{"id":2877,"date":"2015-11-12T19:48:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T02:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/?p=2877"},"modified":"2015-11-12T19:48:50","modified_gmt":"2015-11-13T02:48:50","slug":"missing-link-surfcastings-fall-striper-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/?p=2877","title":{"rendered":"Missing Link: Surfcasting’s Fall Striper Run"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re perilously close to<\/em> season’s end. But maybe we’ve only just begun.<\/em><\/h4>\n
\"BLUES<\/a>

BLUES ARE THE NEW BASS: Big Brother Frank battles a bigg’un in this video clip<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Nov. 10, 2015:<\/strong> \u00a0\u201cWhat if this<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0is the start of the fall run?\u201d, wondered Big Brother Frank (BBF)\u00a0on an uncharacteristically mild JulVember morning. Bummer for him if so. Mere hours before he boarded a plane home to the west coast,\u00a0we devastated a marauding school of gangster bluefish. We found these bigg’uns devouring bait in the wash at\u00a0Montauk Town Beach, and then chased them for miles\u00a0west to the Napeague stretch. There was frost on the truck\u2019s windshield before first light, but a warm, glowing sunrise revealed the\u00a0blitz of squawking birds, splashing bait, and bad-ass bluefish.<\/p>\n

BBF and I were searching Amagansett beaches and Tenacious Bucktailin\u2019 Billy Black<\/a> had Georgica and East Hampton in his sights\u00a0when the\u00a0fish call that\u00a0got us in position came from Verizon Charlie<\/a>.\u00a0He\u00a0was\u00a0patrolling Montauk with good reason. \u00a0The evening before, he and Amazing Randy<\/a> hooked into schoolie bass feeding in the surf on small pods of\u00a0baitfish. The new day dawned even better than the\u00a0previous evening ended and\u00a0we converged on the fish from points east and west.<\/p>\n

\"FEED<\/a>

FAT & FINNY:\u00a0Catch and release when the cooler was filled with blues<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Bellies bloated with bait disfigured these 15-pound-plus choppers. They chomped 6-inch adult bunker in half and swallowed the baby peanut bunker whole. The baitfish\u2019s only alternative to death by gorging bluefish was a suicidal beaching. Mayhem reigned for 2 hours; a fish on every cast if you could keep up with the blues\u2019 high-speed feeding\u00a0frenzy. I rarely\u2014no, make that never\u2014declare \u201ccatch and release\u201d when it comes to bluefish. With a 10 per person limit, and long stretches of barren days this season, my fish smoker yearns for all we can keep. But this was breakaway day–BBF departing for the season, and the rest of us due back in civilization by midday. \u201cNo mas\u201d, I declared after the cooler was stuffed with nearly 100 pounds of fat, finny choppers.<\/p>\n

\"BOARD<\/a>

BOARD LEADER: Marvelous Mary Ellen Kane nailed this 26-plus bass during a raging nor-easter.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

This blitz couldn\u2019t have been more timely. A week earlier, BBF and Bucktailin\u2019 Billy Black, found the same fish-at-your-feet action near Hither Hills State Park. I was a day late for that session. And though we religiously returned to the scene of the crime day after day, all we caught for our efforts\u00a0was a stray short bass here and there.<\/p>\n

Indeed, stripers have been few and far between for most Montauk surfcasters this fall. Early in JunTober, with a hurricane raging down south, and a wicked nor\u2019easter banging us here on Long Island, Montauk lit up for a few days<\/a> with bait and quality bass. Mary Ellen Kane<\/a> had a 26-plus pounder.<\/p>\n

\"STORMY<\/a>

STORMY STRIPER: Nicky B. hauled a 35-pounder from the roaring Montauk surf<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Nicky B., had one at 35 pounds, only to be topped the next day by a 42 pound fish<\/a>. And from high atop a boulder on the northside, Matt Broderick took a quality fish that seemed to dwarf him. One morning during the blow, Bucktailin\u2019 Billy Black nailed 10 keepers in a row near the weed bowl.<\/p>\n

\"MONTAUK<\/a>

MONTAUK ROCKS: Matt Broderick took down this bass while perched high on a boulder in the surf<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

On\u00a0that stormy weekend, I had one keeper bass and some shorts. Mostly I lost at poker in between the meals I prepared\u00a0for the few members of the\u00a0Capos Club of New York who managed to make it to Montauk for our\u00a0annual surfcasting weekend. The last good striper morning came as the storm was subsiding. A school of \u00a0quality fish blitzed Turtle Cove<\/a> after sunrise. I got there in time to land the last fish of the morning. Prophetically, it was a bluefish.<\/p>\n

All went quiet again until a stiff wind on Columbus Day weekend pushed\u00a0gorilla bluefish inside\u00a0the bar at Town Beach. A bunch of us got well, including Can\u2019t Miss Dan<\/a>, who kept his season percentage high. He only shows up on the beach those few days when there are\u00a0fish to be caught.<\/p>\n

\"CAN'T<\/a>

CAN’T MISS DAN: Battling the blues on Montauk Town Beach<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Or do the fish only show up when Dan does? Either way, I wish he’d get back here. Surfishing has been so disappointing on the East End this year that Verizon Charlie resorted to chasing Albies (False Albacore) and schoolie bass on the north shore near his Port Jefferson home most of JuneTober.<\/p>\n

\"ALBIE<\/a>

ALBIE DARNED: Verizon Charlie and his false albacore\u00a0at Fort Pond Bay<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

So where are the Montauk stripers? There\u2019s few clear answers but no shortage of theories and opinions. The bait is depleted; The habitat is destroyed; They are overfished. The fish never left the bay. They didn’t show up in the bay. Don’t forget climate change: The water is too warm; The weather is too mild; Not enough storms; Too many storms. Whatever. One thing for sure, says Bucktailin’ Billy: \u201cbluefish are the new bass\u201d this season.<\/p>\n

Unless, of course, BBF is right and this is the beginning of the fall striper run. Can you say AugCember?\u00a0Wait; I think I see some gannets diving beyond the rip near White Sands. Let me get back to you.<\/p>\n

\"FEED<\/a>

FEED THE SMOKER: The best thing to happen to bluefish since marinara sauce<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re perilously close to season’s end. But maybe we’ve only just begun. Nov. 10, 2015: \u00a0\u201cWhat if this\u00a0is the start of the fall run?\u201d, wondered Big Brother Frank (BBF)\u00a0on an uncharacteristically mild JulVember morning. Bummer for him if so. Mere hours before he boarded a plane home to the west coast,\u00a0we devastated a marauding school […]<\/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-2877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877","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=2877"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2980,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2877\/revisions\/2980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fishtales.abatemarco.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}