Took Thursday and Friday to head over to the Vineyard with Mr. Pink to scout for the C&R tourney on Saturday night.
The one burning stream of sunlight as we drove off the ferry would be it for the next few days. The tough conditions of 35+ winds clocking from SW to NE to S over 3 days + rain + low temps forced us to leave the places that have always produced and use our gray matter to find fish. Thursday night we were again extremely fortunate to fish with Mark Plante, – Derby Winner in 2000, and a local friend of Mr. Pink’s. Mark has access to some private property that opened up a shoreline that let us see how the island was 100 – 200 years ago. As we faced the Elizabeth’s hooking up with STRONG fish, Mr. Pink wound up the top rod for the evening.
Friday the conditions were even worse, so bad that I bought my first salty spinning rod at Coops because I just didn’t see the conditions lightening up. We wound up that afternoon taking the manly tactic of not running & hiding in the lee of the island but instead going to the weather side. The day before the fish we briefly hooked into from Chappaquidick had migrated over to Edgartown and we found them that afternoon. Strong, big shouldered schoolies covered in sea-lice, a few feisty blues, stripers with colors ranging from violet to gold to a strong surface sheen of silver, screaming wind in your face, rain boring a hole into exposed flesh – it was a blast!
Saturday we took it early prepping for the tourney, fished our plan that evening & wound up chasing a tourney skunk (fish had to be over 20” to qualify – Mr. Pink had landed one that didn’t measure up). We dropped off the rest of the crew and since we 2 hours of left in the tourney, we headed over to Tashmoo. Ran into a few buddies on their way home who had finally hooked up there as well. The tip for the working fly was the opposite of what you would have used there at that time. A great tip & fun to finally chase off the skunk.
No celebratory drink that night as the spinning rod stealing bear had polished off the Vodka as well!
Winning big fish for the tourney, 37” long, 24 “ girth.
Most fish, something like 27 per person.
They were there, you just had to find them.
A great time, a great cause, Orvis, Coops Bait & Tackle and the Bear’s Den were all extremely generous sponsors as well as Nick’s fly boxes.
A great cause, the money raised send the MV HS culinary art students to a foreign country to study for a week, any $$ left over goes into the clubs kids trout tourney.
http://mvrodandgunclub.com/ for registration info for next year.
The one burning stream of sunlight as we drove off the ferry would be it for the next few days. The tough conditions of 35+ winds clocking from SW to NE to S over 3 days + rain + low temps forced us to leave the places that have always produced and use our gray matter to find fish. Thursday night we were again extremely fortunate to fish with Mark Plante, – Derby Winner in 2000, and a local friend of Mr. Pink’s. Mark has access to some private property that opened up a shoreline that let us see how the island was 100 – 200 years ago. As we faced the Elizabeth’s hooking up with STRONG fish, Mr. Pink wound up the top rod for the evening.
Friday the conditions were even worse, so bad that I bought my first salty spinning rod at Coops because I just didn’t see the conditions lightening up. We wound up that afternoon taking the manly tactic of not running & hiding in the lee of the island but instead going to the weather side. The day before the fish we briefly hooked into from Chappaquidick had migrated over to Edgartown and we found them that afternoon. Strong, big shouldered schoolies covered in sea-lice, a few feisty blues, stripers with colors ranging from violet to gold to a strong surface sheen of silver, screaming wind in your face, rain boring a hole into exposed flesh – it was a blast!
Saturday we took it early prepping for the tourney, fished our plan that evening & wound up chasing a tourney skunk (fish had to be over 20” to qualify – Mr. Pink had landed one that didn’t measure up). We dropped off the rest of the crew and since we 2 hours of left in the tourney, we headed over to Tashmoo. Ran into a few buddies on their way home who had finally hooked up there as well. The tip for the working fly was the opposite of what you would have used there at that time. A great tip & fun to finally chase off the skunk.
No celebratory drink that night as the spinning rod stealing bear had polished off the Vodka as well!
Winning big fish for the tourney, 37” long, 24 “ girth.
Most fish, something like 27 per person.
They were there, you just had to find them.
A great time, a great cause, Orvis, Coops Bait & Tackle and the Bear’s Den were all extremely generous sponsors as well as Nick’s fly boxes.
A great cause, the money raised send the MV HS culinary art students to a foreign country to study for a week, any $$ left over goes into the clubs kids trout tourney.
http://mvrodandgunclub.com/ for registration info for next year.