Reef Stripers

Late summer is an interesting time to fly fish for stripers. It can be a very frustrating time for shore bound anglers in many areas in Southern New England. Much of the reason for this is the temperature of near shore waters. The shallow marshes and flats can get downright hot. I mean bathwater warm, and striped bass don't like that. Lots of stripers will congregate on reefs and around islands in August, including large fish. When the conditions are right and the tide flushes bait over the reefs, stripers go into a feeding frenzy. If you have a boat and know what you're doing, this ca be one of the best times of year to get good striped bass on the fly. On Thursday my good friend Mark Philippe got into some nice fish. When he sent me a photo of a 32 inch bass that morning and asked if I wanted to go the next morning, I didn't have to do much thinking. I was in.

Mark and Myron picked me up just after 3:30a.m. I had been out late the night before fishing, catching fluke and porgies but none of the fish I was really looking for, and I got less than three hours of sleep. But the potential for this to be a great morning out on the reefs kept me awake and excited.

We had to get out early because this fishing is no secret. Even on a weekday when the bite is on you are likely to be out there with a bunch of other boats, many of them also fly casting. Through the haze we traveled and were lucky to get on the reef before anyone else. It took no time at all for stripers to make their presence known. We all quickly hooked up. Mark and I started with poppers, and had a bunch of fish blasting our flies out of the water.

On one of our last few drifts over a real sweet spot before it became to risky to drift and too crowded Mark hooked up with a big fish that broke him off by diving into the rocks. This is a common tactic of bigger, smarter bass anywhere there are rocks. This makes strong tackle and tough fish fighting skills mandatory if you don't want to loose flies and every strong bass you hook. But no matter how you play them some fish are just going to bury you.

We slid over to a little slot where fish were working as batches of bait pushed through. One drift it would be butterfish. The next it would be small squid. three drifts later it would be peanut bunker. But each drift, if the fish were up, I was getting them to take a large white Hollow Fleye. I think by that time Myron was using a squid and was getting plenty of takes on it, and Mark had switched back to a popper and got more fish up on that.

On one of the last five good drifts we got I had a very big bass take the Hollow just inside the rough water (reef rips have a smooth side and a rough side). She showed herself very clearly, it was a big fish, likely would have been my biggest. I say would because I didn't even start fighting her. She was there and gone in exactly the time it took me to totally blow the hookset. I cannot hook big stripers to save my life and it is killing me. If I hooked half the number of bass over 40 inches I've had take in the last three years I'd have a consistent string of big fly caught fish. But every time I blow it. Nerves get to me and I do the wrong thing. I need to break that barrier and get just one 20lb bass. It is killing me, very slowly.

Big missed fish aside, we had a great morning. For me this was a view into what was typical when the fishery was better. I can never thank Mark enough for giving me the opportunity to experience more these things. Striped bass have become what I live for and any time I get a to look through a window into their life I feel blessed. They are amazing animals. And we are might loose them if we stay on the path we are following.

If you enjoy what I'm doing here, please share and comment. It is increasingly difficult to maintain this blog under dwindling readership. What best keeps me going so is knowing that I am engaging people and getting them interested in different aspects of fly fishing, the natural world, and art. Follow, like on Facebook, share wherever, comment wherever. Every little bit is appreciated! 
Thanks for joining the adventure, and tight lines.