Striped Bass
By Jeffrey Cardenas

To a sun-baked, saltwater-encrusted tropical fly fisherman, spending time on the water in New England is a welcome change of pace. The light is softer here. The air doesn't sear your lungs with each hyperventilating breath. Gone is that hothouse humidity that makes an angler feel as if he might grow an orchid in his armpits. I enjoy extreme fishing in hot tropical climates--it's my heritage--but fishing is also a great pleasure when we kick it down a notch.

Of course, saltwater fly fishing in the Northeast can be as extreme as one would care to make it. My introduction to the coldwater seacoast was striped bass fishing on the North Fork of Long Island. The drill involved a 2 am wake up call (what was the point of even going to bed?) Bundled up against the early morning cold our dedicated cadre would trudge along the beach to the appointed "spot." We would then strip out into our handy hip-mounted garbage cans and line up so close together along the beach that it was still possible to talk together as a group. I was impressed by the social nature of this dedicated group of night stalkers but the close proximity to a dozen shooting heads zipping through the air made me feel as if I was being woven into a spider web

For hours we would cast blindly into the inky rips, dodging the sand eel darts of another angler's backcast. Sometimes there'd be a grab and we'd land a fish that we would examine with little flashlights clenched between our teeth. Lou Tabory has said that the lack of light, while disturbing to some, develops in an angler a unique advantage. "A blind man accustomed to functioning without light possesses a feel far superior to that of a man with sight."

Afterward, guiding anglers on the flats of the Florida Keys, I better understood why these striped bass fishermen were such extraordinary casters. The all night striper sessions would involve hundreds of casts compared to a day on the tropical flats where two dozen shots was considered high cotton. While I didn't completely understand the attraction of nighttime coldwater striper fishing I did admire the devotion.

Some years later I was encouraged to see the sport from a different perspective and I scheduled another striper fishing trip to Long Island. This time the fishing would be visual. In the past decade, flats fishing for stripers has achieved a renaissance from New Jersey to Nantucket. It's a renaissance because the baymen of this coast have for centuries targeted striped bass in shallow water. ("It's not fish ye're buyin, it's men's lives.") Sport anglers and their associated conservation groups saved the dying resource of striped bass and then brought its pursuit to a higher and more manageable level.

Bonefish skiffs were introduced to the shallow waters of Connecticut, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Montauk. The fish were stalked like bonefish and permit as they worked their way across light colored bottom in depths ranging from five feet down to 12 inches. The sink tip and lead core fly lines were replaced with floaters. Anglers discovered that in many cases the fish were crab eaters and the fly patterns found in tropical saltwater fly boxes turned fish when standard sand eel flies were rejected. This style of fishing didn't replace the nighttime blind casting and deep rip fishing for stripers; it just added to the sport another dimension.

Each year two of Long Island's most notable flats fishermen, John Abplanalp and Paul Dixon, host an informal conclave of anglers at the Montauk Lake Club. This is mainly an excuse to eat lobsters and littlenecks, and tell lies over pitchers of beer in the Shagwong pub. It was here, under the distracting Peter Beard portraits of bare-breasted women in Africa, that John and Paul (if they sound like disciples, they are) first filled my head with images of clear water stripers eating crabs on the flats.

"Seeing fish eat, any fish, is the best part of fly fishing," John said. "To be able to track these stripers and cast to where they are-not just to where you think they are-is why we are so excited about flats fishing in the Northeast."

John Abplanalp is the consummate sight caster. He likes to encounter his fish in broad daylight. No night fishing for this boy. Among friends, John is known as the captain of the Crack-O-Noon Fishing Team.

The gathering in Montauk is a veritable who's who of Northeastern fly fishing. Notable fly tiers Bob Popovics and Eric Peterson generously open their fly boxes and assemble their vices as they share ideas. Lefty Kreh, Nick Curcione, Ed Jaworowski string up quivers of new fly rods and demonstrate techniques on the lawn. John Cole gives historical perspectives of the South Fork and its striper fishing. Greg Weatherby speaks of the UFA Conservation Foundation and its efforts in the Northeast. New York Times Editor Howell Raines is eloquent in his discussion of politics and fishing. Most importantly, there are dozens of other anglers and guides whose names don't appear in print but who have greatly contributed to the refinement of this sport. Nobody is trying to sell anything. There is no agenda. Nobody is getting paid to be here. It's just an informal group of friends who are passionate about the sport. Moored at the Lake Club docks, there is a veritable flotilla of flats fishing skiffs, captained by some of the best guides in the business, ready to apply practical application.

