|
|
 |
Fish Tagging Study Sheds New Light on Bluefish Behavior Pam Carlsen, our fish tagging director, learned recently that 20 years of our fish tagging data have been used in a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) study of the migration patterns of bluefish. The study results are reported in a paper written by Gary R. Shepherd of the NMFS at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and published in the NMFS Fisheries Bulletin: The Migration Patterns of Bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) along the Atlantic Coast Determined from Tag Recoveries. Joshua Moser (NMFS), David Duel (Deceased, NMFS), and Pam Carlsen (ALS) also contributed to the study. This project has provided new information about this important species and clearly demonstrates the value of the partnership between science and the recreational fishing community forged by the American Littoral Society through its volunteer, catch-and-release fish tagging program. The study incorporated data gathered by tagging and releasing bluefish and reported recaptures in Atlantic coastal waters between 1963 and 2003. The field work was performed by NMFS scientists and by American Littoral Society volunteers. During the study period, 15,699 bluefish were tagged by NMFS and 20,398 were tagged by the Society and a total of 1,539 returns were reported. According to the paper, this compilation of tag-recapture information is the largest known repository of tagging data for bluefish. A wide variety of fishing gear was used to catch the fish. American Littoral Society’s volunteer recreational fishermen, used hook and line. NMFS taggers used a variety of gear including gill nets deployed from research vessels, hook and line, commercially operated pound nets and beach seines. The goal of the study was “to investigate the migratory behavior of bluefish along the Atlantic coast by using the results of these previously unpublished tagging studies…” According to the paper, the study also set out to examine the single-stock hypothesis proffered by other recent studies of the species in the context of tag recovery information. Atlantic coastal bluefish are known to migrate from coastal New England to southern Florida, a distance that can be as far as 2,000 kilometers. This study has greatly expanded our knowledge of bluefish behavior including that - The migration patterns of bluefish are size related. Fish change their migratory patterns as they grow. Smaller, juvenile fish follow a path closer to shore. Larger fish (3 pounds and greater) travel farther offshore and may even winter over in offshore waters.
- Bluefish form three groups that follow three, distinct seasonal migratory patterns: 1) North-south between the middle Atlantic and Florida 2) north-south within the middle Atlantic 3) inshore-offshore off the coast of Florida.
- Bluefish average swimming speeds varied with the season. Based on study data, average swimming speeds peaked in October-November (5.3 km/day) and May (4.9 km/day). Overall average speed was 2.6 km/day.
- Bluefish swimming speeds varied with size. Smaller fish (12 to 18 inches) traveled faster than larger fish (18-26 inches)
- The data unearthed no evidence that contradicted the hypothesis of other recent studies that Atlantic bluefish comprise a single genetic stock.
We congratulate and thank our taggers for their many years of dedication! Since the inception of our fish tagging program in 1965, our taggers have provided 43 years of data to the National Marine Fisheries Service database that have been used in many scientific studies of Atlantic coastal fish. This study is especially important to the Society because it focuses on the behavior of a species that is important to our membership base and to the culture and economy of the New York Bight where the Society is most active. On learning of the study, Pam Carlsen, our tagging director said, “Our fish taggers care about fisheries conservation. They faithfully pay dues, purchase tags, and give all their data to science.” She concluded, “If anyone would like to join this admirable bunch, check out the instructions on our fish tagging pages or call me at 732.291.0055.” A PDF of the complete paper can be downloaded from http://fishbull.noaa.gov/1044/shepherd.pdf.
The Tagging Blog
by Steve Sautner American Littoral Society Trustee and Underwater Naturalist fishing editor Stephen Sautner has fished in a dozen countries on four continents, but feels most at home in the New Jersey surf, casting for bass, bluefish, and anything else that happens to swim by. His first book, “Upriver and Downstream,” was published by Harmony Books this year. In a web exclusive, Sautner will chronicle his fishing experiences this fall, as he attempts to tag bass for the Society’s volunteer tagging program.
December 9: Protein and Lots of It  Those looking for positive reinforcement from the sea ought to forget surf-casting for striped bass - at least for the time being - and take up clamming instead. Former ALS executive director Dery Bennett, along with ALS Trustee Don Abrams joined me for some easy raking and we scored dozens of hard clams on the lower Navesink River. If only there was a program to tag and release them. Since there is none I am forced - FORCED - to keep them, where they will be shucked, sucked and slurped. Oh well...
