FishTales

Tropical storm Ida went “coastal”  and the the stripers fed hungrily until the beaches and the bite eroded into the surging storm tides

VETERANS DAY WEEK, NOVEMBER 10-14, 2009

Ida began shaping into a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico right around Election Day. She slammed into the Bayou coast and, as a tropical storm, tore her way across the Florida Panhandle dumping flooding rains in Georgia, before swirling north in an assault on the Atlantic Ocean.

…..And the bass kept coming.

By Veteran’s Day, the barrier beaches of North Carolina, Virginia and eventually the Jersey shore and Long Island were in the clutches of an historic nor’easter. The storm became Nor’Ida and it gouged the local beaches with a vicious east-to-west sweep of the surf. Winds gusted off the ocean at more than 30 mph, and high tides reached well beyond the dune crests and into parking lots.

…..And the bass kept coming.

It was hard to believe that fish could swim in such washing machine chaos, let alone feed. But stripers have their prey at even greater mercy under storm conditions. As the barometer drops, and the weather turns sloppy, stripers feed like mad in the tumultuous white water. And when striped bass bite, surfcasting junkies react.

….And so the bass fisherman kept coming, too.

One Fish, Two Fish, He Gave Away My Bluefish

I made it out to the beach and hooked up with big Brother Frank on Tuesday morning. The following three days would be Frank’s surfcasting swan song for 2009. His plane ride home to Los Angel-eeze would sky up on Friday the 13th. Tick tock. Time was running out to score a keeper bass. The mild weather held, and we had favorable conditions at first light when we saw a very encouraging sign: a quality fish being walked off the beach at White Sands just as we arrived. We cast for a while with some other anglers but no one raised a fish, so we moved further east. Mid morning, just about at the bottom of the tide, we nailed cocktail blues in a blitz at Dead Man’s Cove. We had these fish all to ourselves for about an hour. When the action subsided, Frank made a gift of two fish to a local Chinese take-out restaurant in Amagansett. Frank trades part of his catch for dishes the restaurant prepares for him using his fresh caught fish. The idea this day was to thank the restaurant for past services–and set the stage for future meals. I was looking forward to mine; Preferably stir-fried in black bean, or sweet-and-sour sauce, or with garlic, ginger and scallions. But Frank said that would have to wait for another day. More like another season. And the reason we gave up two fish from my cooler ……?

Harvey Bennett’s Fish Call and a Visit to Humiliation Beach

Early in the afternoon, we got a fish call from Harvey Bennett of The Tackle Shop and we scoured the East Hampton and Amagansett beaches for signs of life. When we determined that we were too late on that tip, we returned to Montauk town beach, which may as well been called Humiliation Beach for us. For the rest of the day, sharpies left and right of us nailed bluefish after bluefish–and the occassional striper–while Frank and I got none. Perplexed, embarrassed and feeling as low as a couple of googans, we moved to a new spot further east–where we experienced more of the same. Finally, I got two little guys. That was our clue to head home. Mumbling under our breath, we drank scotch and dined on bluefish Mediterranean style (broiled with lemon, olive oil, white wine, capers and fresh basil), spicy roasted sweet potato chips, and mixed salad washed down with a crisp chilled Orvieto. It took a while, but that revived our spirits.

On Veteran’s Day, based on Harvey Bennett’s fish call the day before, we went straight to Atlantic Beach in Amagansett at sunrise. Bullseye. Gulls worked furiously over the wildly pounding surf and gannets dove into bait beyond the white water on the outer bar. Even with the wind-whipped surf, we could see fish tails splashing. Stripers were porpoising in the wash and Frank and I jumped from his Bronco and cast to them, shouting a whup-whup-whup cry of victory. Here is where we get well for sure, we thought. A bit premature as it turned out.

The punishing northeast wind stung our faces, but the fish were within our reach. The only problem, is they wouldn’t bite. Here we came upon our first bona fide bass blitz of the season and the fish turned out to be picky eaters.  At first, Frank and I concluded: “we really suck”. But we saw that most sharpies had the same bad luck. Not a lot anyone can do if the fish choose to fast.

