Out Front

It felt good to break free from the tidal rivers on Monday evening and fish the open Sound for my first time this season. I was aboard my buddy Mike's boat of Reel Cast Charters. He'd been on a solid bite for a week leading up to our trip, with catches including striped bass up to 32-pounds and two elusive weakfish. It was shaping up to be a gorgeous night as we launched in the western Sound around dinner time. We made a B-line to a popular weakfish spot to try for a unicorn and saw a couple dozen casters lining the shoreline. I have never caught a squeteague before and, while reports this year have been better than the last few, my luck wouldn't change on this outing either. Instead my first several bluefish of the season jumped all over the metal spoons and plastic swimmers that were intended for a more prized catch. Nonetheless, it was still fun to have the toothy critters back on the scene.

Once the we had our fill of the blues, we shot out to deeper water and focused on throwing top-water lures around rocky structure. Mike had a boil on his spook right away so we knew there were fish around. We kept at it for a while and he finally stuck a nice bass right before dark. The nearly 20-pound striper fought very well and was incredibly clean and bright having just made its way in from the Atlantic Ocean.

Once the sun went down, we switched tactics and began drifting eels along the same structure. The wind and tide combination created a quick drift and we both missed some strikes while adjusting to it. Mike boated a few smaller keeper-sized bass and I struggled but enjoyed every second of it. We knew there were a lot more bass around than we were catching because we could hear them popping on small bait on the surface. After a while of no love with the live eels, I downsized to a slender swimming plug and drew a hit on my first cast. A short while later I nabbed my first striped bass of the season outside of a tidal river.

Losing the tide, we made a few more passes before heading back to the launch through a thick blanket of fog. I've been in fog like that before, but not always at night. It really dawned on me how crucial good electronics are to a boat captain in situations like those. And like someone flipped a light switch, poof!--the fog was gone as soon as we entered the harbor. Regardless of my subpar fishing performance, it was an awesome night on the water. It sure felt good to have the salt spray on my face again after a long winter. Here's to a great and safe season ahead!

Like Cordwood

Yesterday I took a ride to a Connecticut tidal river that pours into western Long Island Sound. The target species was fresh Atlantic herring that recently arrived here from offshore, as they do each winter. I can only imagine the challenges these silvery, foot-long fish encounter during their journeys at sea, only to come inshore and get pummeled by mergansers, seals and anglers like me.

Catching them can be fun and easy if your timing is right. The tide preferred by local herring sharpies is high outgoing, which happened to coincide with the warmest part of the day yesterday, though it was still bitter cold. Chemical hard-warmers helped keep me in the game, as did not touching the wet fish while shaking them off the hook. The mainstay method of catching herring on a rod and reel is with a Sabiki rig, which is basically a long leader with several little dropper hooks with glow beads and flash. At the bottom of the rig is usually tied a lead bank sinker that gives the desired casting distance and gets the offering down to the strike zone.

There were four of us on the rocks today, all strangers working in rhythm to fill our buckets. The process consisted of casting upstream on a current seam, letting the weight hit bottom and slowly reeling in. As the lead sinker bounced along the rocks and sand, the rig worked its magic in the current and herring latched on like it was their job. The fish tried like hell to dislodge the hooks from their paper-thin mouths by doing somersaults on their way in, but when one herring would pop off, another would grab hold. They were stacked like cordwood and we often caught multiple herring at a clip. I counted several doubles, a few triples and my eastern European neighbor had a lucky retrieve with four herring on at once!

I was a little unprepared today showing up with only one Sabiki rig. Not having a local tackle shop open near me due to the holidays, I decided to risk it and go anyway. Of course it didn't take long for my lone rig to get snagged in some riprap while pulling in a brace of herring. The line broke as I could still feel them trying to wiggle free. Thankfully a good Samaritan fishing next to me told me to grab a new rig out of his truck and I was soon back in line bailing fish. I owe him a hot cup of coffee for sure! I kept the good karma rolling by giving hand-warmers to one of the foursome that was going back and forth to his car to warm up. The small token was just enough to keep his fingers operable in the raw conditions.

The regular who spared an extra rig kept telling me the bite would slow down as the tide dropped, but it never happened. After a busy couple of hours, I bid my new jigging friends farewell and left the fish biting. I finished with a total of 54 morsels up to 13-inches long; by far my best day of that type of fishing. And while I won't be eating any of them, I never met a fish that didn't like herring! They will serve as fresh bait for a long time to come.  

Late Season Stripes

I recently had the pleasure of fishing with Captain Chris Elser, a big bass specialist with over 40 years experience in the western Sound. We launched right at the start of the outgoing tide during a morning window between rain storms. There was zero wind; perfect conditions for the fly rod. Not far from the launch we spotted birds working a patch of water where schoolie stripers were crashing on small baitfish. The fish finder was lit up for the next hour. White flatwings fooled several stripers under two-feet in length and one of keeper size was lost right at the boat. We tried culling out some bigger fish with large soft plastic baits and top-water plugs, but nobody was home. I had a bite taken out of a 14-inch pink Hogy so there's at least one bluefish still hanging around. It was a fun few hours to say the least and it felt great connecting with bass on the fly again. It's not quite over out there yet and don't rule out a late push of migratory stripers gorging on sea herring before ice season kicks in.