"Stripahs"

"Hey!  I've got an idea!  Let's go fishing together!"

"Sounds good to me, ties some flies with this feather!"

"I will, I'll make them look like squids."

"Good. I'll pick you up at the airport and we'll giggle like kids!"

"Get Wik down there too, he likes striped bass."

"No doubt, he'll be there when we arrive, likely half-drunk and on his ass!"

"Roger that.  Here's a picture of my box.  My fly box, that is."

"I like the looks of your box, sir.  Looks tasty to me.  A fine looking box it is!"

"Look at her!  I haven't seen her in years!"

"She's gorgeous, ain't she.  Almost brings me to tears!"

"There's a man casting down there; he looks to have a beard."

"Indeed he does.  I hear while fly fishing, he is to be feared."

"I can confirm such a claim, I have seen it first-hand."

"Same here.  Hey, what would you think if Darius and Ray combined and made a band?"



"Which one should I tie on?"
"I don't know, try this one.  It's made with hair from a fawn."
"Right on!  They should be able to see it, at the least."
"Oh they'll see it, and upon it they will feast!"
"I'll cast on this side, you take the other!"
"Oh shit, you hooked one!  Good one!  Now I'll catch his big brother!"

"There's one!  Did you see that?!"
"Oh my soul, it just destroyed fly, flat!"
"Let it run!  Keep it tight!  Pull on that thing!"
"I'm pulling!  Yeeeeeeaaaaaaa boy, listen to that reel sing!"

"First one to catch one gets a beer, eh!"
"I'm on sir, I'll take a cold IPA!"
"Ah, you've won, OK.  But look, I'm on now and I think mine's bigger!"
"I'm not so sure.  See if you can land that and then we'll figure!"

"Do you think that chick is hot?"
"Yes.  Do you or do you not?"
"I do not.  Ask me again in three beers."
"I'll ask you again in three years!"

"Hang on to your britches, big wave on its way."
"Move us thirty yards that way, wha'd'ya say?"
"10-4, here's your shot, make it count."
"On!  Y'know, I was thinking of someday getting a fish mount..."

"That's a good one, wha'd'ya say we bring one back for the boys?"
"Great idea, put him in the box and then hand me that fly box of toys."
"We should get some jalapenos for the ceviche tonight."
"Yea, that, and another thirty beers should make it just right!"

"Seen any?"
"A few, mostly going away.  Not many."
"They're in there though, eh?"
"For sure, tricky guys on the flat today."
"Well, at least it's not as windy as it was."
"Yup, casting into the wind blowin' right at ya, just 'cause."

"Well, we all got one, that's not bad."
"We usually do, I think.  Let's get back to the pad."
"Right on, time to settle into some dinner."
"To be sure, with all this good eats, I'm not getting thinner."

"We should do that again, captain."
"I agree, we tend to have a good time when we fish together, it's certain."
"Where to next?  BC?  OP?  NY?  Lots of places to see."
"All in due time, next up, the STP!"

Email:

Subject:  "It happens"
Body:  "i landed the fish that bent that hook.  it was only 20 pounds or so."

Back that BASS up!!

When the Tuna aren't willing to play, sometimes you just gotta bass...

....and we found some fatties!!

There are Stripes on that flag

HAPPY BELATED FORTH!

Company Party...Any Fish Out There?

Several times each year the guys I work with throw a shindig and we all get together to drink a few beers, eat some grub, and mingle with eathother's families. The last trip found us on the ice in January on Great Pond. We managed a few nice Pike and had a great time; this trip came together last minute and we all joined forces at Chris Burtis' place along the ocean in Brunswick where the New Meadows River meets the sea.

Chris and his wife purchased the house last fall and he had flogged the water without any fish coming to hand. Reports of Alewives busting around high tide were fresh in my brain but stripers have eluded me for several seasons. Bottom line, he and his two sons ages 10 & 12 wanted to know if it was possible to land a striper or if their attempts were a waste of time. Four men with extensive striper experience settled into their fishing formation at around 3p.m on the incoming tide.