On a rare windless morning when most of the skiffs have long since departed to the legendary flats of Gardiner's Island, Napeague, and Fort Pond Bay, John Abplanalp and the Crack-O-Noon Fishing Team are stowing gear in a sportfishing boat for an offshore adventure.

Offshore?

I thought this was about shallow water fly fishing for stripers?

"We've found something spectacular," he says with wry, secretive confidence. "Grab your rod and let's go." With a skiff towing behind on a long lead, we point the big boat out of the inlet and lay the throttles down.

Precisely at noon we anchor off the beach of a spectacular offshore island and transfer our gear to the skiff. I am not even stripped out before Capt. Jim Carey casually points out; "That one that just crossed the sand patch right on the beach is 25 to 30 pounds." More fish work down the flat flashing scooping green crabs off the sand. The fish are huge. "Don't be surprised to see a 40-pounder in two or three feet of water," John says. "They're always here, and they are always big."

The speculation is that these fish, without pressure and with close access to deep Atlantic water, grow to be some of the largest striped bass in the Northeast. The island is, in fact, noted for its pelagic visitors. Not too long ago a jetty fisherman here landed a white marlin off the rocks using conventional tackle. It must have made for good entertainment to the arriving ferry passengers.

We are using 10-weight rods because of the size and power of these fish. Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett, one of the first to use permit flies on striped bass, managed to land an extraordinary fish on one of these offshore islands after it nearly spooled him using lightweight tarpon tackle. These are bass to be reckoned with.

The stripers refuse my offerings and I yield the bow to John who takes a nice fish almost immediately on a Bob Popovics Jiggy fly.

"Does Bob know about these fish?" I ask as another 20-pounder cruises by looking for something to eat. Popovics is the modern day godfather of shallow water striped bass fly fishing (Sonny Corleone and his brother Fredo have their own table at Bob's restaurant in Surfside, NJ).

"No, Bob doesn't know about these fish . . . and he doesn't need to know about these fish," John says emphatically. But I can tell by his mischievous grin that Popovics will be receiving a full report.

Then it's on me again. It's my shot and I'm in the catbird seat on the bow. The backs of striped bass break through the surface of the oily swells. Jim Carey suggests a technique of casting onto the dry sand and then stripping it back across the water's edge. I am mesmerized by the vivid stripes along the flanks of these fish and their beautiful olive-green color. Greenheads, as they were known archaicaly. Rockfish. Squidhounds. A.J. McClane wrote, "There is little chance of confusing a striped bass over 10 inches with any other species of fish along the Atlantic or Pacific coasts."

That is the definition of distinctive.

And then I learn the definition of distraction.

My line dangles on the starboard side of the skiff while I admire the fish to port. Suddenly there is a jolt and my line is tight. My rod is bent. I understand immediately what is happening. I'm hooked up. I blush a deep crimson and look back at my fishing partners to see if I've been busted.

I'm caught red faced and red handed. While looking at the fish swimming along the beach, my fly drags unattended through the water and it is consumed by the biggest stripped bass I have even been in contact with.

"So how do you like this sight casting for stripers?" John says. And I know in this moment that he will never let me forget this.

"Jeffrey, do you teach that casting technique in your seminars?"

"Do you find that bonefish take the fly as well when you're looking in the opposite direction?"

"Tell us again how you made that fish eat."

Jim Carey brings us back to the moment and reminds me to pay attention. "You better land that fish now or this story is going to go from bad to worse."

The bass rips into the backing, a salve to comfort the raw wound of embarrassment. I learn that like many fish the difference of only a few pounds in the size of a striped bass translates into a remarkably stronger pull. The bass moves at will to a cluster of rocks and then turns on its side in an attempt to scrape the annoyance from its lower lip.

My guess is that the striper is just as surprised as I am.

I apply pressure and the fish responds with a dull, heavy head shaking. There are few things that strike as directly to the central nervous system as a big fish shaking its head.

And then the fish is at the boat side.

This is my first big bass and despite all the hee-hawing from the back of the boat catching this fish is so exciting that I feel as if I am dancing on air.

I realize that with the constant needling it will be an extraordinarily long boat ride home. Nonetheless, spending the day flats fishing for stripers with the Crack-O-Noon Fishing Team is, to quote Patrick McManus, a fine and pleasant misery.
 

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