Taste of Summer

An 11:30 a.m. low tide and 50-degree air temp helped form my decision. The plan was to rake local quahogs for a Sunday feast of stuffed clams and clams casino. After having success at this particular spot in September, confidence was high that I would find hard shells where I left them. That morning I layered up like it was a winter steelhead trip and waded into the 41-degree Long Island Sound. 

The tool for this is a long-handled rake with steel tines protruding from a wire basket on its business end. When the tines come in contact a clam, there is a distinct feel and sound that helps differentiate between a quahog and say a rock or empty shell. Let me cut to the chase and admit that I didn't hear any good sounds while raking that morning. I tried out deep, in shallow, and even on an exposed flat at dead low tide. For more than an hour, I moved all over the place and used muscles I didn't know I had, yet never zeroed in on where the bivalves were burrowed. 

One thing I learned is that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to clamming. Perhaps they were in water deeper than I could wade. Or maybe the clams were buried deeper in the sand and mud than the rake could reach. This is not a heavily pressured area, so I know it hasn't been picked over. Wherever they were, it wasn't where they were just a few months ago.

On to plan B. 

There was just enough time to call an audible. My wife and daughters were coming to meet me and friends at the beach for lunch. I reached them before they left the house and requested another tool for a different kind of clamming. Soft shells, affectionately known by many as "steamers", are also found in this general vicinity, but in a precise area buried under a specific substrate. 

While the quahogs here live in soft sand and mud in open water, the steamers prefer life under a rocky bar that extends perpendicular to the beach. Getting at them requires a short-handled tool, like a garden claw or trowel. Instead of wading and raking in water, this method consists of kneeling and digging on dry land during the low tide window. My tactic is to throw a heavy rock on the bar to see where the soft shells spit sea water from their siphons. In the summer, one toss of a softball-sized rock could unleash several clues on where to pinpoint digging efforts. On this day, nothing. Zip. Nada. 

Instead of calling it quits, I dug a trench where they'd normally be and, sure enough, I found one about six inches down. It was a slow slog, but I kept at it and they came in small bunches of two or three every couple minutes. It was hard work for an appetizer, but I was pot committed (pun intended). The take home count was around 50 steamers, which is a perfect quantity for our family of four. Everyone was happy for a taste of summer; broth, butter and all. 

While I didn't come home empty handed, I did strike out on my original plan. Winter clamming for quahogs is something I'd really like to focus on. It goes to show, no matter how much time we spend on the water, there will always be so much more to learn. 

Summer Daze

Time is flying by at mach speed. Back in May our family was blessed with another baby girl. She's growing like a weed and doing new things everyday. She also makes it three girls vs. one guy in our household. While heavily outnumbered, I'm holding my own and still getting on the water when I can. It's been a fun summer so far and we're about to kick it up a notch with a trip to Cape Cod tomorrow--it's become a great tradition and one we hope to continue for many years. Enjoy your families and fish when you can.

Time Of The Season

Family, friends, fishing, fireflies, beach days, Wiffle ball, shish kabobs, steamers, cold beer; these are just a handful of things I look forward to every summer. And, as usual, summer is cruising along at warp speed, so I recommend sitting back and soaking it all in before autumn is at our doorstep. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing; part of the allure of New England is the changing of the seasons and I can rattle of a dozen things I love about fall in short order. 

Nothing screams summer like a delicious bowl of freshly dug steamers.

As far as fishing goes, the story of the summer so far, at least locally, has been bunker; lots and lots of bunker. Many old salts around here say this is the most they've seen in a long time, which is great to hear. Unfortunately, for the most part, striped bass and bluefish haven't got the memo, yet that is, as big pods of the baitfish are milling around Long Island Sound virtually unnoticed by predators. Maybe it's because there are so many bunker schools that bass and blues can pick and choose which ones they want to harass. However, large gator blues are now starting to show up in better numbers and I think that's just what we need to concentrate these various bait schools and jump start the all-you-can-eat bunker buffet. Hopefully they stick around for a while and, barring a mass die-off, we could be in for one interesting fall... 

Dark, nervous patches of water amidst a sea blue are sure signs of schools of menhaden.

