I had originally planned on departing Thursday evening to get some fishing in Friday at first light. The wind forecast for Friday was honking out of the NE so I decided to delay my departure. Chuck Reid met me at my house around noon and we hauled the camper down to Burlingame. When we got to the ranger station Greg had put a note on the corkboard indicating he’d gotten area 1, a nice big group site. We made camp and set up a tarp that I still have nightmares about :hehe: We head to Quonny with the yaks and catch a few blues, Chuck also get a bass. When we are packing up the gear we meet Slinger, who got a bunch of blues from shore. A quick food fix at the pizza shop and some beverages around the fire and a few hours sleep bring us into Saturday morning. Well I somehow set the clock forward an hour when setting the alarm for 4:45 and we ended up waking up earlier than required, didn’t know it until we were all geared up and saw the clock in the car.
Sat 4:00am: The west wall is calling. We drive up to Matunuk, you can hear the surf roaring from the parking area. We walk up over the hill and get hit with the full force of the wind. It’s quite obvious that there will be no fly fishing here today. A surfcaster is leaving the beach as we ponder our next move, he reports the water is clean but the surf is just ridiculous and waves are coming over the jetty. We bounce here and there, get some coffee and settle on Quonny. Chuck and I take the yaks across the breachway and fish some in the pond but there are whitecaps and the wind makes it difficult to cast from the yak. I beach it on the west side of Quonny and fish from shore having limited success with small blues. The guy on the East side hooks up on something, Chuck and I are thinking what the heck is he doing, we assume he’s got a blue and taking quite a while to land it. Turns out its Slinger and he’s got a nice albie on. I chased them in the pond for a while but they moved real quickly and I ended up with more blues. At this point the blues have beat up my flybox pretty good. Chuck and I take a look at Weekapaug and find Juro casting to some very uncooperative albies near the bridge. It was a great spot to get a look at them feeding or at least appearing as they were, frustrating all the fishermen in the area. Now that the tide is really going out full we decide to go back to camp tie up some flies and catch 40 winks.
Sat 3:00pm Back to Quonny – Blues, Blues, Blues. I’m sick of blues so I decide to explore the breachway in the yak. Chuck joined me later paddling up the breachway on the incoming, that current moves right along but it was doable and if you found and eddy it didn’t take much effort to remain stationary. We saw some larger blues slamming baby bunker. Juro was nailing ‘em from shore. At least I got to ride the current down into the pond. A quick break to stretch the legs and say by to Juro and meet MikeZ We fished right into dusk at which point the wind laid down and we were drawn to the center of the pond where blues were going nuts bouncing off the yaks and chewing up flies. Did I mention there were a lot of blues?
Temperature wise the weather couldn’t have been better for October, all in all a great day.
Sat 8ish: Time for dinner. Slinger had a bunch of quaohogs with hot sauce that were great. Mike got some striper on the grill. I cooked up some heat the hut beans, wild rice and beef soup. I marinated BBFT steaks in a sesame ginger sauce and grilled them while we feasted on the striper. . That striper was the best I’ve ever had, just salt and pepper but it was so fresh. Dinner was a success, great to meet everyone MikeZ, Slinger and watch the kids around the fire.
Sun 5am: Chuck and I head to Weekapaug with hopes of screaming drags. When we arrive and start to gear up, Slinger pulls in and heads for the end of the jetty. Mike had tipped us off that it should be good out there if they showed. Met a couple of guys in the lot, the guy fly fishing (Dave) said it was his first time saltwater fishing with the fly rod, I of course turned him onto the forum. J Chuck and I got some blues out on the jetty and lost some more flies. After about an hour of blues and the tide turning in I decided to keep the fly out of the water and wait for the albies. Well the guys at the end of the jetty were hooking up regularly, it was clear that the feeding zone was not where we were standing. Chuck and I decide to take a look up in the breachway as we decided what to do next. As we are about 100yds from the bridge I stop to talk to a guy fishing there, he says there are blues busting over there, motioning toward the bridge. I walk over there and I see albies in the cove on the inland side of the bridge, I pull of some line and the next thing ya know they’re at my feet, I cast but nothing, I missed ‘em. Well they repeat this behavior and this time I’m ready. I lay a whopping 20’ cast out there parallel to the jetty and strip rapidly, BANG! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz it’s heading for the bridge pilings, I crank the drag down hard and turn it only giving up ~ 20’ of backing, the albie and I play give and take on the line and I never see the backing again but when it does run, WOW. I suffer a banged up knuckle but I’m phyched as this is my first Albie ever and I got it on the fly from shore. I had given Chuck my disposable camera to take a couple of action shots but landing it took longer than I thought so of course he went back to fishing. Now I’ve got a nice big albie in my hands posing for a pic. I tell Chuck snap a pic. He doesn’t have the camera and thinks he left it on the rock behind me. I don’t see any camera the spectators don’t see any camera, (this is why I don’t hunt), Well I’m pretty pissed off but don’t want to kill the fish so I get a mental picture and toss it back head first. Chuck locates the camera, he realizes it’s fallen down his waders. We fished the jetty again around 5pm but they never showed and the water got dirty.
To sum it up A Fantastic trip.
Thanks to Mike for pointing us toward Weekapaug Sunday morning. Nice meeting everyone and I’m looking forward to the next one.
I never really thought of Rhody as a day trip destination, that’s all changed now.