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And so another season is underway!

3K views 12 replies 11 participants last post by  Bill 
#1 ·
Man it felt good to be on the water again. Each year things change on the shoreline and it's like Christmas seeing all the goodies mother nature has brought us over the winter. It'll take me all season to decipher the secrets of these ever-changing sculptures in the sand, and then old man winter will send me home again in November until 2003.

As much as some things change, others stay the same - thank God. The tides still push the living sea into motion and the encounter between a fly fisherman and the striped predators of the shore is as exciting and fullfilling as ever. My icebreaker outing for 2002 was no exception, the fishing was nothing short of spectacular and the catching was pretty good too.

Rip Ryder still brings us to South Beach where the oceanside and inside provide a doubly interesting day on the water. Joppa still puts hordes of fish into the casting lanes of many wading anglers. Boston Habah is off to stellar start. Rhody is packed with bait and gamefish. Maine will be lighting up soon...

It looks like it's going to be an awesome season!
 

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#2 ·
No photos, just observations + it was great to see some of the old crew & meet a few new faces.

1. The Randy Jones reports re: seeing thousands of bass is on target. While it took me awhile to get it down, I was able to spot the pods coming and pick up a fish or two.

2. Saw the BIGGEST STRIPER I"VE EVER SEEN swimming in 3' of water 20' off the beach, high noon, heading north. Yelled at a buddy to get his cast out to it, he got in the area, the fish turned & then those years of experience that let him get that big kicked in as he turned back onto his northerly route. I was jumping up & down & screaming like a little kid for another 30 minutes!!

3. Plan your fish, fish your plan. When I got back to where I wanted to start from, we got into fish. Left the area to chase big boys in the surf & hear a rumour that someone hooked into a 50" fish.

4. Whatever you call that sharpening tool you gave me Juro, it's priceless - sharpened every fly I tied on in about 5 seconds to needle sharp.

5. Small schoolies sometimes haven't earned their stripes yet.:hehe:

Fun day, see you out there.

Roop
 
#3 · (Edited)
Yes... I think this will be a great year fishing.... Sorry I missed Juro yesterday but had to complete my jobs here... Now.. Trying to keep things simple... I need to stay down tonight for an appointment for my son and I tomorrow... Looking forward to fishing with all of you and looking forward to seeing some of Juro's variations to his deep sand eel... Also, will tye up some of Todd Murphy's small flat wings he showed me yesterday... Anyway... It is pouring down here now and My son and I are watching "Secrets of the Pyramids"... then out for a movie.."Spiderman" and later keep on my latest reading "Proving Ground" about the disasterious Sidney to Hobart Boat race... Have a fire on now, looking at some of Taboury's books and flys.... Actually nothing could be better right now... See you all on the water and you know where to find me...get in touch.
 

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#4 ·
Roop,
Great to see you again this weekend. I'm glad you guys got some fish to throw some flies at this finally.

Saturday Report

Saturday started off slow for me. No fish at first light at the light. Fished from the first rip to two or three turns out on south beach. Wind was honking.

Got back to Parking lot to meet Roop and company as well as Juro and Jeff. Convinced Juro and Jeff that caffiene was in order. We ran into Sean at Monomoy Coffee then headed down to the causeway to catch the first shuttle.

Off on South beach, fished the inside into the hair raising wind. Admitted defeat and headed outside. Didn't see fish, headed inside. Roop lead us to some small schoolies, so we finally found something.

Headed back to the pickup point to get back for the lesson at 1pm. Jeff and GregD were heading in...they had found tons of BIG fish both inside and outside. Penguin and I decided we would wait for the next shuttle. Back outside we went, I picked up one fish around 29" right away, but then nothing else.

Shuttle pick up once again. We see Smcdermott with a grin from Ear to Ear galavanting across the flats. I'll let him tell the story...all I have to say is this guy is learning FAST!

Then it was off to Nauset for Floating lessons. Great first day fishing Chatham!! Great to see everyone both new and old. I got the same feeling as a few others...its gonna be one hell of a season.

Nick
 
#5 ·
An awesome weekend...

Down Friday. Mini splurge at N. Angler. Gotta patronize the sponsors. Dinner with Sean at Joe's. Low to mid incoming under shooting stars at Ministers. Nauset in crazy surf at midnight. Hieroglyphics in the sand. Playin' The Monkeys.

Rendezvous at the light Sat morning. Monomoy coffee. Rip Ryder over to S. Beach at 8. Pete, Nick, Bill, Greg D, Roop and gang hike it over to the front side. Juro and I hang on the inside. Honkin' wind in our faces. Sterile until about 10...then madness. Trains of fish moving right to left. Strip..strip..strip....WHAMMO!!! A couple keepers and plenty in between. Sight fishing at its best. Juro wonders into the distance only to be seen later in the day with a digicam full of sweet stripes. Return on the Rip Ryder at 11. One more twinkie at the dropoff. Fishing for keys with Bill in the parking lot.

Tales of UNIX, homegrown solar systems, and big HP Chevelles with Greg D at lunch.

Out to Nauset where 30-odd anglers frighten the locals with chants of floaters, flatwings, and fish. Waves broadside, but to no avail. Not a fish was seen despite the largest ever genuine-faux hatch of "herring" this side of the Mississippi.

Beaten but not down, endeavour on a maiden oversand voyage...this time for real (sans aerials). Eddie and Sean accomplice. Beatiful ride out. Picked up a handful of fish. Saw many more taken a la liveliner. Beautiful ride back. Dinner with Sean, Eddie, and Eddie's better half (the Chef)...oh, and Sutro(sp?) too.

