The alarm went off at 1:15 AM. In a sleep deprived mode I made a pot of coffee, gathered up a few last minute items and was on the road by 2. You know what?...it's still dark then!
At 3:30 (it's still dark) I pulled into the driveway of my new "best friend" and most gracious host of the day, Scott Bullock. We loaded up assorted paraphernalia into his van and were back on the road with one fine fishing craft in tow...The Saltybugger. We arrived at our intended launch point and were on the water by just after 5. Somebody finally turned on the lights...;^) The sea was dead calm and the forecast called for clear skies, temps in the 70's and light winds of 5-10 knots. A perfect day to be out searching for stripers. The tide was coming in with an expected high at 8 AM. A short ride brought us to the rip...and what a rip it was. And there were birds...diving in the water...and there was bait...and there were FISH! The surface was alive...big stripers jumping straight out of the water. Blues cutting the bait to shreds. We quickly set up to drift over the rip and it wasn't long before we were in the zone. Scott was the first to holler "FISH ON"! After a heck of a battle a beauty of a legal sized striper was boated and quickly revived and released. The next drift through and I had my turn...another hefty striper came into the boat. After a quick photo shoot, she was again racing through the Sound in search of the abundant dinner entrees. Wow, do these fish know how to fight. They have obviously learned how to use the tidal rips to their advantage. The decision was made to anchor up at the edge of the rip. We should have continued with the drifting technique as making a decent fly presentation with that current was near impossible. Scott did manage to hook up with a hefty blue. Being anchored really increased the fish's advantage as she used that current to take more and more line. But Scott was not to be denied and after a long battle, the toothy critter succumbed to the Boga. 28 inches of pure muscle came to hand. As she neared the boat, a perfect, opal colored 6-7" squid was coughed up, "get out the big white flies". Going back to the drifting method we made a number of additional passes. Both stripers and blues were landed, but the tide was near it's slack by now and they were suddenly off the bite. Time to chase the birds...and we did, but the blitz was over. At one time Scoot had a nice blue attached to the end of his line and as he was getting it closer and closer to the boat, I noticed it had an entourage of another 5 or 6 siblings. A quick flip of the fly rod and we were now both into gear busting battles. As the tide went out, the called for light winds turned into 20+ knoters and the seas started to take on a new image. It was real hard to set up on the rips now and the fish no longer churned the surface. We did manage to catch a few more stripers and blues throughout the afternoon, but they were few and far between. We finally called it quits about 2:30 and headed back to the launch. Total tally for the day was around a dozen fish, mostly stripers and not one of them under 28 inches. Scott out-fished me by a long shot...my inexperience takes the blame. I had the opportunities...plenty of them...but kept pulling the flies right out of their mouths before they managed to close them...:-( Arrived home at 7 PM...sunburned, wind whipped, wave pounded and exhausted...but very, very happy. Thank you Scott, for a most enjoyable and memorable start to the summer. I anxiously await your next invite! Photos at...<http://www.virtualflybox.com/photos/first_summer.shtml> keep tyin'...byard Byard Miller Line's End Inc <http://www.linesend.com> Virtual Flybox <http://www.virtualflybox.com>
