Casting Into The Night

Photo by Dave Merwin

My grandfather used to say that there was only one striped bass in all of Long Island sound and it was not interested in being caught by us. My father and I both rejected the idea because we saw acres of bass feeding and knew that there had to be more than one.

Striped bass is a migratory species that travel up and down the east coast. Some do exist in the great lakes and the west coast, but this discussion is about the ones I knew that would swim to Maine from Maryland and take a left on the way north through the Long Island Sound. These fish were my obsession from late August through November. As they passed by the harbors I lived near, my father and I would wade out into the night to cast to them with the hopes of a hookup.

Stripers can get to be huge. Some fish can grow to over 70 lbs and 5 feet long. Catching 30 pounders was not impossible and 20 pounders happened enough to not be unusual. The idea of hooking into a 30-pound fish on a Friday night with fly fishing gear was addicting. I spent hours standing in saltwater with the hopes of doing just that. Usually, we caught schoolies. 15 to 25-inch fish that were young, feisty, and plentiful.

During the fall, when they are migrating, they will come into harbors and wait for the wetlands to drain or fill with the moving tide. The big fish would wait in a deep channel and as the prey moved over their trap they would rise up and take whatever was moving by them. In order to simulate these smaller fish, we’d use large flies with long flowing feathers or strips of long fibers with bright colors.

When casting these flies, you need a rod that is stout enough to throw a large fly through the wind and into the surf. Doing so requires a back-haul cast where you speed up the line as it passes overhead in both directions. It’s not a delicate thing. And if the wind catches the fly as it passes or you time the mechanics of the cast wrong you can end up with the fly in the back of your head. If you listen, on a windy night you’ll find the other striper anglers by the curses they shout after the fly hits them in the head.

One September evening I went to a harbor I had heard about but had not fished. In the dark, I hiked along a trail, hoped over a stonewall, and worked my way through the salt marsh. Sometimes there was a trail and other times there were holes in the ground where the trail had been but now it was full of water. The smell of a salt marsh is unique unto itself. Rotting vegetation soaked in brackish water with the occasional dead animal mixed in. Wading through it released the stench with each step. You were thankful for the breeze when there was one.

The trail made travel easier, however, you needed to watch out for the holes. I’m not sure what causes them in the salt marshes. On the rivers of central Oregon, they are caused by beaver and otter, but these holes seemed random. Traps laid out by the striper gods to test the worthiness of the angler making their way to the fishing grounds. On more than one occasion I stepped into these holes and was suddenly up to my armpits in the foul water. The smell lingers longer than you had hoped.

The houses and street lights across the harbor gave enough light to show where the boats were anchored. The slow and subtle rocking of the waves makes the halyards clank against the masts of the pleasure boats of the wealthy with an abstract soundtrack that is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. Akin to rain on the roof when you are warm and dry. Not quite a rhythm, but ever-present.

Amongst that sound was the soft muttering of shorebirds and of fisherman to each other. Each had taken a position along the bank and was casting to the stretch of water that they had found and jealously protected. If you lined up the lights just right, you would see them silhouetted across the harbor. The dark vertical masses occasionally spasmed with action as they cast to rolling fish.

Casting to stripers at night is as much a sonic experience as it is a sighted one. You may see the roll or the splash, but you are more likely to hear it. And you tune your cast to what you are hearing. When it’s just you and the boat's soft clanging, you get pretty good at triangulating on the sound of a feeding fish and can assess the position and distance with a fair bit of accuracy. It's just so damn peaceful. The evening is fine enough and you know peace for a few hours.

I heard a rolling fish slightly to my right as I faced the bay. I could see the line of the current on the outgoing tide in the mix of lights. I knew the fish were feeding on the right along the current and there were several of us casting. This fish was maybe 20 yards out and would require a little effort to swing my fly to it. I started my cast, back and forth speeding up the line each time, and then on the last forward push, I let the line go and heard/saw it lay on the water in a straight line. I let the fly swing and guessed as to its position over what I imagined was a ledge where the river channel cut through the estuary.

A few more casts and a little bit more listening told me where the fish were. I had a bump or two but no hook-up. Sometimes the fish will grab just the feathers and set your heart racing but not set the hook. Finally, after prodding the night for a hookup, my fly stopped. The feeling of a take on the swing is addictive. You know you are into something. Everything changes in an instant. Your heart races and adrenaline surges. There is the briefest moment where nothing moves and you wait. For a heartbeat maybe, and then all hell breaks loose.

A big striper will strip you into your backing. Running for 75 yards and then stopped to have a knock-down fight. On the older real I was on, the only way to slow the fish down was to palm the spool. Using the palm of my hand, I would hold it against the spool to add friction and slow the fish down as the line screamed out. But this time I forgot to keep my hand open and the handle on the reel spun around and smacked my knuckles. Now I was bleeding, bruised, and hoping I didn’t lose the fish.

This was the reason that I was standing in the water in the middle of the night and not on a date with a girl. This and the fact that every fisherman in earshot could hear my reel scream as the fish ran and could hear the fish splash as it fought me. The fisherman all reeled in their lines so as not to tangle with mine and waited.

The bass eventually came to me. I shouldered my rod and grabbed the bass by the tail. It was thick, thicker than any I had caught before. Lifting the bass was surprisingly difficult and extracting the hook was tricky. But the hook eventually popped out and I stood holding the fish in the water as it rested. Regaining its strength before swimming off. I was elated.

A single voice spoke and said, “Nice Fish”. It might as well had been a cheer from Madison Square Garden. My adoring masses were congratulating me on a job well done. I was the star that evening, if even for a brief moment. I replied “thanks”.

The quiet resumed. The fisherman occasionally cursed and I made my way back through the marsh to the car.

Sometimes, when I can’t sleep at night, I run through that evening, detail by detail. I relive it and I think, there might just be only one Striper in Long Island Sound. And I caught him.