A few rolling fish got our blood flowing and it wasn't long until the wand in my hand went tight on a Peanut Bunker pattern.
Chris was beside himself and to be honest, a 30 inch fish on the fly in Maine will put a smile on my face any day.
Troy poked around in his canoe with his daughter and managed to sting a fish on the fly that threw the hook. Others heaved top waters and soft plastics on spinning gear with little luck. One of my co-worker's 7 year old daughters struck next on a closed face zebco rod with a bobber and a bloodworm. The fish was large and the equipment too small, line broke, Amelia excited and undeterred kept on fishing. Max, another guy on my crew struck next on a soft plastic....2 fish to hand.
At this juncture the tide reached high slack and the fishing slowed. I hooked another fish that put on a nice 50 yard drag peeling run and threw the hook as it turned directly back in my direction. Maine stripers CAN still be caught, it just so happens that Chris's compound is a 30 yard hoof to his prime water dock, something I am quite jealous of. I will be back and River is giving it strong consideration!

Back In Action

Ice Water puts the COD back in Cape Cod with this 35 inch beauty caught while jiggin up stripers.


This was one of many stipers landed on the OI on a beautiful May weekend.

Striper Run

a nice specimen of the times. she's a bit smaller than some of the others we have been getting ourselves into...

Brooklyn Fishing Derby - Should We Field A BFC Team?

Esteemed BFC colleagues, news of the First Annual Brooklyn Fishing Derby made it to my inbox this morning, take a look at the website here. A pretty great idea, and run by a couple organizations I'm sad I'm just now hearing about. I've got a bit of free time coming up, so if anyone is in NYC (or coming to NYC) and wants to get involved in some urban fishing let me know and we can field a BFC in Brooklyn team.

Also, apart from the safe assumption that nothing lives in the Gowanus Canal– one of the most polluted waterways in America, which I live next to–I know very little about fishing in the city, so if you know of any good resources send them my way.

Fishing the Fishes with Pete

There is a place on Cape Cod where the water runs deep and fast. It is a mysterious place to me, perhaps because I have visited it only three times, two of which have been under the cover of night. To say the least, it is a little different environment from that which I usually find myself when fishing.

The amount of water that moves through this place is staggering, often scary. I usually feel somewhat uncomfortable when moving around, waist-deep in its currents. Pete can create a visual map of the place and while I can understand his descriptions, using this visual map to fishing advantage is something I am far from achieving. The objectives of each cast is determined by your place in the area and the time of each tide. When Pete puts me in a spot, explains to me what's directly in front of me, I can then attempt to achieve the casts I want, but whether or not I'm actually achieving them is something I'm still not certain of. It's a very difficult place to fish.

Sometimes just being instructed on how to fish a particular place will do. But I find that observing someone fishing that place is equally, if not more, beneficial to fishing it. For this reason, along with a touch of frustration, fatigue and a desire to converse, I would sit down behind or next to Pete and watch him fish. Pete has taken to the spinning rod. The spinning rod is something that feels foreign in my hands and as such, watching Pete use one is an education unto itself. I have spoken to Pete countless times over the past few summers and falls as to how our fishing has been. Usually these conversations deal with statistics (number of fish, size of fish, etc.) or a particularly good fishing story ("Are there any fish over here?" "Well that guy just got a 50 pounder..."). Much less often do our conversations turn towards actual technique, the flies/lures we've been using or the types of presentations we've been offering. Fishing with Pete Monday night, our conversations were probably 75% the latter.

At some point in the night, I was taking a break from my own fishing and watching Pete. I was happily bundled in waders and my jacket, resting on a very comfortable piece of rock beach, with a slanted boulder behind me, to rest my back on and recline. I think I even had my hands behind my head as I watched Pete fish 15 feet in front of me.

I had been watching Pete for 10 minutes or so when I watched him make a fairly short cast. He worked the lure into a drift, alternating forward and back reels. Then I saw a quick change in body position and his rod was bent over, his reel screaming. I had never witnessed quite a strike and solid hookup as this, right in front of my eyes. I immediately began smiling and continued to sit there in my reclined position as the battle began, perfectly content to watch the fight in my comfortable seat.