The stealthiness of a kayak allows one to more easily sneak up on pods of bait being harassed by bass and blues.

 

A midday striper plucked from underneath a bunker school.

One lazy Sunday in early July, I launched a kayak alone in western Long Island Sound. With zero wind or chop, the Sound looked more like a pond that afternoon, which made it easier spotting the dozens of different bait balls churning the water like butter. I paddled passed a few smaller pods until I saw the mother lode drifting towards me with the incoming tide. Within the middle of this dark patch of water I could hear welcomed signs of predators feeding. Thousands of menhaden rapidly jolting in unison as bluefish slashed through made loud, piercing "WHOOOSH" sounds. It was music to my ears.

I quickly let loose my weighted treble hook into the fray, took one crank of the reel and reared back my rod, instantly snagging an unlucky bunker. With a now-bleeding baitfish doing the work for me, I drifted with the slowly moving school until the unmistakable machine gun tap of a bluefish vibrated through my braided line. I set the hook and was happily treated to a brief Long Island Sound version of a "Nantucket Sleigh Ride," as my kayak was towed by the bulldog of a blue.The rest of the outing was rather anticlimactic with a keeper-sized striped bass fighting like a wet sock in comparison to the yellow-eyed demon. Predominantly a surfcaster, it's always fun for me to get in a yak and access normally hard-to-reach areas or to action that is out of casting range from shore.

Menhaden so densely packed that their yellow forked tails are breaching the water's surface.

Chunking with a fresh bunker head can be the ticket when live-lining is not getting the job done.

The influx of bunker locally has also made for a few good nights of chunking from shore. Not everyone is a fan of waiting for a fish to pick-up a cut piece of bait off bottom, but this isn't your father's way of chunking either. There is no spiking the rod, swilling beers or sitting down; the rod is always held in your hand and every little bump is felt, from spider crabs latching on your offering to a passing bunker brushing your line. When it comes to bait, it pays to be fresh. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a bait snob - if it's not same-day caught and stored on ice, I don't want it on the end of my line. You know when you have fresh bunker because it will retain its slime coat and have a distinct crunch when cut with a knife. The head with an inch or so of meat hanging of the back is the preferred piece; the rest is either used for chum or saved for reserves.

Put a fresh bunker head on your hook and hold on.

My biggest striped bass of the year so far was hooked and lost while chunking one night in the western Sound. Two friends and I went a few hours without a bite before I blurted out "well, tonight's not our night." As soon as the words left my lips, a fish picked-up my head piece and the Baitrunner let out a sound we all love to hear "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!" I engaged the reel and laid back on something heavy on the other end. It took a few slow runs straight out before heading left towards trouble. Looking back, I think I could have horsed her in a little more with the setup I was using, but hindsight is always 20/20. It was dead high tide and the bass went directly over a rocky point that is exposed during low tide. I know exactly what erratic boulder sliced my braid like hot butter and left me wondering how big the fish I lost really was. They didn't all get away. My buddy Jason landed and released some nice stripers over the last few weeks, which was fun to be a part of. 

Jason reaping the results.

Releasing to be caught another night.

If' I'm not using bunker on hot summer nights then it's another form of bait, American eels. I own more artificial lures than I care to count, but it's a rare outing when I don't have an eel, live or dead, on my person. Simply put, our quarry have a hard time resisting them. It's pretty damn cool trapping eels in harbors and tidal creeks, but I also get my kicks off cherry-picking them from local bait shops. They are like slimy confidence in a black bucket. While it's been far from a banner season size-wise for our crew up to this point, most of the decent fish we have taken have come on eels.

This 28-pound bass sucked down an eel on the first cast of the night (Photo credit: Aaron Swanson)

Kurt with a beautiful 33-pounder  (Photo credit: Derrick Kirkpatrick)

A short swim enabled a shot at this late-night bass (Photo credit: Derrick Kirkpatrick).

Derrick releasing another nice eel-caught bass

This 15-pound blue fought nearly as good as it tasted  (Photo credit: Derrick Kirkpatrick)

A nice first-light striper before heading to work.

