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Goodbye Summer and
Fishin' with Cowhunter and BrianZ
September 4, 2001:

I've seen some holy water recently...some very holy water! Not sure I can even face NJ again for a while...not the way fishing has been in NJ this year. One more time...hopefully the very last of the year...but the fishing in NJ is, by far, the worst that I have seen since I started keeping it honest in 1982 - and that was 2 full years before the "draconian" restrictions that saved the stripers from extinction. Since 1982 I have fished spring, summer, and fall between Island Beach State Park through Sand Hook - and every single square inch in between. It has never been worse than this past year....followed by last year as the second worst since I've been "checking". I say I hope this is the last time I mention this as there is a glimmer of hope that the cooler nights and shorter days we begin enjoying now will trigger some kind of a bite in NJ. I'm not overly optimistic, but I'm optimistic none the less!

So, back to the holy water! WOW! I tell ya what, the stripers that live in Rhode Island must be smarter than the ones that used to live in NJ. Not cause they are harder to catch, nothing could be further from the truth...but just because they live in Rhode Island! I'm pretty sure that all the rocks that should be on NJ's coastline somehow got delivered to Rhode Island. Talk about mile after mile of the absolute finest striper habitat - deep rocky areas, shallow rocky areas, rocky beaches, sandy beaches, rivers and breachways (that's Rhodislandese for "Inlet" When you look down into the deep rocky waters, you can't help but imagine the plethora of foods waiting down there for our striped friends. When I watch even small waves pushing up into the many rocks, then receding making a million little rip currents to disorient the bait for our striped friends - it's just simply amazing! The fish respond to these little rip currents just like you would imagine - a hungry striper will just cruise on the deep side of these rocks waiting for any little morsel to get sucked seaward with a retreating wave. Well once I got all done looking at this most spectacular water, it was time to start fishin' it!

My very first trip to this holy land was with Cowhunter a couple weeks ago. We had planned on fishing a couple nights up on Cape Cod. So we drove straight through to Chatham to meet up with the infamous plug felon, Bassmaster. I had met Bassmaster at the Ditch Fling - I told Ken he was a hoot - and warned him to zip up his plug bags real tight! So we get to Chatham Light about 10 minutes before the infamous plug ho' and look around some. Other than some eye candy wandering around the general area, ya couldn't see but 50 feet in front of yer face in the dense fog - and the fog just kept getting thicker and thicker - it was starting to look like "one of them nights" when the fish just commit suicide on yer plugs until the sun comes up! So Bassmaster shows up...I briefly let him loose in a box of custom needlefish from Pikie Mike in California - absolutely amazing needelfish by the way! Cowhunter gets his hands in the box realizing Bassmaster's gonna get 'em all if he don't! Once the plug frenzy ended on the hood of my truck, we head to the back to look at some more stuff. Big mistake, by the time I wrassled Bassmaster away from the back of my truck, he had sweet talked me outta about 6 or 7 plugs!?!? Now we're makin' plans, listening intently to the loco local ;-) I gotta keep reminding him of things - "But Dave, it's not May!" - "But Dave, did you see kayaks on my truck?" - "But Dave, we don't have live herring!" - "But Dave, the tide's not goin' out" - "But Dave, the wind isn't screamin' SW!" I was quickly reminded that Bassmaster falls right into the "easily excitable" category with both Cowhunter and Crazy Alberto! Good company for a plug ho' Cowhunter and I decide on a plan of attack...Bassmaster can't fish with us cause it's a Sunday night and he's gotta work early so we say good bye and help him load the armfuls of plugs into his sand sled ;-) And we're off! To make a beautifully foggy night short, I mostly threw plugs, Cowhunter threw only live eels. I think we ended up with the same number of hits, except none of mine were landed and he landed two and dropped one at his feet on the live eels. One short, one fattie about 23-24#. Just as the water was approaching that perfect depth, rolling white over the bars, sunrise about 1 hour away - the lightning and thunder came and sent us runnin' for the truck! I drove all the way back to the Cape Cod Canal in the heaviest rain I think I've ever seen! We went to the Ditch cause I know we can snag a room there right after breakfast. The plan is to bail on Cape Cod after the very slow night we endured and hit Rhode Island on the way home - a good plan...partially cause the fishin' was better and partially cause I really, really enjoyed all them rocks!

So now it's Monday night, I'm keeping up with the possessed Cowhunter as he drills the water on his seemingly endless quest for monster stripers - the man is a drill sargeant when it comes to covering water! One cast..maybe two....then you move. I learned this on the Cape...but that was on sandy beaches...doing the same thing on the rocks was whole lot more interesting! The fishing was "off" that night...Kenny ended up with 8 fish (6 from 18-20#) and I ended up with 5 (4 from 18-20#) Not too shabby considering I'd never seen this water before ;-) We both fell once, me in the water and him in the rocks...very, very treacherous footing...even with Korkers! It's not the rocks themselves, but the spacing between the rocks, weeds, holes between the rocks..and the waves. Definitely not beginner stuff! The fish certainly had a hankering for parrot Habs needlefish. I hooked up and broke off with my first cast with my only 2oz Parrot needlefish. It was then that I began experimenting and going through my entire bag. It was only on the parrot colored lures that I had any action - parrot darters, parrot bottles, parrot colored tearsers - it was strange...I threw everything I had! I think we walked about 25 miles...well it felt like 25 miles anyway It took me a couple days to heal up after this trip...and a couple more to start planning my next trip up there!

The next trip we included BrianZ in the arsenal ;-) Nobody I know appreciates fishing like BZ, the man loves the water, the fishes, and anything to do with fishin! Some people just like catchin'...which we all like...but true fishermen, those burdened with this obsession for all the days they'll walk this Earth - they like the fishin', the catchin' is nice but secondary. I'm certainly guilty of enjoying the fishing myself :-) So now it's me, Ken, and BZ. I warned BZ in advance about "Master Drill Sargeant Cowhunter" ;-) The fish were a little smaller this trip, although Kenny had one over 20#, the rest of the fish were between 6#-18#...I hung one temporarily on the scale that went 18# :-) Strange thing was these fish ate a much wider selection of lures this time - including long, thin yellow teasers. I can honestly say that this was the trip where I finally got the feel for fishing needlefish - I mean I've caught tons of fish on them in past, mostly in NJ (back when we had fish and sandeels!) - but it was this trip where I finally found I could move fish with a needlefish! This was a great releif...nothing casts as well as a needlefish....now confident in fishing with it, I ended up with 30 fish for the two nights we stumbled around the rocks. That's not a great number of fish - but anytime ya catch more than Cowhunter in waters he fishes alot - that's an accomplishment in my book! We all had between 20-30 fish in those two nights...probably each had 3 times that many hits. Now I'm trying to move things around so I can go back again - real soon! :-)

It was a wonderful experience, I love new places, new techniques, and fishin' with some good folks I'm honored to count among my friends.....