Tourney Results: Part 1

At the last Connecticut Surfcaster's monthly meeting I was making a cup of coffee when our club President Billy D came over to me to share a little sneak peak of how the Fall MS tournament typically plays out.  He said, "Matt the tourney we are about to take part in is usually 30 mile an hour winds and driving rain in your face," as I blindly poured way too much sugar into my coffee, Bill continued, "the waves and wind so strong you can't even make a cast, but the snotty weather has played a role that has worked to our advantage because our guys fish it regardless of the conditions."  Well this year's tourney did not disappoint in the bad weather department.  An offshore tropical storm kicked up the surf, we had 20-25 mph sustained winds, and Friday night of the tourney a thunderstorm with driving rains, thunder and incredible lightning around 2:00am.

On the bright side, Friday was supposed to be a wash entirely.  The rain was supposed to fall all day long, however it wouldn't actually begin to fall until sometime around midnight.  So Friday after work, I made my way to camp "Mystic KOA" where one of our members Rich had secured three, four bed cabins to be our command station for the weekend.  The campground located in North Stonington, CT is a well-kept place with a large and kind staff, which provided comfortable lodging and easy 20-25 minute access to most of South County Rhode Island.  After unloading unnecessary gear from my car into the cabin I was running about an hour behind schedule.  Most of the guys I planned on fishing with had already ventured out.  I donned my waders & boots about a half hour after tournament start, got in my car and set out for a night of fishing.  My first stop was the Quonny breachway, a place I had never seen never mind fished before.  As I pulled up to the first parking area I noticed 7 vehicles all with CT plates.  I got out and another fisherman was just walking out and I joked, "Hey do you know if Rhode Island is nearby?"  He laughed and said he was wondering the same thing.  Just as I was about ready to walk-out myself another member pulled in who had picked up some tackle for me so I would wait as the jigs he had picked up would be my best bet at catching fish under the big surf conditions.

I hastily unwrapped 5 Andrus Jetty caster bucktail jigs as Ian (a new member) geared up.  Now an hour and half behind tourney start we started walking to our destination... road block, a private dock extending into the water rerouted our first attempt.  We walked through an overgrown path to the road and turned right to walk past a series of houses.  Starting up a dirt road we soon realized there is no "path".  Aboutfaced, we walked back towards our cars to the first house without lights on and cut-through their property.  It was a good choice as it brought us to the turn in the breachway.  So we started fishing and to me the breachway current wasn't an unfamiliar feeling as it struck as similar to trout fishing in a river.  Just as I was getting settled-in to the feel of the place, Ian was ready to move.  Somehow, and it all kind of blurs together now, we were back at the car in three separate occasions.  Overall I fished Quonny in four separate broken sessions over three and a half hours.  Nothing was strung together, no hits from fish, and my partner wants to move to another breach?  In my head I was thinking what is the difference, but I went along with it...

We stopped short of our destination to get out and look for baitfish.  Checking under the lights of some roadside boat slips at the next breachway channel we saw a good amount of bait and it was in my mind a promising sign that there could be some striped bass around.  At the parking lot, another angler started talking to us about how he hadn't caught anything but the night before was exceptional.  As he launched into showing us all of his plugs and the bite marks on them, I felt as if we were both stuck in quicksand as this angler linked sentences together without hesitation.  I finally managed to break the cycle to say, I need to go fishing now, before the tide runs out.  So I started casting the channel working the far side, the center, and the nearside before changing position.  About half an hour into fishing, I hung up with the bottom near another angler and said "Before you cast again, I'm hung-up," I walked towards him opposite the current and pulled free and apologized.  He said no problem, any luck?  I picked my hood up over my eyes and noticed it was one of our members, Toby.  I said hello, and introduced myself to him.  He said he hadn't caught anything but had a few hits, which was all I needed to hear.  In that instant my confidence changed entirely and I knew I would hook into something soon.  Not fifteen minutes later I got my first hit, and set the hook on a fish.  My heart picked up a couple steps as I had never fished inside a channel before and my first concern was how to land a fish in the current.  Drag peeled off and I chased the fish down current to a conveinient concrete stair case.  I struggled for a minute to get my boga-grip in the fishes mouth but eventually found a purchase on the fish's lower jaw.  I held the fish against my body to not illuminate the silhouette to other anglers and got a measurement of about 37 inches and 19lbs on the boga.  At the time, we did need this fish to cull-out other smaller fish, but I couldn't do it.  I released the fish unharmed and would regret doing so after hearing our club report around 2 am the first night, as it would have upgraded our catch.  Just 20 minutes later I hooked into another fish that was right around 34" but I just popped the hook and let him swim away without taking it out of the water.  I worked the rest of the channel to the point over the next 45 minutes without a bump and began to wonder where Ian was?  I thought he must be into fish as he had not come my way for even a second.

