Don’t know how; Don’t know why. But there’s no better fishing than on the Jewish High Holy Days
September 9, 2010
“Because they just do,” was the best answer I could come up with.
A colleague in my office asked why the fish consistently show up on the Jewish New Year, in what we call the Rosh Hoshanah Blitz. “Is it the time of year, the weather, something Biblical or what?”
“Beats me,” I replied. All I know is that historically no other time of the fall season is as productive for surfcasting as Rosh Hoshanah (or the lesser known, but up-and-coming and nearly as satisfiying Yom Kippur Blitz, 1o days hence).
The Rosh Hoshanah Blitz: Schoolie bass and gangster blues churn the water near Brown's Rock at Fort Hero, Montauk
This year was no exception. On the first day of Rosh Hoshanah, Thursday, September 9, with the tide ready to turn in the late afternoon, Big Brother Frank and I found pods of schoolie bass and gangster bluefish busting water below the bluff at Fort Hero in Montauk. They were right where Captain Harvey Bennett of The Tackle Shop said they’d be. “You’ve got to work for them,” said Harvey, “but there are tons of fish around”.
Frank and I weren’t actually there to fish. Rather it was a scouting day; An afternoon drill to get Frank’s head on straight. He arrived from California 36 hours earlier. Absent from the East End for some 5 months, Frank was in a clamaniac coma, practically hallucinating about 4-inch Cherrystones that he yearned to turn into baked clams oreganato and linguine with white clam sauce. Frank needed a dry run along the surfline to snap his bivalve bemusement.
A stiff northwest wind had blown for the better part of two days, making the water weedy and muddy on the southside. But the bluffs of Montauk provided suitable cover between Turtle Cove and the Sewer Pipe. There were the fish; a bona fide seeing-is-believing Rosh Hoshanah Blitz. Our wives Natalie and Toni were along for the ride, but we had nary a rod or a lure between us.
These fish would fall tomorrow, we vowed. But for the moment, we opted for a triple-header errand run to Balsam Farms for fresh corn, Stuart’s Seafood for chick lobsters, Franey’s wine shop for a magnum Trebbiano D’Abbruzo. Then it was back to Frank’s house where his daughter Gina rounded out our dinner with a fresh from the farm mixed green salad.
To be continued…….