Humiliation Beach, Part II

The birds headed east, following the fish that chased the bait and we did the same. Eventually, the winged mayhem  subsided near Napeague Lane. A few bluefish were raised but we didn’t see any bass taken at first. Then, suddenly, it was “Welcome to Humiliation Beach II”. A bucktailer started getting a bent rod on every cast. Meanwhile, we couldn’t buy a bump.  We gradually worked our way out to Montauk where we me up with a quorum of locals sharpies so we didn’t even bother to check Montauk Point. We hopeds for a repeat of the Dead Man’s Cove action that sustained us so many times in the last week. For sure, there were birds working over bait—gulls and gannets—but they didn’t come inside the bar. With the early afternoon’s rising tide, however, we got into a slow pick of bluefish on Montauk town beach. When this died out, we moved over to Hither Hills where the wind and tide drove water up onto a four foot high ridge line that the storm was beginning to carve from a formerly sloping sandy beach.  There was hardly a bird or other natural sign to recommend this spot.  However, at least a dozen of Montauk’s surfcasting Murderers’ Row were lined up like fence posts pulling in fish. Hurling Kastmasters, bucktails and diamond jigs, Frank and I filled our cooler with a half dozen decent sized blues, but no bass. But our jaws dropped more than once as we watched a couple of cow bass come up right next to us–one at least 30 pounds.

Cold, wet, tired and hungry, we quit before dark to clean our catch and prepare dinner: Bluefish ragu over linguine, and oven-baked bluefish marinara.

The Thursday Morning Massacre at Napeague Lane

One way or another, Thursday would be our last fishing day. Frank had honey-do chores and the storm was getting intense, likely to shut down the bite in the next tide or two. We hoped for a repeat of the prior day, only with fish more receptive to our offerings. At first light it was evident that the day would be all about Ida, the tropical storm turned ferocious nor’easter. The wind howled along the shoreline like a freight train and white water was piled up everywhere.  But Amagansett still had a sliver of beach to naviagate on the descending tide. Birds hovered in the wind above the breakers and we chased a flock of them east from Atlantic Avenue to Mako Lane. There, in the waters just a few hundred yards west of the Napeague Lane parking lot, the fish were schooled up picking on four-inch sand eels and Murderer’s Row was on them but good.

It took a yeoman’s cast to get a lure past the white water breaking on the sand bar and into a patch of green water beyond. But for those who managed, the results that morning were as fine as all season; Keeper bass after keeper bass succumbed to 4 1/2-ounce diamond jigs with green tubes attached,, or weighty 4-oz bucktails of white or chartreuse. I saw 20’s, 30’s and one possible 40 pounder hauled in. This was the most amount of quality fish I have ever seen taken in one session and it may have been the most riotous surfcasting I have ever witnessed. The fish were slipping thorugh a narrow cut in the sandbar so that only a 100 foot long honey hole was producing hits. This tight sweetspot was monopolized by a handful of local sharpies who were content to fish on top of each other, despite the wicked sweep of the current from east to west. To avoid tangled lines and worse, Frank and I fished the periphery but we did not have the distance to get in on the action. We hung around, in and out of the water, until the bite died at 11am.  From then on, the water was unfishable and the bite stayed off through the rest of the weekend.

The Legend of Richie Bag Foot

Richie Bag Foot arguably caught the biggest fish at Hither Hills on Veteran’s Day and in the Napeague Lane massacre. His striper on Thursday morning was a bait-saturated, pot-bellied 39-pounder that fell to a white bucktail lure. Bag Foot strolled along the surf line with his fish, ducking under the cast lines of at least a dozen anglers until he finally beached this Moby striper and shouted “Montana!”  Then he hauled it to his truck parked on the sand.

The meaning of Richie’s “Montana” war cry is as follows: when he fished commercially, the best fish were called “beauts”. Over time, a beut became Butte, and eventually, the state name Montana was also code for a really good fish. Hey, remember, these guys are fishermen. Okay?

How Richie got his nickname, is far more direct. About five years ago, Richie had a broken leg. It was fishing season and a good bite was on at the beach. So into the surf went Richie with a shorty white boot on his left leg, and his right leg encased in a plaster cast. Richie had the cast wrapped in a plastic garbage bag. From that day forward, he was evermore Richie Bag Foot.

Big brother Frank left on schedule Friday afternoon with a couple of bluefish fillets tucked safely in his travel cooler. No bass this year. I hung around in the rain and wind as Ida petered out over the weekend but the bite was shut down tight. And yet, the sharpies returned to Napeague Lane every morning through Sunday with their tongues hanging like labrador retrievers, hoping the bass would come again.

As did I.

Because I know they will.

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