With the much-anticipated turning of the calendar from September to October, so begins the
turning-on of finned-life of all-forms all-throughout the surf.
Fin-ally. What ensues to inspire are the orchestration of the most opportune tides of dawn and twilight that the surfcaster dreams of all-summer-long. As if like clockwork, back bays empty of anchovies, silverside, mullet, shad, and peanut bunker to kick-start the fall run in earnest. Larger Stripers suddenly appear in the nighttime tide. Schools of False Albacore porpoise with mouths wide-open through the saltwater's surface, colliding with this egress of southern-swimming bait. Young Bluefish blitz the shoreline and Bonito make for an interesting by-catch. Seabirds fish-find in flocks and dive into dark balls of bait. Inshore pods of dolphin surface for air. The light of day shortens and the life-blood of water slowly sheds of temperature, as a web of migrating sea-life weaves together before our witnessing wonderment of participation as fishermen.
Like the aching desire to counterbalance against a deeply bent rod to the quiet of night, I'm long overdue (
103 days since my last post published in early July) in sharing new blog content. The following images are those prints I've recently developed from my digital darkroom. This "roll of film" captured a few of my October outings, beginning with the new moon of the 9th. In all regards, the best is yet to come, as I cannot wait to capture more photos, and fish..
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| A healthy showing of Bass to 33" appeared "out back," kicking-off October to a nice start. |
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| A painted body of stripes marking the cycloid-shaped scales of Sax; always such a spectacular sight bringing color to a colorless night. |
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| A fine specimen taken on the night of October's new moon. "When the moon's away, the Bass will play." |
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| Recounting the day and strategizing the movement of predator and prey. |
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| An angler trying his luck during a run of mullet. |
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| Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Block Island, or... Sandy Hook? |
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| A 2oz. Hogy Heavy looking pretty in pink. As of Oct. 16th, I only got to run it through or close enough to busting Albies on two retrieves. With a rigid work schedule taking priority, I am often told far too often that I "missed a real good one earlier." The season is far from over yet.. |
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| Sanderlings (Calidris alba) |
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| Atlantic Silverside on the move south. |
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| 500+ Atlantic Silverside (& bay anchovy) fill the plastic cooler of two "fishermen's" seine netting efforts. I was told they "taste good." My opinion is that during mid-October, they "look better" schooling the shore's shallows en masse. They look best when going aerial as Albie's, Bass, or Blues have their way. |
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| Fish-finders of the sky doing their thing over silverside, mullet, and anchovy. |
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| Gills bled-out, isthmus sliced, yet.. forgotten. |
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| The tell-tale anatomy of a surf-sought seasonal pursuit: finlets followed by a lunate tail. |
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| A dead Albie's pectoral fin. |
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| Mullet by the millions on the move south. |
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| Life, recklessly discarded and carelessly disregarded. The lack of respect for a such a species of fish that comes to play disgusts someone like me when there are three of them left for dead on a beach after a single afternoon of maniacal metal slinging. |
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| A westerly-wind stirs up the surface and churns sand at this angler's finding feet. Surfcasters, October has arrived! |
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| It's only the fluid tidal motion of saltwater that serves to distinguish the stark boundary between the world's greatest metropolis of concrete and skyscrapers from the very antipode of human endeavor: pristine saltwater marshes, estuaries, slopes of drifting sand, and a littoral seascape home to scores of varieties of life. |