Soon Pete was off to the races down the beach and I was soon behind. War cries filled the windy night air. We got our first glimpses of the fish a few minutes later and a few minutes after that, we beached the beast, Pete's third and final fish of the evening, also the largest. I released the fish back into the depths and we laughed together at the thought that I was in the perfect spectator's seat for what had just transpired.

Someday I will catch a fish at this place. Pete will be there, and we will laugh. Thanks Pete.

a few things from the season

a few fish from the season so far. here i am with a nice fish 42-43 inches, probably pushing 30 pounds. it has a nice story behind it. i was out fishing with a friend who is a good fisherman and an even better softball player. one of his rules of thumb is that he doesn't fish at night. but he does love striper, and hadn't had any since last season. he wanted a fish. as it got dark he decided to head in, while i stayed out and continued fishing. (in my experience, if you want to catch stripers, fish at night!!!). if i got a keeper, he wanted it. i had been getting into some 30 pounders lately, and half jokingly asked if he would eat a fish that big. if you catch a 30 pounder, he said, i will give you a plug. deal. a few hours later i called him up: i'll take that old black lipped swimmer you got hanging around...

on a side note, he is a surgeon, and after boiling down what was left after the fillets were removed he went in there and picked out enough meat to make himself a chowder thick with stiper. without touching the fillets! really good meat he said, rich, like lobster.

and here is a frind with a very big fish. his boca grip told him 52 lbs. early the next morning it tipped the scales at 50.8 lbs. as it flapped about my mind could only express itself in one or two words followed by a long pause as it tried to wrap itself around the presence of this fish...still not sure if it has done so yet...

there are big fish to be caught! go get em boys and girls...

Lane proves his BFC prowess yet again.....

http://www.maineflyfish.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13988

Keith Lane '03 is the man who landed the 26" Striper mentioned in this Eldredge Brothers Fly Shop Report.......potentially one of the first Stripers landed in Maine waters in '09. (Picture posted by Jesse in the post below this one). Did we expect anything less of this Striper Legend?

The Mousam Slam, or, Mousamus Giveth

After a successful weekend in the company of the current BFC, Bassmaster Emeriti Keith Lane and Jesse Robbins returned to the water in search of the Mousam Slam - a fish from the tidal section of the river and another from the freshwater stretch.

The presence of any sea worthy fish was still undetermined, but the anglers' questions were answered when there was a strike.And a fight.
Ending with a healthy schoolie in the hands of the salty Bassmaster.
The bass would be the first for the new rod. Mousamus giveth.
The anglers split ways, and the younger made his way to trout territory.Another new stick took to the river, this one a third the weight of the former.
One fly change and the new rod felt a bend for the first time.
Mousamus giveth.

Mousam Slam executed.

linesiders

Well I'm pleased to say that my striped friends have returned in force from their annual migration. Thursday night I came back from a work conference in Fort Lauderdale with fish on the brain. My flight was delayed and on unfortunately I didn't get into Logan until 2AM Friday morning. I quickly considered my opitions for the weekend ahead-

1. Go home, crash for a few hours, then go to work
2. Take Friday off, go home and crash for a couple of hours, then drive to the cape
3. Take Friday off, sack up and drive straight to cape cod and get in on that first light bass bite.

Decision made.

I rolled across the Bourne Bridge at around 330 and was rigging up my fly rod before 4. With overcast skies, there would be no light until close to 5AM. I checked out the boat and listed to the constant slapping of striped bass eating spearing in the shallows of the seapit river. To say that I was fired up would be an understatement.

At 5AM I was on the boat throwing 300 grain and green deciever towards the shoreline. Strangely the fish that were loudly feeding just an hour earlier were absent at first light. I pushed the edgewater out of the river in the dense fog and into the mooring field at the end of waquoit bay. It was slick calm and exceptionally quiet. I guess no one else decided to take the day off to look for early season bass. I was completely alone in the pea soup fog. As I pushed the boat in tight to the shoreline I saw a swirl. There you are Mr. Bass. Two false cast and let it fly. Perfect. Strip strip strip. Nothing. That's strange. Let's try it again. Strip strip strip... BAM! FISH ON!!!!

