Ultimate Block Island Trip
 

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Well,

Its really hard to know where to begin. I spent a week with great people
fishing a beautiful island. Truly a dream vacation for a surfcaster. I am
forever grateful to all those who contributed to the trip, both in the
spotlight and behind the scenes. A special thanks goes out to Tom White
and Greg Walsh for organizing this whole event.


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I really had a blast, it is really hard to quantify the impact of my
experience during this trip. I learned so much and met so many
incredible people.

The crazy thing is, I didn’t take many photos, I was too busy having fun
and trying to keep all my newly acquired information straight.

As some background...I have not been a serious surfcaster on this coast
very long. Only for about 5 years, during which time I pretty much have
focused on fishing artificial lures. This is my second season
wetsuiting and am still attempting to get comfortable moving beyond
wading. All the guys I fished with during this week were so supportive and
helpful. A really amazing group of guys.

Tom and I met on Sunday night and rode the ferry over to Block Island.

We didn’t waste any time, unpacked and hit the surf with Chuck Duval and Julio Pereira.
It didn’t take long for Tom to get into a couple of nice fish on a darter.
After a few minutes he switched over to bunker chunks, to give me my
first lessons in chunking.

I have nearly zero experience with fishing bait, but found chunking with
Tom not only productive, but extremely enjoyable. It really surprised me
how much the technique was like fishing unweighed plastics for large
mouth bass. He was a great and supportive coach. I only landed one fish,
but had a few heavy pullers on, that I dropped due to some novice errors.
We repeated the approach the following night and landed some more fish.
Pretty cool stuff.

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Pat Abate and Pete Lajoie came in on Tuesday. Pat immediately got down
to business showing me how to rig eels. I have never rigged eels before
and had fun learning. After the trip, on my way home, I stopped into
River’s End and picked up all the supplies to rig my own. Yeeeeeaaaaah!

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Pat and I fished Tuesday night. I had the opportunity to try out
the new riggies in some of the fishiest looking waters on this coast.
Although we didn’t connect with any bass, we did hit a variety of spots
that will be keeping in my memory for future outings. It was a lot of fun.

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On Wednesday Dennis Zambrotta arrived on the island. Pat and I actually
intercepted his arrival in town, and we met up at a local diner and had
breakfast and a coffee. It was a real treat to sit in and listen to the
experience of these skilled anglers. Just wonderful stories and history.

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For Lunch we all hit Al Lemiere’s place for a delicious lunch at the
Narragansett Inn. Oh my.....it was so good. For anyone visiting the
island, I highly recommend going there for a feast. After lunch he
presented me with an arsenal of some of his beautiful lures. For those
who don’t know Al, he is such a multi-talented and generous person.
Thank you Al!

Dennis and I hit a bunch of spots and were able to pick off a fish a piece.
Mine was a micro, his was a teen. The fish were definitely around as we
saw them rising before the lights went out. They were just picky and we
didn’t get any other action. We hit a bunch of spots he outlined in his book.

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The next day we hit the local ponds. I think Dennis noted in his book that
there are 365 of these ponds. We hit three.

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I had a leech hitch-hike on my waders....I safely released the bugger in the
next pond.

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Frank Capone had come in on Wednesday and whipped up some power food
for the group. Pizzas, breads, pancakes, and a delicious seafood dish
with striped bass and clams over linguine. It was awesome! Thank you Frank!

On Thursday, John Hanecak and Toby Lapinski took me out into the surf.
On the previous nights Pete Lajoie and Matt had found a pocket of fish,
that we planned to target.

Toby guided me out to some of the distant rocks. He got on a nice
casting rock and kindly dragged me on. I was floundering quite a bit as a
result of both my poor timing and the surge of waves running over the
rock. He had to drag me like a wet rag. If that was not enough...he left
me on that nice table top and went to an adjacent rock ....from the looks
of it, it was more of a pyramid than a rock suitable for standing on.

His good karma payed off, as within a few minutes he hooked up with a
nice 30# fish on a darter. While he and John measured, took photos and
released the fish, I managed one strike on a swim shad. Eventually Toby
came back out, but climbed up on a nice rock to the other side of me.
Within a few more minutes, he was hooked up again with the twin of the
previous fish.....pretty sick, back to back 30# fish. This time it was on a needle.

We stuck around a bit until the tide dropped. Then we hit the other side of
the island where I had a fish on for a short ride before it popped off. We called it a night.

The next day the surf kicked up a bit as a tropical storm came into play.
Gary Soldati came out and met with us at the cottage before he headed
out to do some scouting on the island. I crashed out for a couple of hours
to try to recharge the battery. After feeding on one of Frank’s
masterpiece dinners, we got geared up to head out for a nights fishing. I
packed my tackle bag with lures for big surf, including two of Gary’s pikes.

John, Gary, and I hit some nice white water, which was surprisingly clean.
We fished this one spot for about and hour and a half.

I had never fished pikes before, and was amazed how well these lures
hold in some of the nastiest white water. Pretty amazing....even in the
wash, I felt clear contact with the lures.

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We headed to the quite side of the island and fished there a bit. The wind
picked up and there was a considerable amount of weed in the water.
Then my heart sank a bit as the unthinkable happened. In the wind my
line twisted around my tip and I sent one of my newly acquired pikes off
into the dark with a crack. We were hoping that it might wash in, and both
Gary and John helped me search for it ...but it was gone.

John decided to pack it in, while Gary and I headed to a new location.

Upon arrival we found unfavorable conditions with lightning on the
horizon. So we too decided to call it a night. While we were talking about
our options at the truck, Gary handed me a new pike from his bag to
replace the one I lost. Gary’s generosity was the perfect way to end the
trip. The whole of the trip was founded on the generosity of a bunch of
great guys sharing their time, experience, and passion for surfcasting.
The trip was really humbling.

