In 2013 I was fortunate to have some great days on the water — including one of my best ever. But all of this was marred by persistent bad news about the continued decline of striped bass (more on that later). What follows is a short summary of some key trends, trips, and events from 2013.
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It feels like months ago that I washed down my salt water fly rod for the last time. The leaves fell, the gras was white with the first frost, and I put away my equipment, thinking I wouldn’t see it until the spring. Now, a video has me thinking I was wrong.
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Last week, I had the pleasure of fly fishing for false albacore ofd Cape Cod with two good friends, Eoin and Bob. We hired Tom Rapone, a long-standing fishing guide cum lawyer who, this fall, experienced a relapse into guiding — and to our great benefit. Tom is one of the finest guides I’ve ever fished with, and is a great guy to boot. While I understand the lure of the law, I do hope he continued to experience relapses for years to come.
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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. And then we saw birds, and fish.
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In a college course on pre-Socratic philosophy, a teacher summed up one of the teachings of Heraclitus by saying: “Through suffering comes beauty.” Tonight, as I saw the first stripers of my year landed around me, that certainly was the case. The night began promisingly: a good tide, aligning with the end of the work day, and light drizzles throughout the day — conditions which, according to one, had yielded fish in the past at this spot. At lunch, the same friend had walked to the Charles River waterfront and cast a line. The stripers that followed his fly to the shore were all the proof we needed to end speculation: Fish were going to be caught this night.
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River herring, due to their size, are not a sport fish. But striped bass, like so many other predatory fish, feast on herring. Though of greater stature, herring, like menhaden, are the sometimes unrecognized bedrock of the food system. Their dominance is limited to the krill, small crustaceans and small fish on which they feed. Mostly, they provide are the feed to seals, whales, cod, stripers, blues and other migratory species. That’s why it’s a concern that the National Marine Fisheries Council has listed them as a “species of concern.” As their ocean and inland spawning habitat has gradually been eroded over decades, their numbers have plummeted. So they go, so go many fish above them.
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In case you’re wondering: the striped bass are still not in Boston Harbor. As I wrote in a previous post, this is a hard time for fly fishermen. After a long, cold winter, a few months away from feeling the pull of a fish on a fly line can drive a fly fisherman to do things he knows are futile. And so, today, a few of us struck out to chase stripers in Boston Harbor.
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When can you fish for trout in Massachusetts? When can you chase landlocked salmon in Maine? Striped bass in Rhode Island? Ice fishing? Here’s what you need to know: it’s different in every state. Confused yet? Don’t worry — you will be soon.
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A few days ago, I got the below in the my inbox: an invitation to the Cheeky, the Boston-based reel manufacturer, for their annual Cape Cod schoolie tournament. I’ve yet to attend, but judging from the video, this is guaranteed to be a fun time, with decent prizes. Plus, the guys behind the company, Peter and Ted, are good guys. Go if you can — but don’t wait to enter. Space will fill up quickly!
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For many fly fishermen — even those who fish through it — winter is a time when we reconsider our gear and, having fell victim to a series of good sales, we restock for the new season. There are new lines to be cast. New rods to be flexed. The risk of all of this, of course, is that should you not test this gear on the water, instead of upon the excitable waters of your mind, then you could easily find yourself on a riverbank, hours from a store, with very expensive pieces of monofilament and graphite who are about as well-matched as a 12 year old to his first cigar.
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