There nothing quite like hooking the first fish of the season. After a brief battle I had the twenty four inch bass in my hand. A quick kiss for the first fish of the year and I plopped her back in the water. Over a dozen bass would eat the green deciever with white zonker strip tail, a couple would decide to fight me from the reel, one would take a good 20 yards of drag, doing her best steele impression. This fish would tape out as legal, but the 29 incher would be returned to fight another day.

The ocean is alive again. Poseidon giveth.

Next fish, Bluefin Tuna.

adventures with other fishermen

the other day i had the opportunity to fish with some very talented fishermen.

for about a month and a half, during the end of july through august and into september, i spent nearly every night out fishing, most nights watching the sun rise. the ocean an amazing place filled with many differnt fishing spots. there is a wonderful diversity of habitats, each holding fish in a different manner, their respective actions based on various local fauna, structure, depth, exposure to current, location with respect to the wind and an infinite number of other influences. during these jaunts i would spent a good deal of time sitting the beach, watching, listening to, mulling over and eventually learning about the waters and their inhabitants. a good deal of time was also spent with my line on the water and my flies in it, searching, probing and picking apart the offerings of the ocean. the more time i spent out there the more it revealed to me. tides and currents wear many different faces. at first there were a few small bass, then more and larger. my exploring has fed myself and others and at one point led me to a fish i could not move with my fly rod.

most of the time i have places to myself, but sometimes there are visitors. one such night brought two strangers. they came in kayaks, dressed in black and camo wet suits and brandishing lamiglas surf casting rods furnished with van staal reels. their headlamps shown red. at first i thought the spot was being invaded by navy seals. seals they were not, but serious fishermen they were, having traveled from rhode island to fish. after sunrise we spoke for a bit. a number of years ago they had been shown this spot by a good friend of mine, scott gates, and been savoring its offerings ever since. a few times a season they travel and fish. knowing that they would be intrigued i invited them to join me for some time on the island of pasque. they showed interest, and followed through on it a number of days later.

each year my family spends a week on pasque. the second of the elizabeth islands, it helps create quicks and robinsons holes, both renowned fishing spots. it is a private island, off limit to those not currently staying there. for these two die hards this was an opportunity to fish otherwise untouchable shoreline. (it should be duly noted that our beloved and stalwart wilkie has in fact released on this island the wrath of a hungover and painfully unsettled system of bowels far too turbid for any kind of deal to be struck. he returned missing several strips of fabric from his boxers but revived by whatever the island lent him) the fishermen arrived at midnight and save a half hour nap fished straight until eight the next night.

they arrived several hours later than planned, so thinking they would not make it i set out fishing for the night and did not see them land. they took off around heading north west around the island, slinging live and rigged eels into promising waters.

around noon the next day i awoke to strange voices outside. they had in fact come! and they wanted more. i sucked down a mug of coffee while donning my waders, preparing my pack and gathering my rods. their night had been tremendous, landing bass up to 37 pounds on their trek around one half of the island. a path had taken them back to the house and provided them with ground on which they had dozed for half an hour. a timely boat ride ferried us around to the north side of quicks' hole. then we began to fish.

it was quite amazing watching these people fish. they had long surfcasting rods capable of tossing their enormous lures hundreds of feet out to sea. throughout the day earl and i spend a good deal of time talking and watching. rob fished. nonestop. if his plug was not in the water he was moving to another spot from which to cast, probing here and there and everywhere with his huge white floating rattling and dancing jumbo commotion. he did not change lures very often. he would toss this or that every once in a while, but for the most part he threw his white thing. and man could he make that thing groove. rob was entered in an "on the water" shore derby which had been going on since march. shore from new jersey to maine were fair waters and the 21 of september saw the close of this contest. for most of the season he had been leading the derby until a few days prior to their arrival he had been overtaken by another fisherman. he needed to catch a 44 pounder in order to heft his five fish total back on top. he had come to pasque with a mission on his hands.