A rare boat-caught bass from a local reef (Photo credit: Curt Johnson)

As the saying goes, if fishing was just about catching fish, I would have stopped going a long time ago. It's not hard seeing the positive in a fishless outing when we put ourselves in such awesome situations. Whether fishing at daybreak, sundown or in the heart of darkness, there is always something that stops me in my tracks while retrieving a cast and reaffirms my love for this sport and the great outdoors.

Mosey showing off her casting skills on a local sandbar.

A spectacular sunset over Milford harbor.

Steamers

A seafood lover I have always been and shellfish are near the top of my list. With last weekend being the unofficial start to summer, I set out to harvest some of my favorite treats from Long Island Sound. My first experience digging clams last year yielded a decent appetizer, but nothing like what friends and I uncovered during two recent low tides. The amount of soft-shell clams for the taking was quite impressive and kept our time on the rocks and mud to a minimum, which was a good thing as the digging and bending over can take a toll on your back. The most productive method for us was using a pitch fork for breaking the hard surface, then a smaller claw for picking through the mud and rock piles. We took home 60 on the first trip and broke triple digits on day two.  Needless to say, both sides of my family ate well over the weekend. Steamers always taste great, but they seem that much better when you dig them yourself.

Photo credit: Alex Moe

A Shore Thing

Long Island Sound has sparked quite a few hobbies of mine over the years, one of which is beach combing for sea glass. I love walking the shoreline on a dropping tide and picking up decades-old shards of frosted glass worn down by the elements. While glass is the most common thing I pick up at the beach, on occasion I'll hit the jackpot with something much older and more rare, Native American artifacts. It is not always easy determining what is a stone tool or not after hundreds, if not thousands, of years tumbling in the surf. Glass is much easier to spot, but uncommon colors like shades of blue, red, purple, and yellow are the coveted pieces. Sea glass is cool to give as gifts to friends and I am sitting on a stockpile at home that I'd like to turn into jewelry someday and make a buck or two. My younger brother and I visited a sea glass hotspot yesterday. We filled two 30-gallon bags with trash before the karma bank coughed up this nice find below. 

Later that day I kept the shore theme going and tried something I had been meaning to for a long time, clamming! As a seafood lover, it only seems natural that I hunt and gather my own on occasion. Whether it's bluefish or blue crab, the meal always tastes better when you catch it and cook it yourself. Soft-shell clams (a.k.a. steamers) are a favorite summertime appetizer in New England and beyond. As with many types of harvesting from the Sound, successful shell-fishing requires good location. I stumbled upon a productive spot just by watching veteran clammers fill their buckets each weekend. Shellfish regulations vary from town to town, so be sure to check your municipality's website before heading out. Clean water is a must for safe human consumption and without recent heavy rains, we had a perfect window give it a shot.

Soft-shell clams from Long Island Sound

The tools for digging steamers are easily attainable; a garden or spading fork, work gloves, a pad to kneel on, and a bucket.  The tasty bivalves are sometimes called "piss clams" for good reason, as their long necks or siphons, used to filter water for food, give up their location by squirting water when pressure is applied to the ground around them. Shell-fishermen simply throw rocks or bang their tools against the mud to locate their pissing quarry. Soft-shell clams have, you guessed it, soft shells, so be careful not to break them while digging. They are usually not much deeper than six inches and are often found in bunches. We dug more than five dozen clams in one afternoon session--not bad for a couple of rookies.   

An afternoon's haul of steamer clams

The clams should be kept in a bucket of saltwater so they can filter out the sand inside their shells. A few water changes and an overnight soak is ideal, but there is at least one way to speed up the purging process.  I learned that by adding a cup of cornmeal to the bucket helps. Apparently the steamers filter the cornmeal laden water, which causes irritation and forces them to spit out any silt and sand quicker. Some seafood fans prefer the sandy grit when eating shellfish, but I gave the cornmeal a try and it worked quite well. A few water changes and some cornmeal and we had a ready-to-cook appetizer in a few hours time. The cooking process is the easiest part of the deal. Steam the clams in a pot with an inch or two of water (cup of beer optional) until the shells open wide. After that pour water from the pot into a bowl for a dipping broth. You can melt butter in another bowl for some added post-broth flavor, although these clams were so sweet they didn't need it!

There is no better appetizer for summer in New England