Lots of familiar faces and lots of new ones too.

First banner weekend of the season...with many more to come.

Until next weekend...
 

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#6 ·
Great pictures!

Sorry I could not make the Chatham/Nauset Event; it looks like a great time was had my A Lot of people. I'll have to get down that way soon.

I did manage to get out & shot up to the N. Shore a couple of time this weekend for a few hours (early Sat. AM & Sun. PM); fishing wasn't too bad (nudge-nudge, wink-wink).
 
#7 ·
Hey Roop, I had a close encounter with that over-sized fish today - somewhat North of where you guys were yesterday.
He was easilly over 40" and when he turned of I could see how deep he was - fish that look very big in 5 ft of water generally are. ;) Followed my squid colored flatwing right to my feet and changed his mind at the last moment.
 
#8 ·
Sorry I missed it. I stopped at the light Sat am for a couple of hours and made my way down South Beach a ways. Met Nick, who was on the way in for coffee and the Rip Ryder. Wished him luck and sobbed uncontrollably as I made my way down South Beach. Finally started seein a few schoolies as the tide started to fill in, about the time I had to leave. My sense was that it was going to be a banner day.
 
#9 ·
Wow!

First, I just want to say thank you to all for a great weekend. I had the pleasure of fishing the Cape with a flyrod for the first time and I am still sputtering incoherently to anyone who will listen.

Friday, I fished Ministers Point in the afternoon and had a long range release in the rip just off the stone wall. I still have some work to do on my hooksetting technique. Played windy/low signal cell phone tage with Jeff for a while and finally met up at Nauset Anglers for some gadget shopping. Had dinner at Joe's, good food and nice atmosphere:whoa: !! We went down to Nauset to scope out some holes to fish that night and marked our turf in the sand. (No not that way!) Ventured back to Ministers and enjoyed shooting stars and no fish. Headed back to Nauset armed with big black herring patterns and dreams of fish only to realize that fishing big surf was only for more experienced anglers that night. (It must have been a sight watching us tip toe the 15 paces out to the lip, we measured earlier in the day, only to run back to shore with the sound of a crashing wave. )

Saturday, woke up from a phone call from Nick. "Hey were are you?" I am in bed but should be fishing so I jumped up and headed down to Chatham Light only to see a few familiar wader clad fisherman entering Monomoy coffee. Took the Rip Ryder over to South Beach and spent the better part of the morning battling wind and surf and wondering why anyone would ever come out here. About 11 a.m. my feelings changed to why would anyone want to leave this wonderful place. As I was walking back to the boat I looked down and saw the biggest fish I had ever seen at my feet. I immeadiately stripped line and made the sorriest tangled mess anyone has ever seen. As I stood there working my way through the the tangles I created I watched pod after pod of fish swim by. I finally regained my compuser, tied on a fresh leader and a Ray's flie (easier to cast than the clousers). I made cast after cast into pods of big fish, ignoring everything I had ever read about leading fish. I finally realized I am not yet a competent enough caster and just layed my flie down 35 feet out and waited for another pod. Another big school came into view. 15 feet out and strip strip bang as I watched the whole thing unfold. I was on to the biggest fish I have ever caught on any tackle. I can only say I could use a few lessons in playing the fish (Roop I may have been the one) because I had no idea what to do with this monster as it headed back to Chatham. I finally managed after a few minutes to get it back close and spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how to grab the leader as it continued to thrash and move about. At last I got hold of the leader took a quick measure against the rod, unhooked and revived the fish. The rod length later measured 36 inches back on the Rip as I told this story to Pete and Nick.

I just realized how long this post got so for those of you who are still reading I will end here only to say I had a great time at Nauset. Many thanks to Todd Murphy.

Awesome weekend,
Hope to see everyone soon,
Sean
 
#11 · (Edited)
Ian and I had a great time. Thanks to Todd and all who helped put it together. While Saturday was fishless, it was good to see old friends and meet new folks.
Sunday, we headed for the light to find Keith wasn't running Rip Rider- taking care of the moms in his life no doubt. We went back up to the light and made the trek over the dune to the inside of south beach. Hit a few schoolies just over the berm to shake off the skunk. We worked our way to the rip rider drop off point stopping to fish along the way. We passed Bill Stanton heading back who said he had a tussle with a nice fish and reported several other stories of good fish. We caught up with Adrian and fished for an hour and a half or so, hooking a couple dozen and landing about ten of those ranging from 10" to 24". Ian has caught the fever and can't wait until we return on Memorial Day Weekend to terrorize the fish again.
 
#12 ·
Chris and Ian, good to see you both. Glad you got into some fish even though the Ryder wasn't running. Memorial Day should prove to lead you both to some excellent fishing.

NIck
 
#13 ·
Fantastic weekend. Thanks everyone, Juro, Todd, Kenny, and others.

Chris and Ian - very happy to hear Ian hooked up Sunday. I think the three of us plus Adrian had all of South Beach to ourselves.

I can now say I've walked the entire outer South Beach this year. Hiked from the Rip Ryder drop to the southern most point Saturday (just in time to start seeing those Sat am schools boogie by) and then did the walk from Chatham Light down the outside to the Rip Ryder drop point on Sunday. Ditto Juro's lessons learned on the arch supports. I now see why Striblue sheds the waders as soon as he can bear the water temps.

Outside beach activity Sunday was not like Saturday. Overcast conditions and slight chop made it impossible to see schools. Caught a few up to 27" on the inside though.

Chatham light looked incredibly fishy on Sunday at high tide with nice rips right at the Light, but no fish there.
 
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