(this fish would not be caught on the island of pasque. but it should also be noted that while writing this, i recieved a call from earl telling of their previous nights' outing, in which rob leapt ahead in the standings by catching a personal best 50 pound bass and he earl had landed his own personal best, at 42 pounds)

we spent the day working our way around the island, dropping south and eventually east back to the main house. earl had his good friend corey on the phone, a guy out of the salt water edge who is an experienced and celebrated guide and who knows these waters to the last detail. this is where and when the big fish will come around. be there. so we were. there were some boats milling around in these spots, some catching bass and some not. a boat released what rob said to be a high thirties bass, turning away from its neighbors and only letting the head of this monster break the surface. fishermen like to cover their footprints when surrounded by competition. strange obsessive creatures. we continued to move on, making way for the southern point of the island, an area whose waters promised to hold tremendous potential.

rob did all the catching that day. he released a number of bass, none to qualify as "a fish" in the minds of these fishermen but alive, hungry and full of exitement none the less. much of the time while rob caught, earl and i sat and watched him do something he does very well. this was the most rewarding part of the adventure for me. for a brief time i was playing in the majors, surrounded by and thus exposed to folks who play the game at a very high level. and they loved this game they were playing. to them it was pure bliss. earl was infatuated with the beauty of the island. he and rob were both taken by the fact that they couldn't concieve of "fishier water". anything could come from them. but no matter what the outcome of an outing, these folks found enjoyment in the act of fishing.

i did not catch any fish this day. over the course of our travels i tossed my needle fish into the ocean a good number of times but i was not unhappy when it came back to me with no fish attached to its treble hooks. i was among good company, folks from whom i could learn much by simple observation and general exposure to their presence. and i did.

darkness found us back at the main house, having treked a several miles over boulder strewn shoreline and through the fishiest of waters. we returned to hot coffee, warm fish stew and a handful of tipsy grown ups. they wanted to hear of our adventures, and we told them, but 20 hours of hard traveling and fish catching had finally caught up with our guests. they were both asleep on couches when their ride arrived.

rob and earl departed pasque with many thanks for this opportunity and invitations of newport fishing adventures. and then they left. but not before providing me with a 12 inch sluggo "which should come in handy when you continue your fishing later on tonight..."

God Bless America: Sam’s account of 7/4-7/5

I have to preface this post with a warning: I went to Bowdoin, not Bates. I am also not in the same league of fishermen as Keith, Jake, etc…Before I went fishing with Keith, my crowning fishing achievements were 1) catching a tagged striper which I got $10 for returning the tag and 2) catching a flounder with a 10 inch Twizzler (the licorice).

Keith had taken me out 2 weekends earlier on my first offshore trip; a trip that can only be described as the best 24 hours of my life. I met up with Keith again on the 4th of July out on L’hommedieu (meeting up with people in the middle of the water is much cooler than meeting them on land). We decided we would try to catch some scup and liveline them off the shoal before the 4th of July fireworks went off. This plan was pretty much abandoned after catching 20 scup the size of an iPod. We then headed into the harbor to pick up a man known as “the Docta.” He jumped onboard carrying a bag of Coors Original, banquet beers…Coors heavy if you will…a man’s beer…I figured we would get along. After a night of watching fireworks, sipping out of golden cans, and trying to get Offshore Investments II under the Great Pond bridge, we racked out at my place on Great Pond around 23:30 dreams of tuna dancing in our heads.