As I turned the corner around the bushes into the parking lot, Ian's car was backing out of his spot.  I flagged him down and asked where he was going.  He said, Walmart for some gatorades, I said, "I've got extra gatorades in my car, besides I just landed two nice bass."  That was enough for him to pull right back into his spot.  I dug out a gatorade and handed it to him, he downed the whole thing, and said, "Bucktail?" I nodded, "Let's go."  Not ten minutes later Ian hooked up to a fat 35" bass that pulled the boga down to 18lbs, which he decided to keep the fish and weigh it in.  Back at the lot, we met up with several other members and talked about our next moves.  Just as we were going to set out for more fishing, the lightning moved in too close for comfort and we decided to call it for a few hours.  I followed Ian to walmart so he could get some ice and a cooler for his fish.  While I was waiting for Ian to find what he needed, I shot this quick video in the walmart parking lot of the rain we were dealing with.

Sleeping in your car in waders, Saturday's fishing, and the winners to follow....

Striped-Bass Tournaments

Only a few hours from now the proverbial bell will ring on yet another Striped Bass tournament to help raise money for M.S.  This tournament known as the Surf Fishing Club Challenge was established in 1993. The main purpose is to bring together Atlantic Coast Surf Fishing Clubs, in an effort to unite members from different clubs and regions, to meet each other, discuss fishing and conservation in their respective areas.
All proceeds are donated to charity in the name of Surf Fishing.

DATE AND TIME START -FRI. OCT.19, 2012 - 6:00 PM

ENDS - SUN. OCT. 21, 2012 - 8:00 AM

The one thing I do not like about the tournament is that is a catch & kill tournament.  The minimum length for a "keeper" is 32 inches which is 4 inches larger than legal size, however I would much rather compete/participate in a catch, photo, & release tournament.  There are a couple components of this tournament that work against keeping the catch fresh for the dinner plate.  First is that we tend to fish at night and for long hours, and the weigh-in stations are not open 24hrs to accommodate the need to weigh-in fish close to the time they are caught.  After completing this task, then it is the angler's duty to clean their catch which may have been caught at 7pm the night before & after being up all night.  The recent "Tournament for Chuck" was a catch, photo & release which had anglers place a measuring tape next to or under a fish and photo the fish with a tournament "tag" on the fish or at least visible in the picture.  This allowed for the fish to be released or kept if desired.  The pictures were then turned-in via email or in person with each picture being labeled with the fish length.

Take this year's Martha's Vineyard Striped-Bass and Bluefish Derby.  "The Derby" as it is referred to ran for 30 or 31 days where participants fished what time they could, maybe the duration, maybe just a weekend.  In that time a tally of Striped Bass, Bluefish, False Albacore, & Bonito were harvested amounting to two pounds short of 21,100lbs or about 680lbs of fish per day.  The number of fish taken were 1144 Bluefish, 226 Bonito, 311 False Albacore, and 466 Striped Bass. Looking at the individual fish numbers is not as drastic compared to the weigh, for example this tournament averaged only 15 Striped-Bass weighed in per day. It is a combination boat and shore tournament and has been running for many years, steeped in history, etc... and I admit that I thought it would be nice to be a part of the tradition and experience the derby first hand... yet I am beginning to doubt the necessity of such large numbers of fish being killed.  The major indicator of why harvest tournaments pose a problem for fish population health comes from the fact that the largest Striped Bass weighed in from shore was only 32.12lbs.  In the past a 30lb Bass might not have won a daily prize as paraphrased from a long time Derby contestant.

Am I participating in the "Surf Fishing Club Challenge"?  The answer is yes.  I can promise that the Connecticut Surfcasters will be taking advantage of cell phone use to find out who is catching what, and who should weigh-in a fish or turn it loose.  Yet, we will still be keeping and killing fish.  I personally would like to see the rules modified towards a catch and release structure, so I will ask around and get a feel for what other participants think about this idea.  After all, there will be an excellent representation of clubs in the surf casting community in attendance and I know they want to catch fish now and in the years to come.  There is nothing wrong with taking fish, I do keep and eat 2 to 4 Striped Bass per year, but I believe it should be on our own accord and not for the sake of a tournament.