December 8: Loons 1 - Flycaster 0 Since surf fishing had been so poor lately, I decided to further handicap myself by unleashing my eight-weight fly rod... That"s not entirely true. The fly rod part is - I really did bring it to the beach - but not the handicap. Let me explain. A saltwater flyrod craze swept through these parts about a decade ago. Suddenly it seemed that everyone and their stockbroker had suddenly taken up surfcasting with the long wand, and beaches once filled with gritty plug-chuckers had begun to gentrify, replaced with GoreTex®-clad titanium-toting technical anglers. In my humble opinion, or as we say on the web: IMHO, I believe the wave has since crested, as many shore-bound surf anglers have realized that casting a fly into the teeth of a northeast wind is a damn hard way to catch a fish... ...Except in December, when an unusual phenomenon occurs. Just before dark, shoals of small bass swarm into the shallows, sometimes joined by sea herring and hickory shad, for a 30-minute mini-blitz. I’ve seen it dozens of times, and it always seems to take place around the first week in December and linger until Christmas, if the weather allows. The fish key in on very small bait and literally feed in ankle deep water at dusk, so a fly rod and a small streamer actually becomes the tool of choice. Once again, I had figured that this would be a great way to use up the rest of my tags. And I could brag to any who would listen that I had of course caught them on my fly rod - doesn"t everyone fish with one this time of year? The stage was set perfectly. A light northwest wind carried my casts effortlessly beyond the breakers. Several red-throated loons, clad in somber battleship gray plumage, dived repeatedly in the surf line occasionally coming up with silvery baitfish. Even a few herring gulls, normally content to laze about on the beach, periodically would swarm over some disturbance offshore. One gull circled a loon repeatedly waiting for it to surface with a fish so it could attempt a mugging. But the loon was hip to the scam; when it finally did nail a fish it held its head low and swallowed it lightning fast. Foiled, the gull landed on the beach to contemplate its next scheme. As the sun dipped below the horizon and the ocean turned to dull pewter, I happily cast away, keeping a sharp eye out for the telltale swirls that indicated feeding bass. My tagging kit hung from my neck, neatly packed in a sealed waterproof pouch designed for cell phones (for those who need to text while body surfing?). I had already pre-loaded the needle with a tag. Now I could see even more loons - maybe a dozen spread out over half a mile of beach. But as they happily dived and swam and scoped for fish beneath the waves, it became increasingly apparent that the bass never got the invitation for the party... So it was just a bunch of loons and a lone wallflower clad in waders and holding a flyrod in the dying light.
December 1 - Joining the Scrum Things are starting to get a little desperate here; after all the 11th month has passed and I have tagged just five bass and killed a lone bluefish. On a normal year, I would have expected to already scored several nights of "bass thumb," scuffing my fingers raw from releasing a bunch of nice fish. But it seems like November is the new October and December is the new November. And October of course is the new July. My brain hurts. Back to the bluefish I killed. Let me begin with this: for those who scoff at bluefish, saying things like: "Bluefish were really a problem today; I had to fish through a dozen just to catch one bass"... I say, take up golf. Yes, I remain in awe of bluefish, ever since I was beaten up by one on a party boat some 26 years ago. For those who think stripers are the only real gamefish of the two, all I can say is that I’ve never seen a bass bite in half a three-pound bluefish. But my real point of this ramble is the smoked bluefish pâté I made for Thanksgiving. In a word: grandslamhomerun. My aunt from Long Island practically ate the entire bowl as various other family members rumbled for crackers to get a scoop of it. Here’s what I did:
brined the fillet for six hours, then smoked it with a mix of apple and hickory for five hours;- threw the fillet in a food processor, along with a package of cream cheese, half a red onion, tablespoon of lemon juice, couple of dashes of hot sauce, Worcestershire, salt pepper and a little parsley, then hit "blend" for few minutes;
- let it sit overnight.