Thank you Gary Soldati, John Hanecak, Toby Lapinski, Dennis Zambrotta,
Frank Capone, Chuck Duval, Pat Abate, Pete Lajoie, Tom White, Julio Pereira, and
Matt....for letting me share a spot in the surf with you. It was awesome
and I appreciate it. I cannot wait to get out there again to practice all the things I have learned.

For those who are curious on the generosity of the sponsors, here is
some of the wonderful tackle that was donated. Thank you to all who
were so generous.

Gary Soldati http://www.bigwaterlures.com/

these lures speak for themselves...they are beautiful.

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Rich Hedenberg from rhcustomrods wrapped this CTS Vapor Trail for
me.... I used it the whole week and then followed up the block trip with
three days in Newport and one morning on the Canal. It is my new
favorite rod. The difference it makes is crazy. Thank you Rich!

http://rhcustomrods.com/index.php

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Got some nice looking needles from Super Strike!
Super Strike Lures http://superstrikelures.com/

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4 Beach Master Atom Jr's courtesy of Bobby G from Beach Master
Pretty fantastic assortment. Thank you so much Bobby G. These must
have good luck, because I had one float out of my bag, and on our way
back from a spot late-late in the dark of night, we found it laying high and
dry even though the tide was pulling out.

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JoeBaggs Bucktails https://www.facebook.com/pages/Joeba...57208321020661

I am pretty new to JoeBaggs Bucktails and jig heads. I like them
especially the hair and size of the hook.

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Left Hook Lures

Pretty interesing lures. I fished this pencil on the block, and had never
fished a sinking pencil before. To be truthful, I am not sure how to fish it
properly, but in my experimenting I landed a fish.

What is striking about this sinking style pencil, it seems to be a cross
bewteen a pencil and a sinking little neck popper in its behavior. Like I was
retrieving it slow, sub-surface, with occasional breaks in the
surface....when the fish hit. Nice!

Thank you George Silvia!

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$125 Gift Certificate to a S-B Sponsor of your choice - Courtesy of JohnR
Thank you John!

John allowed me to redirect the certificate to the Home Base Foundation as a donation!

Andy Stevenson was kind enough to meet me at the Canal to hand off some goodies
from Guppy, Linesider69, and Savage Gear. Thank you so much for meeting up with
me and please extend my thanks to the folks who donated these wonderful lures.

Guppy Lures http://www.guppylure.com/

I received 4 pencils. Two sinkers and two floaters. Beautiful lures and easy
to work. Jobo jr and mini pencils. Pretty cool. I am fond of these smaller
pencils. I can’t wait to catch some fish on them

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Linesider69 - https://www.facebook.com/Linesider69CustomPlugs
these darters are nice and heavy and large profiled. I cannot wait to
hang a fish on these.

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Savage Gear http://www.savage-gear.com/

Thanks Savage Gear! I have heard of, but never used their paddle tails
or any of their products before. They are pretty cool and obviously
effective.

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Al Lemire is such a generous and talented guy. He hooked me up
with an assortment of different lures. I used the needles every night.

http://www.lemiresplugworks.com/
http://www.blockisland.com/narragansett/
A private lunch/Dinner for the whole crew at the The Narragansett Inn on
Block Island and a donation of plugs

Thank you Al Lemire!

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Thanks again To Greg Walsh and Tom White. It was amazing.

Awesome write up. Glad you learned a lot and the guides were able to put you on fish.
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Awesome write up and fantastic photography work. That group of guys are an incredible bunch. All are very generous and extremely knowledgeable.

Thank you again for being so generous. I am glad you had a good time and I look forward to fishing with you.

Wow ...what a week, and what a generous group of people to donate all of those goods/products/time ... a treasure trove to say the least, all complimented by some great fishing. Sounds like a great trip, thanks for sharing.

love your write ups .. Whats the advantage of a rigged eel over live eel ? did they say

I am new to them, and there are plenty of guys who can answer it
better....but these are my impressions.

1. They are dead....

a. so they are portable and can be through used, frozen,
used....cycles until they fall apart.
b. they cast better than live

2. Durability...

a. Several fish can be caught on one- a great compromise
between an eel, hard lure, and a rigged sluggo
b. you can cast them harder than an eel

3. Attributes...

a. scent of an eel
b. motion and appearance of an eel- it is an eel.
c. the swim on these rigged eels cannot be matched by a plastic.

I have been throwing them on about 10 outings but have not
caught anything on them yet. I have been getting a lot of
schoolies striking them, following them, but no bigger models.

There are several videos out there...Zeno and Skinner have some that go into details.

Great write up, and nice meeting you. Awesome job by everyone involved.

Puppet let me know how the work out down the road.. I am hard pressed to get away from my live eel and 7\0 circle Had 6 fish on one eel .. thats the exception not the rule .. might consider rigging 1 or 2 for those night with the wind in my face

WOW, what a trip, thanks for sharing!

Smart move.

I used eels on Saturday night for 8 bass - live, and two different rigged versions all produced depending on the conditions (surf/wind) I was faced with. Be versatile.

Nice write up Puppet!

DZ

Nice write up
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Great report and awesome pictures!
The one fishing the whitewater is just amazing! and who knew LMB fishing was good on block? nice!

Awesome! Glad you had a great trip!

BTW - to show what a class guy Puppet is, he told me to donate the $150 from S-B back to Run To Home Base program :btu:

Very nice pics. That little striper that ate that pikie,must have had a very big ego!

Very nice write-up Steve. I'm glad you enjoyed the trip

Awesome
 

Awesome write up, super photos, great attitude. You got the most out of this, no question, and so did the Wounded Warriors. Great job all the way around.

Great write up indeed.

Bravo
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Very nice.
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