If it were the yellow-eyed, gator Bluefish who won the
coin toss of April 2017 for inshore dominance, surfcasters alike must
unanimously agree that this year’s win landed “tails-up” in forthright favor of
the winter-months-missed, migrating tribes of Striped Bass. Much like the Blues of the year prior, flaunting
the shallows of the shoreline this season were the splayed caudals of linesiders
seeking-out prey seemingly everywhere, foraging on tides rising and ebbing, and
later, at times, even biting on the tails of Menhaden that I first observed in
local waterways as inconceivably early as February 28th. In the weeks that followed that date, snow
fell upon the backs of these surface-breaching Bunker on more than three stormy
occasions, but their sudden arrival left me wondering just how far-off in time
the ancient chase of scaly predators would be.
As with the inception of every first trip to the salt
and every commencement of first cast, I found myself following in the footsteps
of preparatory ritual. Reels were cleaned,
greased, and re-spooled, knots tied, and leaders strung as certain, recurring thoughts
were finally and physically loomed-of and focused upon over the clamped jaws of
a dutiful vise, specifically, those concerned with the whereabouts and timing of my quarries’
arrival. Again, I was a man one-step
closer to a briny christening.
Like most things in Nature,
there blossoms one day when suddenly something appears, and then there is no
turning back. This year, such was the
mass-invasion of 34"+sized Stripers to our waters at about mid-April. The all-important breeders of the genepool. Not only did the average sand-straddling surfcaster
seem to eat his cake and have it too, talk of the town was the once-in-a-lifetime landing of a jaw-dropping
58lb. river-migrating matriarch from the shallows of
the Raritan on the month’s full moon. Social
media and staple fishing website forums each concurred to the consistency of
catches. Needless to say, just like the incalculable
membership of this strong showing of April fish, an equally inestimable number of
cameras and cell phone phameras were kept busy capturing the mesmerizing profiles
of fish hoisted both day and night, sagging of stuffed white bellies while held
outstretched or suspended in-arms before an angler’s approving smile. This
was it, and as angling author Ted Leeson wrote best, “something important had continued.”
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|
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| ...a
tight bond where two synthetic contenders are being drawn to join together in unison,
to never falter or slip, whose embodiment represents the unification of old and new, where the opposing pairing of nylon
monofilament coils in a firmly-wrapped, knotted collusion to the polyethylene fibers
of Dyneema-based braid, forming the essential unity which is the very physical link serving to
connect this man to the faraway saltwater depths of my fevered passions. |
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My lifeline empowering me on this perennial quest for
peace.
I will vow to push forward for more, to endeavor, and ultimately,
triumph as a man humbled by his surroundings, fully-aware that if a fish
happens to flop upon the bubbling sand of the surf, then all the better for
me. |
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"You can’t catch fish if you don’t dare go
where they are" - Norman Maclean
|
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| The season's first - oh so good! |
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| What one cast giveth, another taketh away. Simply said, a beachwalk find. |
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| You may only be a surfcaster, but
you are a surfcaster dedicated to experiencing the bounty of riches Nature
serves for you to feast upon like that of a ravenous gourmand. |
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| Let 'em go, let 'em grow |
