| Clavemeister Terry
Weir has somewhat of a family legacy on the river, and to our benefit, he called
us together to kick off the first conclave in the new millennium. The weather cooperated for 1.5 of the 2.5 days, the fish
cooperated pretty much right through, and we all had an awesome time. |
Terry Weir Photo
|
The fast-track crowd showed up on Friday to kick things off. Fish were in the
river in good numbers and many had success before nightfall.
Saturday was the main event,
most converged on the river mouth to find lots of action on the dropping tide. I
started at Parkers River to the west trying to capitalize on the spring herring-hunting
keeper bass but to no avail. I joined the crew over on Bass River in the early AM,
just in time to watch the "Pope" Gregg Estey do the funky popper thing at slack
low with Jeff Roop. We were impressed!
Jeff and Nate jumped east to
Herring River and got into a dozen or so more schoolies there. I hopped on the boat
with the meister and had a great time drifting down the tide casting to structure and
finding a lot of fish to eat the fly. The spring flows on the mid-river drifts are
crisp and clear, it was like fishing one of those salt inlets up in Maine. A really
great time. We all enjoyed the sunshine and good fishing - and that was good because
Sunday brought us a reminder that it wasn't time for flip flops and shorts just yet.
Anyway, we all converged on
Clancy's restaurant on Swan River in Dennis for some first-class grub on Saturday night.
We raised a toast to the clavemeister, made the Pope's election official, and rung
up another classic for clave historical records.
Sunday had that dark menacing
sky with a cold wind blowing hard out of the east (if I recall). After surveying the
situation, I opted to go into a dark tannin stained shallow estuary where the water is
warmer and the bait has been holding in lately. Bingo - lots of fish, and a couple
of them were respectable drag-burning fish amidst the smaller ones. In fact the
following weekend several fish from 28-32" were taken out of that stretch. This
re-inforced the theory of fish being up inside estuaries during cold water conditions.
I closed the clave festivities with brunch at the Red Cottage diner. I had
striper thumb for the first time this century, and it was good. Bring on the
millenium baby!
Below are some of the images
and memories of the SpringClave '2000 gathering. Although they don't come close to
capturing all of the good times at Terry's or the excursions to surrounding areas in
search of fish or the celebration dinner at Clancy's - they each tell a thousand words and
perhaps more to those who attended.
ENJOY!
Juro Mukai
|
