The day started as a simple mission to get a frigate tuna by any means necessary. There was an exceptional abundance of the species in Buzzards Bay, Block Island Sound, and into Eastern Long Island Sound this year, far more than normal. Auxis thazard is a very small tuna species, rarely exceeding a few pounds, and nearly identical to another small scombrid, the bullet tuna, Auxis rochei. Every specimen I saw clear enough photos of caught in New England this year were A. thazard, determined by the height of the corselet under the second dorsal fin. In A. rochei, the corselet is never less than 6 scales. I was with new Noah, here on out to be known as Garth so as to mitigate confusion. There's few people I'm willing to share scombrid rocks with, as they come at a premium in CT, and knowing the times and tides takes time. But Garth had proven to be trustworthy and conservation minded, and I knew he'd appreciate the fish for their rather astounding beauty. I'd already gotten to see him hooked up to a few chub mackerel from the boat, but from shore any scombrid is a different animal and there's nothing quite like your first. Mine was a tunny, so there wasn't much buildup. It was maxed out from the start. But Garth would get to practice on some smaller fish first. It wasn't a chaotic bite from the rocks. I got one chub mackerel and lost others, Garth hooked and lost a couple. A couple hours in I watched my friend Liam hook, fight, and land a frigate. That was the first I'd seen in person. It was a beautiful fish.
The whole time, Garth was telling Noah that the bite was crazy and that he should get don there. This was absolutely an exaggeration, and we mostly thought it would be funny if he dropped everything and hurried down to meet us. Which he did, with the boat. By that time he arrived the wind machine had cranked up a bit and I was pretty convinced that it would be smarter to stay on the rocks, but I'd also encouraged this so I wasn't just going to leave Noah hanging. That said, when, a big school of frigates began busting in the boat ramp pocket and we were drifting against the rocks, I said "f it" and got up on the bow and started casting, leaving it to the inexperienced Garth to resolve the situation. He did so y grabbing one of the oars and shoving off the rocks as hard as he could. This wasn't the right move, it pivoted the bow out hard and left the stern against the rock. This quick action sent me swiftly into the water. I scrambled back into the boat fly rod first, now thoroughly irritated as well as soaked and fishing I'd just stayed on the rocks. But what was done was done, I suggested we get ourselves in a line of travel of the blitzing frigates, anchor up, and let them come to us. Eventually this did work and I hooked and boated my first frigate tuna. This was my first new fish species in a very long time, and I'd almost forgotten what it feels like.
Pure joy.
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| Lifelist fish #165, frigate tuna, Auxis thazard. Rank: species. |
That little fish started doing rapid tail beats shortly after I took the first photo of it, basically becoming an extremely powerful little vibrating machine, shaking my whole arm. This is something scombrids do sometimes when removed from the water, but it was the first time I'd seen it. I found it hysterical. The fish didn't stop until I put it back in the water. The release was hilarious, as I decided to simply put the fish back in while it was tail beating. I let go and it made two quick circles before straitening out and rocketing away.
As the tide progressed the number of frigate blitzes diminished and we began bottom fishing, which wasn't easy given the wind. We did get sea robins but not much else. After a while Noah and I began brainstorming and thought about the possibilities of the fishing in some marshy backwater areas we'd found lots of hickory shad in that time of year in years past. We decided to pick up and move, just to see. The same areas had held big stripers and bluefish as well, and numbers of smaller fluke. So there had to be something. What we ended up doing, oddly enough, was something new... crabbing. Just to see if we could do so effectively. With the heads and organs of the sea robins we'd kept as bait, we went after blue crabs because we never had before. And it as fun. We did get a few legal crabs but not enough to justify keeping them. It's good to know though that, if we decided to we could.
As we sped back through narrow creeks towards the launch on our way out, I sat on the bow and dangled my feet, realizing how lucky I was. I've got such good friends, I live in a fantastically diverse part of the country, and I've been afforded the freedom to explore it. Not everyone can say that. Fishing itself has dulled in it's luster for me some recently, partly because I'm just tired of some people and some notable negative aspects of "the fishing community", and more and more I just want to go do whatever I feel like. That's meant I've fished much less recently. But I'm happy. I'm exploring. I finding wildlife. I'm looking for undocumented snake populations, catching crabs, chasing storms, and falling off boats. And it's all great. I put "fish for you" in the footer of every blog post, but the biggest thing I've learned this year is that I haven't really been doing that, even when I thought I was. So this time, really think about what the following means to you, if you haven't already:
Fish for the love of fish.
Fish for the love of places fish live.
Fish for you.
And stay safe and healthy.
