Don't Ignore the Heavy Surf

There seems to be no happy medium lately, either it is barely windy at all or there are heavy south-westerlies.
This was July 26th in Rhode Island, with big swells a high winds:

This was July 30th in Connecticut, with no swells and almost no wind:

And this was yesterday in Rhode Island with heavy south-westerlies and relatively little swell:

 The real mission yesterday was finding the early hardtails, bonito, from shore. Real bonito, not what Floridians call bonito, which are actually false albacore. Bonito on the fly from shore was always a challenge and because the bonito numbers here in New England are crashing, it is probably a near impossibility now. But it was too windy for kayaks and Noah and I aren't ones to back down from a challenge, especially one involving a new species.

That light is probably where all the bonito were. Or not.

 We didn't find our bonito. But cutting our losses and going home wasn't going to happen, because I new a spot we'd almost certainly find stripers. A breif blitz under the cliff face told me we had made the right call.

Fishing that little blitz was fun. I love blitzes. They get me pretty damned excited. BUT, and this is a big but, I'm pretty sure the environment I most enjoy fly fishing for anything, but especially striped bass, is rocky shoreline with heavy breaking surf and lots of white water.  I believe it is absolutely true that fly fishing this water can put you at a slight disadvantage, as opposed to spin casting. I also think it is too daunting to many fly casters, they just aren't confident fishing a scenario where you have to be able to mend over breakers and control your fly in extremely turbulent and ever changing currents. But if you fly fish, you truly haven't lived until you've had a striper literally fall out of the crest of a wave and tumble down it in the process of taking your fly, then had that same wave absolutely slam you, soaking every bit of your clothing in a second.

Whitewater... oxygen rich and full of disoriented baitfish.

I probably caught a dozen stripers last night in the wash. All of them small but full of piss and vinegar. I got soaked to the bone. I got beat up and my gear got beat up. I felt more alive being in that place in that moment than I had all week.

There will be some happy medium days in the coming weeks. There will be days where the wind is heavy and the surf a little too heavy. There will be days where the wind just doesn't blow. I'll fish them all. But if I see the opportunity to fish breaking surf and whitewater again, yeah, I'm taking it.