Spring In The Salt Marsh

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The smell that emanates from a salt marsh is a funny thing. Those who don't spend any time in and around them will recoil from the faintest scent of it. Those like myself can smell it seemingly miles away, and it brings with it both excitement and a unique calm only comparable to returning home after a long trip. I feel safe in and near salt marshes. There are few smells that are as comforting to me as the smell of salt marsh mud. All combined, the smell of the mud and water, the feeling of the grass on my legs, and the sounds of the birds calling and striped bass popping awaken feeling in me I don't have words for.

Were it not to seek those striped bass that so often make popping sounds from within the salt marsh creeks I'm not sure I'd feel the way I do about marshes now. Striped bass dragged me in, and they are one of the things that keeps me there, no doubt. Not the only thing. But one of the biggest things.

You wouldn't know it by my writings, but this striper season, though getting a later start than I would have liked, is shaping up to be my best ever. I haven't felt like I've needed to get back into a rhythm. There have been years where I flat out haven't hit a good rhythm and have blown every shot I've gotten at a truly big striped bass. This is shaping up to be a very different year. Through the winter, a lack of interest and poor reports from folks I trust kept me from going after holdover stripers. Through April, cold weather, flooding, scheduling issues, and some more lack of interest kept me away from places I've done well in early in the season in the past. I made one legitimate striper trip in April and skunked. Then came May. On my 2nd trip of the year I caught a 28" bass and a 33" bass. On the very next night, I caught two 28" bass, a 30" bass, and an absolute brute, my biggest fly rod striper ever. I promise I will write about those trips in detail, but I need time. 

So, thus far the 2019 striper season has spoiled me. Or, rather, 2019 has started to show signs of being the true culmination of four years of pain, frustration, fear, exhaustion, hard work, and time of the water. By the fall of 2017 I believed I was owed a 40" striped bass. All through 2018 I believed that even more. And this spring, instead of going into it believing I was owed a big fish, I went into it believing that all I needed to do was keep working hard for it and my dream fish would come. This would be my "no pressure" season. And less than halfway through May I've already gotten what I wanted out of it. When that happens, if you just keep working hard, it just makes catching big fish even easier. My feeling as I've ventured into the marshes and onto the beach to look for striped bass this season have already changed. I'm still as excited as ever each time, and equally as filled with serenity and calm, but there's a new depth to it now. It as if the places I'd felt at home in for these last few years have accepted me into them. I say "I'm home", just as I did the first time I became attached to these places and the fish in them in 2016, but now they say "welcome home" back to me.

To many of you, I'm sure that sounds cheesy as hell. But I'm sure some of you also get it. If you do...

Here's to the marsh. 

Cheers.

Salt marshes are some of the most at risk habitats in the world, and are also one of the most important. They provide breeding, rearing, and feeding grounds for countless fish, birds, mollusks, and crustaceans, protect coastal areas from devastating storm surge, and filter and clean water. Salt marshes around the world are being destroyed by development, pollution, sea level rise, and climate change. We all need to do our part if these necessary environs are to remain intact and healthy. 

www.saltmarshguide.org