We woke up at 2:50am and met up with Jake, who, unlike the docta, was actually in the medical field. We hopped on the boat, crawled out of the no wake zone in Waqoit, then cruised east. I am not sure when the sun came up, because we couldn’t see a damn thing, but I think we made good time, passing some larger boats en route. We headed towards our waypoints, but the fish weren’t there to greet us. After puttin around in ¼ mile visibility for a few hours and seeing limited signs of life, we ran into an oasis of birds working over boiling water. The splashes were not exactly tuna-sized, and once we got closer we realized that the fish were large stripers in the 20 pound range. I cast into the frenzy and on the 3rd cast a nice fish (probably the largest striper I have ever caught) inhaled the wooden popper. I was surprised at how easily I hauled it in with Keith’s diesel spinning outfit which was equipped to handle tuna. The amount of keeper-sized bass in the area was described as “annoying,” as we assumed we would have to keep peeling them off the squid bars. If we had had a tuna in the box, we could have had an epic session playing with some large bass on the surface, but we needed to get what we came for…tuna.

We continued trolling along with the squid bars, when an outrigger snapped off…but a striper was on the other end of the line…still no tuna. We continued fishing and then it happened. The screaming Tiagra let us know for sure that we didn’t have an annoying striper on the end of the black rig…TUNA! Jake, who has caught several giants before (a good guy to have on board) worked the fish onboard like a salty vet. After a surgical gaff-job by the medical professionals, we had our first tuna onboard. The pressure was off, and the Skoal was back in.












A must have for every tacklebox

The adrenaline was flowing after another knockdown on the pink. Shortly thereafter we crossed directly over our final waypoint, BOOM, another tuna takes down the green bar with the same force that I devoured my late night pizza on Friday at 230am.

I had the honors of reeling in this beast, and the tuna reminded me why I need to work out after college. After a legitimate battle, the men on board executed a clean release of the fish, which also appeared to be in the 100+ range. After a blurry afternoon that included a fruitless pit stop at a striper spot off Monomoy, we headed home.

We arrived to Waqoit Bay as heroes, passing many amateurish-looking people on the way in. We looked very professional in our foul weather gear and a boat full of offshore gear (and most importantly, a bluefin in the fish box).










GQ said orange is in this summer

When I got back to my house, I was starting to feel like getting bleepfaced with some high school buddies at Hennessey’s on Thursday night and getting 5 hours of drunken sleep before the 2.5 hours on Friday night wasn’t such a great idea. It was starting to catch up to me in a big way. Apparently I fell asleep upstairs with the lights on at 4:45pm and woke up 9:45am the next day, sleeping through both dinner and breakfast, which is a personal record and I am sure close to a regional record.

Tuna fishing with Keith brought me to a different world; a world where 25 pound stripers were “annoying.” This was a new world to me, as I still freak out when I see schoolies boiling on the surface. I feel privileged that in two trips I have been able to learn trade secrets that have taken some fishermen decades to learn (I never would have guessed that chewless tobacco attracts fish). I need to start taking notes. However, I am back into fishing mode again, and now that Keith has introduced me to a wealth of online fishing resources, I will undoubtedly keep procrastinating at work, preparing for another weekend on the water.

Looking Good on the Tuna Bite 7-5-08

First I just want to be clear we looked really really good.

Tosses and turns faintly echoed about the room anxiously predicting the alarm. When the buzzer finally released us at 3:00am, the three fishermen, Sam, Keith and myself pulled ourselves together and quietly made our way downstairs gathering our supplies (beer) along the way.

We climbed into Keith’s Blazer only to find the backseat filled with vanity top makeup mirrors. Keith claimed they were for an “experiment”. Choosing not to ask any further questions we headed to sea pit road.

After meeting up with 12th generation cape resident “Big” Jake Crowell up the road from the dock, we rolled out of the Blazer in silence and weaved across Saddam’s front lawn avoiding land mines and machine guns alike.

As we loaded the gear on board a light rain began to fall. The forecast called for calm seas but it would prove to be a long wet day of fog, rain and questionable visibility. We donned our foul weather gear and with a quick glance around I commented, for what we be the first of many times, that we looked really really good. Casting the lines to the dock and leaving Waquoit bay behind Keith turned up the engines and set a course east to the tuna grounds.

As you’ve read in the posts below Keith’s last two trips have successfully put bluefin in the fish locker. The plan was to head to those same numbers that had delivered before, a few miles southeast of the bc buoy, look around for birds, and follow the sealife and to the fish. The images of crashing tuna danced in my head as the engines droned on.

