Cow Calling

 Kevin Callahan wanted his boga grip back. As he eased his Maverick Master Angler out of the launch and got on plane, the breeze, clouds, and chop lead me to believe that would be a long shot. But maybe the fish would bite. Large striped bass like it sloppy. Really, I think the boga retrieval was just an excuse. I think Kevin and I both felt like we were in with a really good shot at some gigantic bass. The ride wasn't as quick as the slick night we'd made this same run about a week prior, and though some fish were had that night and even more were seen, this felt a bit different. There was a feel to the weather. The changing barometric pressure and the color of the water spoke volumes. We spent probably 20 minutes looking for the gripper after arriving at the spot, but the sheet of vegetation on the bottom did volumes more to conceal it than even the chop and clouds could. That was a lost cause. 

Kevin moved us into a rocky area and began slinging a large topwater plug known as the Doc. If you aren't aware of the Musky Mania Doc and you striper fish in the northeast, you live under a rock. Nowadays its really unusual to see a boat leaving the launch for a day of striper fishing that doesn't already have a doc hanging off at least one of the rods. The lure shortened the learning curve for a lot of anglers to catch big bass both on the plug itself and on the fly. In fact, the first use of it in the Northeast striper fishery is as a teasing lure, with Joe LeClair being one of the first to employ it around Block Island. Not long after, Ian Devlin and Mark Sedotti brought in to Western Long Island Sound, and from there it started being used with hooks to actually catch the fish when it became clear that in some scenarios it was great for drawing strikes from big bass but not as good for teasing. Now there are multiple knock-offs of it specifically advertised to striper anglers. Some even cast better than the original, which has a shape and weight distribution that makes it hard to get the lure to consistently fly true. I was fishing a simple derivation of Mark Sedotti's synthetic slammer. This one had two little foam baffles and lead wrapped on the shank but no keel. It was 10" long and all off-white. Not only was it ideal if a teasing scenario set itself up, but also a fantastic generalistic big striper fly. 

After a little inaction around a school of tinker mackerel that were flicking and boiling, we pushed further into the structure seeking resident fish just holding. Confirmation of life came in the form of an almighty wallop on Kevin's lure. Stripers often hit the plug repetitively, sometimes popping it up into the air with their head, sometimes even slinging it with their tail. But sometimes they also just hammer it and get it cleanly in their craw on the first go, which is what Kevin's first fish of the day did. We knew ahead of time exactly what sort of fish were in this spot, so it was no surprise it was a 40 incher. In fact, we were hoping for something quite a bit larger. What came around was a bit more than we bargained for. The first fish to eat the fly took on a blind cast fairly near the boat and from was a clone of Kevin's. Not a giant, but very nice on the fly. That fish started to act a little weird partway through the fight though. All of a sudden, the water erupted in one of the most spectacular displays of predation I've seen in person as not only one but two brown sharks each attacked my hooked fish, one from the head, the other from the tail. They churned the water to a froth, tails thrashing as they made the striper a lot less mobile in a real hurry. One of the two followed as I stripped what was now half of a striper towards the boat, making another last attempt to get what was left pretty much boat-side. Incredibly, Callahan was rolling video through the whole event. 

Screen captures from video, courtesy Kevin Callahan

This is a scene that is playing out more and more frequently in Connecticut in recent years as brown sharks rebound and expand in range. It is an interesting new dynamic. I personally don't feel that its a bad thing, just something we'll need to adjust to. Unfortunately, be-it bulls and hammerheads at Bahia Honda, seals at Monomoy, or many other situations where a predator species has rebounded and is eating fish off of angler's lines, most are unwilling and uninterested in adjusting or understanding, and instead are inclined to just be angry about it and I expect the same to happen with sharks in Long Island Sound in the coming years. 

Kevin and I didn't lose another fish directly to the sharks that day, at least that we knew of. And that was a relief because we were about to tie into some beasts, fish that would wow just about any fly angler. In fact the next couple of hours were such pandemonium that the memory is like a fractal, with bits and pisses missing and blurry, others sharp as a tac, and much of it out of order. The first fish I boated intact was about 46 inches and ate the fly a bit behind Kevin's plug while multiple others were on it. Unlike the fish that got sharked, this one and many of the others  chose, smartly, to run into the shallows rather than out into deeper water. The result was some spectacular mid-fight thrashing and even, for Kevin, 30 plus pound fish going airborne on the hookup. Keeping them out of the structure was a chore but far from impossible, as I put the screws to them with my 11wt Echo Musky Rod. 

Photo courtesy Kevin Callahan

The next hookup was a much, much larger fish that was one of a simultaneous double up right at the boat. In the mayhem I didn't really get a good hook set. I was more is shock than disappointment when the fish when it came off and I turned to Kevin and asked "You see the size of that mother f*****?"

It couldn't have been more than ten minutes later that Kevin and I doubled up again, this time at a substantial distance from the boat. I knew the fish was quite large and the fight was a long one, but I didn't quite grasp the enormity of it until I had the thing much closer to the boat, at which point it became very clear that this was my largest fly rod striped bass. I hoisted her over the rail, grunting under the strain of her mass, and Callahan fired off a few quick photos. I remember looking at the size of her lower lip as I carefully got her back in the water, mindful that there could very well be an even large fish with much sharper eating implements nearby. I was pleased that she kicked off very strongly and aimed in to the shallows again, away from potential danger. 

Getting a bass of this caliber isn't terribly uncommon in certain areas with the current state of the fishery. Frankly, at time its just easy. But getting two giants locally without beating up numerous 30 inch class fish in the process is a lot less common, especially in clear, clean, and very shallow water. This was, to put it lightly, a pretty sick bite, and one we hope we'll be able to replicate again in coming seasons. 

On the way back in we stopped at a rip line that usually holds a lot of life and had smaller fish ravenously chasing the plugs and flies in and eating with reckless abandon. It was a lot of fun to watch, and a reminder that there are so many facets to this fishery we have on our doorstep. Many of those things are taken for granted, even by me. With yet another poor recruitment year in the Chesapeake behind us, recreational anglers under severe disillusions that everything is fine because the fishing is incredible where they are right now, and head boat captains pounding their fists and yelling to be allowed to kill as many of these fish as they want at meetings, I worry for the future of my favorite species to cast flies at. I'm not even fully sure stricter regulations will stop a complete crash of the most important spawning ground on the coast, but I sure do know it wouldn't hurt. 

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