An Unforgettable Striper Day

There's a lot of things that make a fishing day good, or great, or even one you'll remember forever. There are some days burned into my memory. Though a particularly big fish or rare fish or catching an awful lot of fish sits at the core of most of those memorable days, it's the places, the people I was with*, and the other things I saw that package the day and make it truly remarkable.

*Or sometimes not. May 7th, 2019, is memorable in part because I got to catch a fish I'd worked hard for years for, and not a soul was around at all to see it happen.

November 11th, 2019 ticked off all the boxes.

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin 

Noah and I rolled up to a little Western CT Cove, where Captain Ian Devlin told me to meet him, and almost immediately spotted gulls frenzying and schoolie bass popping at the surface. Before Ian even rolled up, Noah had landed three fat young stripers. 

But in short order we'd eased out of the cove, and were soon flying south on Ian's 17'6" Lake & Bay Palm Beach, towards waters completely unfamiliar to Noah and I. The weather was glorious, the sort of November day I'm always wishing for but rarely ever get to spend on the shoreline, and this time of year the fish don't care if it's sunny. 

We breezed by a small blitz on the way into the first cove. This was going to be a pass fish to find fish, leave fish to find fish sort of day, because Ian knew we could afford to do what many anglers wouldn't consider, and he was hell bent on showing us as much of his home waters as the short late fall day would allow. And, quite frankly, there were bass basically everywhere we went. There were menhaden too, both the juveniles being flushed out of the backwaters by dropping temperatures and adults milling around un-molested in big schools in some of the coves. I saw more adult bunker this day than the whole rest of the year, with not a big cow bass or gator bluefish on them. That was sad to see, but at least the bait was there at all. And the schoolies? Hahahaha! Thank God for them. 

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

With many juvenile Atlantic menhaden's live being ended by gull and striped bass, Ian, Noah and I cast our artificial imitations into the fray and more often than not, came out of it attached to a fat, healthy, hard fighting fish. I may at times say I'm tired of schoolies, but put me in front of a blitz like this and give me a camera or a fly rod and I'll be as happy as I've ever been at any time in my life. 

Bill Dance Style

Ian let my play with a few new toys, prototype rods he's been working on. Ian, along with Mark Sedotti and Steve Rajeff, were responsible for the G. Loomis ShortStix rods. Short rods are very poorly represented in the fly fishing world, and I'm not talking 5'-7'6" light trout rods. Those are plenty well accepted. But short rods well tapered are perfect for saltwater and distance casting applications. The two short prototype rods I got to fish with took a little getting used to but in no time I was getting that big "thunk" at the end of most casts, the sound of the line going taught right to the reel, the sound that means that cast could have gone a lot farther. It'll be exciting to see what comes of these rods in the future.

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

After fishing three pretty typical late fall blitzes in not altogether "odd" looking scenery for Noah and I, we motored up to a big school of bass breaking with tons of gulls against a piece of shoreline that felt more like a lake shoreline than a bit of Long Island Sound. With the the lighting now perfect and the water dark we had ample opportunity to watch most fish take our offering, that is if we were facing the right direction. Gills flared, mouth wide open, fly gone... it doesn't get old. The lighting made for some beautiful photos too.

 

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

We got our fill there and moved onto the next spot. Same scene transpiring in front of a different backdrop. This spot would prove to be what I'd hoped for Noah all this fall. See, Noah's personal best striped bass is rather small, and whereas my comfort zone in looking for big striped bass revolves around seeking out big fish specifically, because I've done it successfully especially considering the state of the fishery, putting up two fish hovering just below or at the 20lb mark and one likely over 30 on the fly with precious little experience having not caught a striper more than 10 inches in length until August of 2016. But Noah's much more confident and happy weeding through tons and tons of smaller fish to find one of the larger ones mixed in. That certainly isn't an invalid strategy for breaking his PB, though it definitely isn't the way to catch a really big fish if that's the goal.

We'd each gotten a few fish out of this blitz already when I turned around to see Noah's rod bent double and drag screaming. Soon he had his biggest striper at the boat. 

Shortly thereafter action slowed with slack tide approaching, and we moved on again to where, as Ian put it "the biggest biomass was". That was the truth. 

Ian stuck a pretty good one here, with an adult menhaden adult the gullet and at least one more in the belly, yet still ready to eat an EP baby bunker fly.

His fish had a few followers. Noah and I each hooked one, and the result was a triple header with each fish being from a different year class. We saw a decent range of sizes this day,  all chunky and healthy. It's going to be a lot of fun fly fishing around here if most of these fish make it to maturity. But with the near complete lack of the previously abundant 2011 year class now, it's a bit of a crap shoot.  

Students from three classes we'd all like to see graduate above slot after their respective senior years.

After a little while we again scooted west and found yet another batch of blitzing fish to bother. I was starting to get in an experimental mood and fished a large Slammer hoping to weed out something big, spurred of by Ian's gluttonous fish with the adult bunker in it's throat. I got a few to eat the big fly, two times resulting in visually spectacular boat-side strikes, but it wasn't really working the way I'd hoped. When we moved again, I decided it was time for a Gurgler on the 5wt. With the bass pushing up only a dark shallow mud flat, that proved to be a good move.

 Shallow water, visual eats, and fun battles on the 5wt with low to mid 20" saltwater predators is one of the things I love most in fishing. It was an absolute blast and I stuck with that the rest of the day though I could have caught more and possibly bigger with a different tactic. It was just flat out fun.

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

Photo Courtesy Ian Scott Devlin

Eventually we'd basically run out of Long Island Sound, so we turned around and started back east. We hadn't run out of fish though.

Alas the autumn evening light though does not last, and soon we were back at the launch. From 7:00am to 5:00pm we'd fished, and seen a lot in that time. Noah and I saw new water to us, very different water, and lots of it. We'd found and fished blitzes from the start of the day right up until the end. We'd caught a lot of beautiful healthy fish. I got to spend the whole day with two people I care about, fishing, laughing, enjoying some very cool natural phenomena in a beautiful part of the country. Yup, November 11th 2019 was one for the books.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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