Try it and you’ll have new respect for the so-called yellow-eyed demons. And if you still don’t like eating them, tag ’em. Anyway, Saturday I decided to temporarily jettison my romanticized view of the lone surf angler casting plugs to big bass under the cloak of darkness, because it was beginning to feel as practical as wandering the beach with a bushel basket looking for frostfish (kids: ask an old timer). Instead, I hopped online Friday night, gleaned as many virtual fishing reports as I could, then hit the fish BY DAY, with the express goal of finding a BLITZ. I began at Shark River Inlet, where I had heard a few on-again, off-again reports of bass, including some vague references of sea herring. By the way, like bluefish, herring are another unsung species that wanders along our local beaches in the early winter. They are a ball to catch on light rods and multi-hooked "sabiki" rigs, and there are few seasonal foods better than chilled pickled herring on crackers in December. But again, that’s just me talking. Back to the ACTION -- and I use the word in an ironical sense -- it was the scene I’ve come to know so well and dislike with blitz fishing: acres of birds a mile off the beach and anglers doing most of their fishing by driving in their trucks with binoculars, driving from spot to spot. So I began the beach-access crawl by heading north, stopping in Bradley Beach, Asbury Park, Deal, Long Branch, and finally Sea Bright. Truth be told, I was planning on skipping Sea Bright and instead heading all the way to Sandy Hook. But two prospecting anglers standing on the sea wall made the mistake of pointing to something on the other side of the wall then scrambling back to their truck just when I was driving past. U-turn. When I got out at the unofficial access behind one of the beach clubs, there was a knot of birds some 50 yards off the beach and several anglers casting to them. Hot Dog, I thought, time to wrack up some numbers. I shuffled down the beach with my tackle and quickly noticed no bends in the dozen or so rods that were fishing. Underneath the gulls, which continued wildly diving, there were no breaks of bass or anything else for that matter. Perhaps they were diving on some tiny fry, or zooplankton or electrons. Just then a school of peanut bunker came swimming along tight to the beach. This is really it, I thought, lamenting the fact that I only had 15 tags left. Perhaps I would have to cull through some of the fish I was about to land, tagging only the biggest ones. Maybe I’d even keep one for bass chowder... Do I have onions at home...? But the peanut bunker, as it turned out, swam by lazily, totally unmolested by predators. They swam past my feet, and between my legs looking a little as if they were in a conga-line.
So I quickly took off the plug I was casting and replaced it with a single treble hook that I pitched among the school. A quick upward jerk with the rod, and hey Mom, I’m livelining. But still, even with live bunker, which often draws in a scattered predator when nothing else does, I remained fishless. The angler to my right suddenly hooked up, and five minutes later landed a nice bluefish. Delirious with thoughts of more smoked bluefish, I almost wandered over to panhandle it from him, but decided instead to maintain my dignity.
By now it had become obvious that a blitz this was not, so I retreated to homewaters on Sandy Hook and pounded two spots just before dark, with not even a bump to show for it.
Dear Santa: I’ve been a good boy; now how ’bout some bass?
November 24–Every Cast… Thanksgiving weekend used to be the peak of the bass run around Sandy Hook. The Great Day-After Thanksgiving Blitz of 1986 is the stuff of legends, and you can still find anglers who tell stories of splintered plugs and 40-pounders lying around the beach like logs.Neither Jim nor I were there that night 21 years ago, but we make it a point to fish Sandy Hook just in case history decides to repeat itself. Which it didn’t this year. In fact, it did quite the opposite as we fished nearly the entire outgoing tide without a fish. Bundled against near freezing temperatures, with just enough wind to stiffen fingers, we carpet-bombed entire shorelines with plugs, bucktails and rubber shad. In several hours, each of us reported a single-half-hearted hit, before eventually quitting well past midnight. By then, Sandy Hook seemed deserted, except for a lone red fox I saw run across the road ghost-like just before heading home.
