{"id":2823,"date":"2015-09-18T04:06:20","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T11:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/?p=2823"},"modified":"2015-09-18T05:55:31","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T12:55:31","slug":"a-sweet-and-prosperous-new-year-of-fishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/?p=2823","title":{"rendered":"A Sweet and Prosperous New Year of Fishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rosh Hoshanah Blitz did not disappoint. If you like bluefish, that is.<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"FABigBlue091615\"<\/a>Sept. 15, 2015:<\/strong> It\u2019s in all the literature. You don\u2019t have to take my word for it. You can look it up.\u00a0 Fact is, the Jewish New Year\u00a0traditionally is\u00a0the best fishing days of the early fall surfcasting season. The dates vary from year to year. But whether September or October, \u00a0I always try to be on the beach, anticipating the time-honored Rosh Hoshana Blitz.<\/p>\n

A blitz, for those of you new to this space, occurs\u00a0when a school of game fish\u00a0feeds voraciously on a hapless pod of smaller bait fish, creating a tumultuous boil in the water.\u00a0 If the blitz\u00a0happens near enough to shore for a cast to reach, it makes for a\u00a0high holy day of surfcasting.<\/p>\n

In my lifetime, there have been numerous such Rosh Hoshana blitzes.\u00a0 September and October, after all, are prime surfcasting months. I’ve had big fish<\/a>, little fish–and sometimes NO fish<\/a>. Over the long haul, however, I’ve mostly prospered sweetly on Rosh Hoshana. When Rosh Hoshana fishing is good, it is very,\u00a0very good–bluefish, stripers, and even weakfish in the mix\u00a0in some past years. And a Rosh Hoshana Blitz often foretells\u00a0a good surfcasting season ahead.<\/p>\n

\"STRIPER<\/a>

STRIPER BLITZ: What we hope for to produce the High Holy Days of surfcasting.<\/p><\/div>\n

This year, the weather was\u00a0more summery than fall-like as 5776 came\u00a0earlyish.\u00a0 So the cold water loving striped bass\u00a0were not to be found.\u00a0 But hungry slobs of gorilla bluefish were\u00a0prowling the northside beaches of\u00a0Montauk. I prayed for a strong bite\u00a0to feed my smoker.<\/p>\n

\"Amazing<\/a>

AMAZING RANDY:\u00a0Sharpshooting a gangster bluefish in a placid sea.<\/p><\/div>\n

On the last ebb tide Rosh Hoshana, I\u00a0was blessed by the fish gods. It didn’t hurt that I fished the beach with “Amazing” Randy T., a veritable\u00a0“rabbi” of surfcasting, capable of\u00a0putting deaf, blind and crippled people into\u00a0fish.\u00a0 Between the hours of 3pm and 6pm, Randy hooked about a dozen gloriously theatrical bluefish. They burst through\u00a0the water’s placid surface,\u00a0whacking his lure with violent\u00a0gulps and urgent\u00a0tail splashes, the white water spray\u00a0of their lunges contrasting dramatically with the deep blue water and the cloudless azure sky Randy\u00a0kept a small handful of his catch–including one amazing musclehead that weighed 15 pounds and measured 36 inches. The others ranged from 8 to 12 pounds. Each fish ran and fought and tail danced in their\u00a0struggle to be free. And some managed to get away. I landed\u00a0three fish, dropped as many, and raised a half dozen others.\u00a0 Most of these fish attacked\u00a0us at the end of long casts, so we were as happy for the showy performance\u00a0of missed strikes as we were for\u00a0the arm wrenching hook ups. Hauling in gorilla\u00a0blues that\u00a0work the tide and the current over 100 yards is a great upper and lower body workout. \u00a0But it gets old fast after an hour or more. Even in a calm sea, these bigg’uns let you know you were in a fight (click for the video courtesy of Lou Barba).<\/a><\/p>\n

\"ROSH<\/a>

ROSH HOSHANA EBB TIDE: The amazing one\u00a0\u00a0nailed bluefish up to 15 pounds.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve been fishing Montauk for a couple of decades.\u00a0 And I always learn something new from the sharpies I meet there.\u00a0 Randy, for example, works a pencil popper lure unconventionally.\u00a0 Most anglers here\u00a0hold their rod almost perpendicular to the water and wag the tip convulsively with a hand high up about the reel to give the lure its action.\u00a0 Randy however, keeps his rod and hands low. \u201cThis way,\u201d he schooled me, \u201cwhen the fish strikes, I can easily raise my rod tip to set the hook.\u201d Made sense. I tried it.\u00a0 It worked.<\/p>\n

Minutes\u00a0before sunset, the action died when the tide went slack. We returned the next day for a repeat performance, but it was not to be.\u00a0 I was lucky enough to nail one of only five fish I saw caught all afternoon. Conditions were even more summerlike than the previous day, with nary a rip or current or breeze. Returning yet again, this time with jet-lagged big brother in tow, the action picked up again and Randy and I had another handful of fish to our credit. Just a little bit of wind at our backs, enough to stir the water and create the rip that the fish crave, made all the difference on day 3.<\/p>\n

\"BLUES<\/a>

BLUES ON BOARD: Choppers and gorilla blues start the New surfcasting year right.<\/p><\/div>\n

All our action took place at the North Bar<\/a>, just around the corner, west of the\u00a0Montauk Lighthouse.<\/p>\n

\"SWEET<\/a>

SWEET CATCH: Bluefish for Jimmy Meeks on the high holy days of surfcasting.<\/p><\/div>\n

Fishing in bathing shorts and water shoes is a September treat that doesn’t last long. But with the cooler temperatures\u00a0will come even better fishing. Perhaps the weather front predicted for the upcoming weekend will wake up the stripers in time for the next key calendar date: the lesser known but up and coming Yom Kippur Blitz. After all, what is written on Rosh Hoshanah, is sealed on Yom Kippur. Nu? L\u2019shanah Tovah!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rosh Hoshanah Blitz did not disappoint. If you like bluefish, that is. Sept. 15, 2015: It\u2019s in all the literature. You don\u2019t have to take my word for it. You can look it up.\u00a0 Fact is, the Jewish New Year\u00a0traditionally is\u00a0the best fishing days of the early fall surfcasting season. The dates vary from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2823"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2873,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions\/2873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}