First, there were birds. And then, there were stripers. Lots of stripers.

With the sun rising, we set out from a small harbor through a narrow channel with our guide. Safe from the harbor, we brought the boat onto plane and motored into Cape Cod Bay. The air was cold, the wind calm, and the boats sparse. It looked like a good day.

But the recent news wasn’t great. Fish had been sparse. The Vineyard side wasn’t producing. Striper population levels have been down in recent years. If you followed the logic of the conversation, it was going to be a beautiful day for a skunking.

In motoring out, we saw birds on the horizon and gave chase. But birds can be the mirage of the ocean: they appear and disappear quickly, leaving you to wonder if you were chasing an oasis in the Sahara. At least a few times early in the day we chased birds that dispersed or calmed down, each chase delivering adrenaline, but no fish. No fish, anywhere.

Until we saw them: a pack of gulls circling and diving into broken water. As we approached, we saw a school of stripers breaking the surface. With each cast, we got a strike, a follow, and often a fish.

And so it went for the day. We daisy-chained our way across the water, following the pack of birds. For a few hours they delivered school after school of stripers. Whether it was one big school, or a few different schools moving quickly down the shore, wasn’t clear to me. But one thing was clear: this wasn’t a school of schoolies.

The smallest striper was 28”. The largest was 40”. In total, we caught at least 25 stripers that day. All of them were covered in sea lice. And all of them took on the surface. On many casts, we’d look down to see a group of 3-7 stripers following the fly or lure. Many took immediately, many slapped it a bunch of times before getting hooked, and a bunch were hooked at the last possible moment before the boat. All shared in one trait: the aggressiveness of their take, and the strength of their fight.

We stopped taking photos, and stopped counting. But the wonder, and the thrill of gripping rod and boat when our guide shouted “Pull up! Pull up! They’re at 11 o’clock!” right before accelerating into another surface blitz never wore off.

 

It was a day unlike I’ve ever had when fishing in June for striped bass. Part of it was luck: the day we had chosen months in advance was perfect, we happened to find birds, and we happened to miss Andrea by a few days. But a large part of our success also was our guide.

Todd Fedele, of Outlaw Charters, met us that morning with a smile, a joke – and the best equipment I’ve ever seen from a saltwater guide. Each rod, St. Croix’s specifically made for him, boasted a shiny Stella. His fly rods were of the same caliber. And his boat, a center console Pathfinder, was immaculate. Before we had gone anywhere, I knew we were in good hands.

Todd has great energy: he never stopped spotting for fish and birds, and seemed to love the chase as much, if not more, than we did. His lures – which I had never seen before, and, I’ve come to learn, are very hard to find – killed ‘em on nearly every cast. And he was as proficient on the fly rod as he was on the spinning gear. He owns a few businesses – a marina, and The Compleat Angler online store, in addition to his two guide boats — and is well connected. He was on the phone with Jamie Boyle during the day, sharing reports, and with Jim Ellis, who taught Todd to fly fish. As the Downeast compliment goes, “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

For more on Todd, follow him on Facebook at Outlaw Charters, or find his website here: http://outlawlighttacklefishing.com/

I don’t know when, or if, I’ll get to repeat a day like that. But I hope I don’t have to wait another 30 years. It was just too good. Good enough to fuel another 30 years of searching, and casting, and chasing the birds.

Here’s a few photos from the day (many courtesy of Todd).