November 23—Ghost Bass and High Surf Striped bass anglers are notoriously secretive, and I’m no exception. So it may come as a shock when I expose the Bug Light – an out of the way point on the westward shore of Sandy Hook as a hell of a bass spot. But before you grab your GPS, plug bag and waders, be advised that the spot for all intents and purposes no longer exists. The sands of time, quite literally ruined it by filling in the deep cut and subsequent rip that once ran past a small jetty. On an outgoing tide, it once formed a beautiful tide rip; a place where fall bass could almost be guaranteed to take a small Red-Fin or Bomber. Today, the cut and rip are now buried in several feet of hard sand, transported from around the point of Sandy Hook. On all but the highest tides, the entire spot is nothing but dry sand. Still, some ten years after it stopped consistently holding fish, I could see a few gulls hovering off the point, as I drove past Officer’s Row, the closest public road to this once secret spot. Feeling nostalgic, and perhaps a little desperate, I gambled and took the long walk over soft sand to finally reach it. The gulls, as it usually happens, were hovering over something other than bass or bait, at least that’s what I had concluded after an hour of fruitless casting. As the late afternoon sun began slipping toward the horizon, I took a break and stared at the half-buried jetty. From this very spot I had my one and only ALS re-capture here in the early 1990s. It was a small bass – just a few pounds. I later learned it was tagged a month earlier at the Highlands Bridge a few miles to the south. And later that fall, I stood during an October nor’easter casting live eels and wound up landing a dozen bass, including a 26 pounder, my largest. Now the spot looked as barren as the Sahara, a stiff north wind whipping sand around me for added effect. So I trudged my way back to my truck and stopped at one last spot for a few casts before it got dark. This was the same spot as my November 18th trip where 50 and 60 pound bass had eluded me. This time the wind roared parallel to the beach, instead of in my face. I chose a Danny Boy – a small classic wooden swimmer that wobbles on the surface, like a menhaden on its last legs (or fins). WOMP. Something came up and missed the plug on just the second cast. A few casts later and the plug vanished in a swirl. The rod bent and the reel gave up a few yards of line. A few minutes later a wave deposited a 26-inch bass at my feet. The fish’s left eye was injured, but otherwise looked healthy. So I tagged it and sent it seaward on the next wave, scribbling its length and noting the eye injury on my tagging card. A few casts later, another fish grabbed the plug -- this one a plump 19-incher that also was quickly tagged. Then just before dark, the 19-incher’s twin came in for a quick tag and release. By now the north wind was really whipping. I realized I had forgotten my flashlight so I wouldn’t be able to read any more tags – a good enough excuse to make a few more casts before calling it an early night.
November 18- The Surfcaster’s Lament By now, it may have become obvious that my purist pledge about casting plugs at night is a “living document,” subject to the whims of tide and wind, not to mention the whereabouts of fish. So it should come as no surprise as I drove along the bayside of Sandy Hook in the late afternoon with a bucktail strung to my rod. I had jettisoned Jim for the day, as it became obvious that his presence had become a hex to good fishing.Sure enough, as I came to Officer’s Row, which is in fact directly in front of the Littoral Society’s historic headquarters, I witnessed a mile long flock of gulls, presumably working over a mile long school of fish. So I grabbed my rod, tugged on my waders and raingear, and anxiously waited. And waited. And waited some more. The birds wheeled, dived and otherwise frolicked some one hundred cast-lengths away. Just for the heck of it, I heaved my longest-possible cast and watched it plunk down impotently, hundreds of yards short of the mark. Unfortunately, this is a common problem among surfcasters as we stand around and watch “as the boat guys kill ‘em.” (Yes, there were several boats among the birds, presumably catching fish on every cast).So I was given two choices: wait around hoping that the by miracle, the entire food chain changes for my sole benefit, or pull stakes completely and head for another spot. I chose the latter with no regrets. This time, I hit the high surf, where the northeast wind had whipped the surf into classic-looking whitewater – the kind of conditions where very large bass come in to feed in turbulent water, and surfcasters catch the fish of their lives... Except for me, that is. As it turned out, despite my chugging poppers and swimmers through spots that looked as if they held 50 and 60-pounders: no fish for me. By now, it was getting dark, and rainwater was beginning to trickle down my neck. My car and its heater beckoned, and I yielded to its siren song… And yes, as I would find out later through cyberspace, that bass and blues had once again hit the beach to the south.
November 17 - An Hour Late and a Half-Mile Short For us weekend warriors who can only dream about Monday-through-Friday fishing expeditions, it is amazing how many times fish seem to gorge during the work week, only to embark on a 48-hour fast beginning on Friday afternoons. Last weekend was no exception as reports of anglers chasing blitzing fish – my least favorite kind of fishing – had filled cyberspace beginning on Tuesday. By the time Friday came, it began to sound like one continuous school of bass and big bluefish had stormed the entire length of the Eastern Seaboard. (By the way: why anyone would ever post a fishing report is beyond me… Oh wait, I’m doing that. Never mind, and back to the report…) Jim and I had agreed to meet Saturday afternoon to fish the outgoing tide. When I pulled into the first spot I saw the usual suspects to the north: a few guys standing around bait rods; another angler without waders doing his best imitation of a sanderling – running in and out of the surfline, trying not to get wet. About half a mile to the south however, there was a knot of gulls tight to the beach with a few casters running their way. There was a time not too long ago when I would have happily chased after them, but experience (some may call it laziness) has taught me that what seems to be a sure thing often winds up being fishermen’s fools gold, with the gulls suddenly stopping what they are doing as soon as you get within casting range. Instead, I made a cast right where I stood with a massive needlefish, cranked it half a turn than watched it vanish in a good-sized boil. A few seconds later a six-pound bluefish began tail-walking over the waves. Excitement over the prospect of tagging my first-ever bluefish quickly turned to disappointment when, as I drew the fish closer, I could see it had engulfed the plug and was bleeding heavily from its gills. But disappointment transformed to joy as I realized I was now staring at two bluefish fillets, one of which would be smoked; the other baked. Half an hour later, Jim and I abandoned the spot as it became obvious my bluefish was a FLUKE! HAHAHA. Sorry. I really am sorry for that. Anyway, we plugged our usual spots through dark, but again to no avail. Meanwhile, well to the south as I would find out later from virtual reams of cyber-reports, anglers snapped rods, melted reel bearings and blew out their shoulders as bass and bluefish pushed bait tight against the beach, in a several-hours-long blitz.
