Continued...
While working the plug I noticed that the line seldom, if ever, came in contact with the water, and being that the water was so murky I decided to forgo the leader. However, I didn’t have the confidence in that white pencil so I tied on a two-ounce Hab’s popper in school bus yellow with a red head. I tried a couple of more times to snag the Pikie, but before I could reach it a striper nailed it. It took a little line from time to time, but it was soon on the beach – another fine specimen in the mid twenty pound range.
I walked another 50 yards down the beach and decided to work the shoulder of yet another rocky promontory. I was slowly chugging the popper along the surface and watching as the deep-cupped plug threw up quite a splash. As I pondered whether or not this was an effective way to fish, another striper sucked down the lure and started thrashing like crazy. Unlike the first cow, this fish only spent a few seconds on the surface and then it turned on the afterburners and headed straight for Gay Head! The rod was bent over in protest, the drag was screaming, but the fish just kept on going…and going…and going. It was a pretty dramatic display of speed and power. Now I had to worry about even more rocks between the fish and me. I kept the pressure on and tried to keep the fish near the surface. Each time a wave crested, I made sure that linesider was shooting the curl and heading for the beach. A couple of waves later and she was beached. Another great fish! Only, where was the plug?
I open her mouth and there was the popper all the way down her throat. Two of the hooks on the treble were in the roof of her throat and the single wide gapped siwash was lodged in her gut. By the time I backed out all the hooks, she was done for. I tried reviving her but to no avail. I would have performed CPR if I thought it would have worked – anything to avoid from having to drag that fish over three quarters of a mile on all that unstable rock.
I was running out of time and needed to start working my way back to the club. When I reached the area where the Pikie was, I had to try a few more casts in an attempt to retrieve it. Sure enough, a few casts later and I was hooked up again. I landed yet another fish in the mid twenties and by now my time had run out. I made the long trek back with the fish and found Ed and Wendy waiting for me. I asked Ed how he had made out on the fly and wondered where he had fished. He explained how he followed the path and missed the turn off. He found himself at the mouth of the tidal pond where he caught a fish on almost every cast, and they were all respectable fish, nothing under twenty eight inches. As Ed was admiring my fish, I told him about the one I released and described how it was almost one and a half times the size of the striper in front of him.
I asked Ed to take a few shots of my “smaller” bass in front of the Cuttyhunk Fishing Club. It was a day I’ll never forget as long as I live. And not just because of the big fish, but because of the entire experience: a morning spent looking at many of the record fish taken over the years; reading the accounts of past anglers who fished there over four generations ago; putting on waders where Teddy Roosevelt smoked cigars and talked of fishing; catching the right tide and the perfect yet gnarly conditions; watching big fish inhale surface plugs; having my picture taken with a respectable fish in front of the Club…just as it was done in 1864; finally, having the privilege of showing my latest video to the entire island at Winter House.
Sometimes real life can exceed your wildest dreams!
Here are a few pictures of the historic club, my "little cow" and some of the great shoreline.