Hooks & Hardware

Successful fishing outings happen due to a variety of reasons, especially while surfcasting.  The opening of John Skinner's book A Season on the Edge begins with, "If surfcasters were interested only in catching fish, they would buy a boat. The anglers who choose to constrain their pursuits to the very edge of our marine environment do so to meet challenges that provide benefits that are least tangible than a cooler full of fish. Make no mistake, they want to catch and this desire often spawns an obsession that drives these anglers into the surf under conditions that most people take shelter from, often during hours when the rest of the world is asleep."  John is an exceptional surfcaster, he puts in his time on the water, understands moon phase, tides, currents, wind direction, and keeps a fishing log of his outtings to pin-point what made for a successful trip.  

With everything being equal by removing the effect of all of those things such as wind, wind direction, high tide, low tide, season, etc... all of it removed from the equation, we are left with our tackle.  Rod, reel, & lures.  Taking it one step further, let's assume the rod and reel are fine, you are using braided mainline, with a 50# fluorocarbon shock leader.  Lures! Lures! Lures!  Are not created equal.

We all have our go-to's for certain situations, as one person may only fish a specific plug such as swimmers and another may only fish Needlefish.  If the plug being purchased comes without hooks, great, you can set it up with VMCs and when the hook pulls you can only blame yourself.  However when you purchase a lure with factory hooks that are sub-par it is a good idea to change them immediately if possible.  Here is one example of a Superstrike Needlefish with factory hooks after two uses:

As you can see, this lure does catch fish, but here are a couple of things I noticed after aproximately 40 fish on this lure.  The hooks are already rusting, and their points are not sharp.  The lure was hit many more times and I lost a decent amount of fish either not finding a bite in the fish's mouth or pulling-out altogether.  Also, the thru-wire wrap at the tail is loosened, and I am afraid of it unraveling during a fight.  I am not saying to avoid this lure, I'm saying that it is probably retired but the next one I purchase will get new hooks before I begin fishing.

Another example is the Diawa Salt Pro Minnow:

This lure is another great lure with the exception of the hardware.  Both the split rings and hooks it comes with are weak.  Out of the box I hooked a small striped bass at 16" that now has a diawa hook in its lips because it pulled off the hook bending open the split ring.  So if you buy this lure do yourself a favor and change the split rings to something heavier, and the hooks to the same size in a 4X strong VMC.  Bottom line is to recognize when the hardware is sub-par and to change it before you lose a fish to hardware failure. A lot of lure companies are now coming factory equipped with VMCs right out of the box but as a fisherman or woman it is our job to check our own equipment.

Good luck & see you out there.

Tourney For Chuck

If you thought a "Surf" fisherman was as cold as ice because he or she would not acknowledge you on the beach when you said hello.  You would probably be right, while Surf-casters are fishing they are a secretive, deceptive, lying lot of people.   Pit them against each other in a tournament setting and it becomes even worse.  If you thought the tabloid magazines publishing topless photos of Princess Kate Middleton were bad, then you haven't heard anything about competitive fishing for Striped Bass. 

Despite all of the tall tales, as a whole the surf-casting community along the "Striper Coast" is an exceptional group of people.  The surf-casting clubs that constitute this community hold beach clean-ups, charity tournaments to benefit M.S., cancer research, etc., some clubs are politically active and advocate for public shoreline access, fisheries management, and similar topics.  With that said, the people of this fishing community's bond reaches beyond helping out in general.  True to the word family, this community is just that, a big family.  One which cares for each other, and wants to see each other succeed and be healthy.  When one of its own is ill or some kind of hard-times befall them, the rest of the community comes together to lift them up. 

The "Tournament for Chuck" was created to help out a member of the striped-bass.com community by hosting a tournament in his name.  The idea here was to ask members for a donation of $15 dollars per angler to help Chuck pay-down his swelling medical bills.

The tournament begins tonight but donations will continue to be accepted. 
See below for links and tournament info:

Charity Surf Tournament Columbus Day Weekend

A fellow surfcaster is in need of some help. Chuck Vietry, some of you may know him as CraftyAngler on some of the message boards, has fallen ill and is in serious need of help to pay for his treatment. Striped-Bass.Com is putting together a charity tournament to help raise funds. It's $15 to enter the tournament you can PayPal stuff@linesiders.com (use the 'gift' option, it's for charity), sign up in person at the Saltwater Edge in Middletown, RI or send an email to tourneyforchuck@gmail.com for details on how to sign up through the mail. We're hoping to award prize packages to the top 5 finishers.

The tournament is a catch, photo and release event and we will use the top three fish entered from each angler to determine the winner. There will be a boatload of sought after custom plugs (RM Smith, Johnny, Afterhours, Surf Asylum, Left Hook among many others), gift certificates and books going to the top 4 finishers along with a few special prizes as well. Prize donations welcome.

There are no boundaries to where you can fish, just sign up and follow the rules below and you're eligible to win. Our goal is $3000, that's 200 people, please help us make that happen!