November 12-Third time′s a charm and resurrecting an old plug... Fired up by Jim′s report, I hurried along to another favorite spot just before dusk. Almost immediately I spotted a small school of peanut bunker swimming slowly along, but looking totally unmolested by predators. Since it was still light out, I worked a popper for 15 minutes, then reluctantly switched to a rubber shad - a relatively new lure that looks a little goofy - like something my two-year-old son might play with in the bathtub, (sans chemically sharpened 3/0 hook, of course). WOMP. Something pounded the lure on the first cast and immediately began peeling line. Good fish. It swirled on the surface then shook its head, bucking the rod. In the dying light I could see it was a bass, and as I pumped it closer, I reminded myself that I must tag this fish, rather than simply pull the hook and watch it swim away. A minute or so later, I reached into the chilly water and lipped a husky bass of about ten pounds. I then dragged it ashore and broke out my tagging kit. First, I measured the fish with a tape I had stowed in my jacket pocket. Thirty inches from the fork to the tip of its snout.  Nice fish. A perfect fish for striped bass chowder.... Hmmmm. NO STOP THAT. I then grabbed a tag, and made a mental note of the tag number (the last two digits are all I needed, it turns out.) After that I quickly loaded the needle and slid the tag through the fish"s back just behind the dorsal, and locked it in place with a quick snap. Then I slid the fish into the water and watched it swim away. The whole procedure may have taken two minutes. Not bad for my first tagged fish in over a decade. Right after the bass swam away, I filled out the length and weight on the corresponding tagging card (the rest of the card would be filled out at home).
By now, it was dark and I could once again hear a few fish popping in the distance. But the magic must have worn off my rubber shad, as I went fishless for the next half hour, and the half hour after that as I switched over to the usual plug arsenal. One fish in particular repeatedly came up loudly behind a sand bar, splashily rising like a trout. I riffled though my bag and found an old classic that I hadn′t fished with in years. It was a beat-up old six-inch Boone Needlefish - the smallest one they make. I bought it during the first needlefish craze some 25 years ago, when these strange lures suddenly became a must-have. I was new to surfcasting then, and though the lure looked interesting in the box, I was disappointed by its utter lack of action (needlefish look like little more than a stick when retrieved - just like the swimming sand eels they imitate). Like many lures, using one correctly it takes patience and faith, something I completely lacked back then. Subsequently, that particular plug had never taken a fish for me, though it always remained in my plug bag just in case.... Now, a quarter century later, I found myself clipping the needlefish to my leader and casting it into the darkness. Each time it splashed down, I would check the rod high, so the little lure would swim slowly over the bar where the fish rose. I could picture it swimming it pushing a V-wake like a disoriented baitfish. Then: pop...BAM. Fish on. A bass thrashed in the darkness. I could tell right away it was smaller than the first, but it still gave a strong fight in the flooding tide. I eventually slid it ashore - a fat 24-incher that quickly received another tag before being released. The fall run - at least for this fish tagger - has begun.
November 11-Deploying a fine scout... I couldn′t join Jim today, so off he went with his kayak to prowl around Sandy Hook Bay. He promised a report afterwards, and this is what he saw: scattered groups of surfacing bass moving too fast to readily approach. He hooked and dropped (i.e. lost) two on bucktails and missed a few more strikes. After dark, he heard some bass popping but couldn’t hook up. At least we′re getting warmer...