Once we came down from plane the crew jumped to action. After a two hour run we had our set in the water within ten minutes. Four squid bars; black, pink, green and a second black bar deep where complimented with a daisy chain and a bird/green machine combo on the short riggers. I turned to Jake and with a quick “Ah-Yah” we began the wait.

Sam and Keith spotted a few humpbacks early, but the fog was limiting our visibility and therefore our ability to follow the birds to the fish. For the first two hours we bounced between waypoints pacing the deck, waiting, and looking really really good.

The beers had come out a few minutes after the rigs got wet. But with the continuing lack of action and prospects as bleak as the weather we turned to apple blend skoal to change our luck. While the nicotine energized the crew the fish would wait their turn.

Sam spotted a few birds of the port bow. He quickly turned the wheel, anxious for some purpose to our actions. Another boat trolling the area clued us in that after the mornings inaction something was going on. We trolled up to the birds to find breaking fish. Beautiful, beautiful 15-25 pound stripers jumped from the water like popcorn. We hooked into fish on the daisy chain and a popper. Ripping the strippers in on the 80 pound gear was sinful, but a necessary sin as we pursued our greater goal. After briefly admiring our inshore trophies 12 miles into federal waters, we regretfully tossed the bass aside and refocused on the task at hand.

We pulled in the daisy chain and green machine to cut down on the striper bite. As we circled the schools hoping for larger fish a few brief knocks on the green bar raised our expectations but the action would again have to wait. . . but not for long.

Knock down on the black bar, knock down on the pink bar, a tailfin confirmed that we had tuna in the spread. Our blood rushed as we all saw the second black bar, the farthest back in the spread, exploded in white.

The fish dumped line from the real. The crew looked really really good as we hauled in the lines and got big Jake set with gamble harness and rod. Keith kept the boat in slow gear, constantly keeping pressure on the hook as Jake rhythmically worked the fish, reclaiming line one foot at a time. As we glimpsed the first hint of color the bluefin glimpse the first hint of the boat and dumped more line. Jake would not be defeated, holding fast through the run he picked up the grind again working one foot at a time.

I’ve often tried to explain why I love fishing. What I always come back to, what I strive and fail to illustrate is the moment. The moment when all the days expectations, the hit and the runs and the fight all become reality, the water gives up its secrets, and you see the fish.

And this fish was big. I swallowed my excitement as Jake led the beast along the port side. Keith lashed onto the leader. With the gaff in hand I saw an opening and plunged the hook into it’s back. Not a text book gaff but it got the job done and the fish in the boat. Jake had been as cool as the mist enveloping our craft, but with the fish onboard he exploded as his prize had done 20 minutes early.

We slapped hands, threw in a celebratory dip and put the lines back on the water. We still had fishing to do and we still looked really really good.

We trolled for another hour with minimal action. The chatter on the radio was negative, nobody seemed to share our luck and a few boys had lost some gear to the sea gods.

Looping back to where a lone knockdown had raised our attention earlier, an early dawn prediction came true. As we first dropped lines that morning Jake said he had a “good feeling” about the green bar. “Good feeling” means bluefin as a second monster crashed our green bar and dumped line.

Sam had been on board for the first trip of the year and participated in the multi-hand battle that took place landing a 120 pound fish without a gimble. This time he had proper equipment and Jake giving tips along the way. Sam worked the fish with determination. We had one fish in the box and heavy weight on the line. We knew this fish must return to the sea. As I took the helm Keith readied the lip gaff and pliers to prepare for a boat side release.

Sam pulled his trophy to starboard this round and Jake deftly hooked his jaw with the small gaff. Keith reached in and popped out the hook. We admired the fish for a few moments, sizing it equal to his brother in the fish box, before Jake released him to the sea.

Another dip in and more beers down we continued to fish but the action was done for the day. With worsening visibility we turned back West and got back on plan, wet, tired, satisfied and looking really really good.

Bass on the Cape

A nice schoolie aboard the new Lane Train.

"Lover's Leap" by Bela Fleck