like hell to place a fly into the melee. I am far from Lefty Kreh when it comes to casting a fly line, but it's not just about distance in this game, accuracy is important too. I had to guess what direction the albies were moving and attempt to lead the fish with my fly. Many times frustration ensued and I picked up the spinning rod again and joined my partners in the feeding frenzy. After a while of that, I stopped reaching for the crutch.

At the very last stop of the day, we were greeted by hundreds of fish smacking bait on the surface with birds working overhead. The problem was that the vast majority of them were bluefish around two pounds each. Every so often, you could make out the more pronounced splash of an albie mixed in, but getting to them before being whacked by a bluefish was difficult. I sacrificed several flies to their sharp teeth before coming tight with my prize. There was no mistaking what I had hooked, as it ripped line of my reel at a dizzying rate and had me into the oh shit! backing in seconds. It was a long fight, much longer than it took to wear them out on spinning gear, and at times it felt like my rod could snap as the albie bulldogged towards bottom under the boat. 

The most dangerous part of the fight came near its end, when I reeled my long leader through the guides of the rod. Another run could have spelled trouble at this point, but Andrew tail-grabbed it perfectly. I clenched the rod in my teeth and cradled the still-pulsating fish in my hands before firing it like a dart back into the water. I'm sure little tunny are fun to fight no matter what tackle you choose to catch them on, but battling one on the fly rod was the ultimate sense of accomplishment for me. It was something I am still proud of and will be for a long time to come.

(Photo credit: Blaine Anderson)

 

(Photo credit: Blaine Anderson)



 

It's not hard to comprehend the fascination that certain anglers in the Northeast have with these speedsters. For a fish that makes poor table fare and rarely surpasses 20-pounds, it's the false albacore's amazing fighting abilities, coupled with their brief stay here each year, that has earned them their popular reputation. As soon as an albie realizes it's hooked, an unearthly power is exerted from its aerodynamic body and a hard tuna tail propels it through the water at torpedo-like speeds. If you ever want to test the drag of a fishing reel, this is a good candidate for the job. They are a fish purely unmatched in speed and strength for its size. 

Yak Attack

Before this week, the only time I've fished from a kayak was for roosterfish in Costa Rica. That all changed Thursday when I witnessed local pods of bunker getting ripped apart by bluefish and striped bass just out of casting range from the beach. A major thunderstorm had just passed through and the radar now looked clear for the evening. I sped home and hastily put my father's ocean kayak into service. This beast of a kayak is not intended for fishing, but it would have to do under the circumstances. A buddy helped me launch it and also used binoculars from shore to assist in locating the traveling melee.

Using a weighted treble hook, it was hard to miss while snagging through the schools of bait. As soon as I would hook a bunker, I would let it swim around, all the while bleeding and attracting predators. It didn't take long for customers to find my baits.  However, I missed the first few takers, most certainly bluefish, as my bunker came back missing their lower halves.  While you always hear anglers say "don't leave fish to find fish", my buddy yelled from shore that he spotted a much larger pod of boiling fish about 150 yards away.  I put down the rod and picked up the paddle and got to work.  What the kayak lacked in maneuverability, it made up in speed.  I reached the next spot in no time and was in business as soon as my line hit the water. 

The next two hours were a bloody blur. There were gator bluefish demolishing bunker all around me and occasionally you could hear the telltale slurp of a bass that was picking up the scraps. I hooked, landed and lost enough 10 to 13-pound bluefish to last me a season, but it was bass that I was really after. During one hook-up, a heavy fish was fighting back unlike the others. Instead of violent head shakes, there were steady bulldogging pulls toward the bottom--I knew it was a striper. Sure enough, after a good battle I had a respectable linesider boat-side and I let out a victory whoop that fell on deaf ears. A few sailboats circled me enjoying the show, but I couldn't believe there were no boat anglers cashing in on the blitz. Tired, smelly and without sufficient lights, I left the fish biting as dark settled in. I made the paddle back to shore for a hero's welcome from shore-bound anglers who could only watch. I was a happy man and was sold on the kayak. Without one that day, I, too, would have been chomping at the bit from the beach. Needless to say, a fishing kayak of my own has been added to the wish list.   

This trip cemented the fact that I "need" a kayak more suited to fishing and a video camera that mounts to a hat. Here is the usable footage that I captured with a hand-held camera during all the craziness. Crank up the volume and enjoy!

Sunset Blues

If there was ever a perfect time to be boat fisherman, it is during the dog days of summer when the relentless heat has most striped bass and bluefish hanging in deeper water. Surf fishing has been brutal as of late around here, so when a friend asked if I was up for a boat ride after work I jumped at the chance. 

Pods of bunker have been getting slashed by bluefish not far to our east, with striped bass underneath cleaning up the mess. As we approached a known bunker hangout, two boats boats were drifting with their own pod of the nervous baitfish. Big blues were cutting through balls of bait, sending bunker leaping out of the water left and right. An all-out massacre was going on and the sound of thousands of bunker moving in unison to avoid a sudden attack was intense. We picked a school and proceeded to snag and live-line them. As soon as a bunker was hooked and tossed back into the thick of things, it was instantly ripped to shreds. The only time we weren't catching was when the boat drifted too far from the chaos, and then we'd just motor back into position again. For an hour and a half this went on right until last light. While we didn't land any bass, one unlucky bunker came back to the boat mangled and lacking teeth marks--a sure sign that it had been crunched by a striper. It didn't much matter; with a bloody boat and a smiling crew, the hard fighting bluefish were were more than enough to keep us content.