November 10—If only clams were bass…
Undaunted by last night’s utter failure, Jim, along with former ALS Executive Director D.W. Bennett and two other hardy souls, spent a few hours clamming in the lower Navesink River on the ebb tide. If only clams were bass, as we easily raked well over 200 in a little under two hours. Thanks to efforts to effectively control non-point source pollution, one can now relish a rare pleasure: standing knee-deep in the Navesink and slurping down a raw clam ten seconds after you scooped it from the mud. Try it sometime.
 But this is about fish not mollusks, so when the tide returned and the sun sank, I headed back out – this time alone to plug once again for stripers. I came upon a favorite tide rip, barely visible in the moonless skies, but rushing and gurgling away nonetheless. From this very spot last year, I landed and released a 25-pound striper – my largest bass in several years.
So I literally dug my heels in the sand and proceeded to carpet-bomb the rip with the following: - Yellow Bottle Plug
- School Bus Bomber
- Pink Needlefish
- Yellow Danny Boy
- Yellow smilin’ bill bucktail with red porkrind
Here’s the tally: nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing and nothing. Then I wandered to a more popular spot that had five anglers fishing it already. They stood stoically, only the way striper anglers can, booming cast after cast into strong currents. Surely, this must be the spot, I thought, as I happily joined in and fired a plug into the froth. But within half an hour everyone had left, leaving just me, and an ocean that was beginning to look utterly fishless.
November 9—Dude, Where’s My Tide...?
Jim and I may not have caught any stripers tonight, but at least it was cold and miserable… The November New Moon has always been a favorite time of year to fish for bass around these parts – the bigger tides push more current, which subsequently help form better rips; and the darkness of the moon seems to draw larger fish into shallower water. If I look back on my old fishing journals, I’d find most of the larger bass I’ve caught – fish between 20 and 35 pounds – had come on the new moon. At least that’s what convinced my longtime fishing partner Jim Leedom and me to venture out tonight, as vengeful raindrops pelted the windshield and wind chills hovered at the below freezing mark. We geared up and wandered around our usual haunts at Sandy Hook, looking for bass that never quite showed. Each of us had a few bumps by smaller fish on our plugs, but no solid hook-ups. Occasionally, we could hear a bass “pop” somewhere in the darkness. Oddly, it seems the tide never got the memo that it was supposed to go out. I suppose the Northeast winds, which increased as the night went on, may have kept the water levels up. After several hours of fruitless flogging, we peeled off our saturated raingear well past midnight, my tagging kit still warm and dry and unused in a plastic bag…
By Way of Introduction—One Tagger′s Confession Hi. My name is Steve and I haven’t tagged a fish in over a decade. There, that felt better. But now I’m back, baby, and for this Fall Run 2007, I will do my best to use up all of the tags in my brand-spanking-new ALS tagging kit. I will do this – hopefully – by leaving said tags in striped bass I catch at the Jersey Shore – my happy hunting grounds. I look forward to joining the nearly 1250 taggers who tag more than 25,000 fish each year. Two words about how I like to fish (or “how I roll” as the kids say): with plugs. Two more words: at night. Three more: from the beach. While there is much chatter about chasing daytime blitzes of marauding bass, and wearing one’s thumb to a nub releasing dozens of fish for hours on end, I personally find blitz-fishing somewhat mind-numbing. Don’t get me wrong: if I happen to see a school of bass blow up in front of me, I’ll get my casts in just as quickly as the next guy. As one old surfcaster used to say: “I’m not turnin’ it down.” But at the same time, there’s something disconcerting about hooking a fish, then trying to land it as quickly as possible, just so I can hook another, and another, etc. Each fish becomes a blur. Call me nuts, but I like to relish every head shake, every yard of a bass’s long run, each heartbeat as I fear I may lose a big fish. Preferably, all this high drama takes place under the cover of darkness… with no cell phone-calling fishermen gathering around me like herring gulls on spilled French fries in a Mickey-Ds parking lot. So give me a moonless night, and a honking no’wester. A fishing buddy and some scurrying sanderlings are my only company. And while we’re at it throw in a flock of brant honking overhead somewhere in the darkness. And how ‘bout a shooting star or two… But that’s how I roll. Your results may vary. So on this day – at the beginning of the 11th Month, on this two-thousand seventh year Anno domini. And as the moon wanes into darkness, I venture forth. Plug rod in hand. Surf bag full of rattling plugs hanging from my shoulder. Headlamp safely shut off, but at-the-ready if needed. Digital camera fully charged. And of course a tagging kit safely stashed in the pocket of my waders. Wish me luck; I think I’m going to need it.
|