[Big Water]

Block holds a lot of fish and they tend to be bigger than on the mainland. A night like this is always possible:

Two friends and I decided to head out for a commando night on Block Island on Friday, October 9, 2009. (A “commando run” is where you get onto an island or predetermined area at the end of the day then fish all night and leave in the morning). We heard there was some weather coming in which made it all the better. I worked all day, packed my truck and headed south from where I live. After a 3-hour drive with traffic, I walked on the last ferry at Point Judith at 7 p.m., after meeting up with my two friends Ted Archibald and Tom White. Being a holiday weekend there were lots of kids and dogs but not many fishermen. When a couple people asked us if we were going for the whole weekend we said, "No, just for the night." To a person, they looked at us funny.
Once on the island we arrived at our destination and got into our wetsuits. It was dark, so we decided to take a few casts close by before making our trek to our special spot. There was not much wind and it seemed pretty calm, not what we had in mind weather-wise, we favor wind and waves. The night started off inauspiciously. No wind and flat calm, these conditions did not do a lot for our confidence. On Tom's second cast he broke off a plug that I had just given him to try out. (Make note of this it will be important later.) It was a “Slim” medium diver, in purple pearl. He could see it floating out in the water and asked me if he should swim out and get it. There did not seem to be any fish around so I said, "Go for it!" On his second attempt he got the plug.

At that point Ted came up to us and said he had some hits and caught one small bass. I had heard there were lots of small fish around so I was not surprised. You hate to leave fish but we were looking for something bigger. I had also read a report that had said there were a lot of porgies (scup) along the side of the island that I wanted to fish. So off we went.

We arrived at our spot and spotted the rocks we always fished from. Ted was the first to make the swim out to his rock, he later told me that while swimming, his lure, a giant pikie, came off his rod (still attached to his line) and floated 4 feet away from him and a fish hit it! The fish took 2 more swipes at it. He had to hold his rod up and keep the plug out of the water until he got to his rock.
By this time, Tom and I were swimming out to our rock (I have fished this rock since the mid-1980's so, like homesteading, I have a claim to it). I yelled to Ted asking if he had found his rock yet. If he is on his rock it would be easier for me to find my rock because mine was underwater. He yelled back that he found fish! I said, "How big?" and he yelled back, "20." I said, "Inches?" He said, "no pounds.” Needless to say we swam a little faster.
Tom and I climbed onto my rock, a good-sized rock that is easily capable of holding both of us. We got situated, looked at each other and then each made a cast. We both made two turns on the handle of ours reel and we were into fish. We looked at each other with big smiles…that was the beginning of a night of fishing that most surfcasters only dream about.

For the next 2-1/2 hours I did not bring my Pikie back in without a fish attached. At one point, Tom brought his Pike back in after he lost a screamer and two hooks on his 4/0 VMC treble had been straightened. He asked, "What do I do?" I said "Bend them back and keep fishing!" He ended up catching more than 50 fish on that “Slim” medium diver that he swam out and retrieved earlier.
My first 6 fish were 26, 26, 28, 33, 28, and 36, and we're talking pounds here! And we are only talking six casts! All the fish were weighed on the 60-pound Boga that I drag around with me. We had multiple hookups and at one point Tom had a 31-pounder and I had a 28-pounder to the rock at the same time. It was like a Chinese fire drill weighing each fish, taking a picture, unhooking them and getting them back in the water. After awhile we got pretty good at it.
My wife had asked me to bring home a fish for dinner. She doesn't like to eat anything over 30 inches because she finds the meat to be more tender. Oh boy was I was in trouble!!

I will pause here to say that this was not "stupid fishing." The fish would not take a Jointed Eel, and when the other guys used a needlefish they only caught smaller fish and did not get as many hits. The vast majority of the fish came on my new “Slim” pikes (8-inches long and weighing 3 ounces), but the bigger fish came on my traditional Giant pikes (8-inch and 4 ounces) and Troller pikes (10-inches and 7-1/2 ounces).
I have been fishing for a long time and I have had many good nights in that time span. There have been nights where we got into a pick of big fish or solid hits of smaller fish but never in my life have I see the numbers of big fish that we saw on that October night. The school stayed with us through the entire tide until daybreak and they were keyed in on big baits—it was amazing!

As a rule you don't walk away from big fish, but we did. We actually swam away exhausted. On my way in, I swam over to Ted and asked him how he was doing. He said he had lost all his big pikes and was using a needlefish and not getting as many hits. I cut off the Giant Pike that I had on my rod and threw it to him and then finished swimming to shore. When I looked back I saw that Ted had followed me in, and he came up carrying a big fish. He got it on his first cast with the Giant pike and it turned out to be 34 ½ pounds.

There was a young guy fishing to the side of us that night, we invited him over. He had waded out as far as he could and cast with a needlefish for half an hour without a hit. He was in waders and I said "Too bad you don't have a wetsuit." He said he did have one up in his car so I suggested he get it, so he did. We were lying in the rocks resting and we watched him swim out to one of the rocks right in front of us. We jokingly claimed that he kept us awake with his light going on and off constantly, a sign that he was catching fish, and then his camera started flashing, a sign of big fish! So it turned out this kid, Eric caught five fish over 30 pounds while we rested.

We went back out for the last two hours before light and we took a few more fish up to 30 pounds. The tide dropped out, it got light and the fish finally moved off. Between the four of us we had 11 fish over 30 pounds and numerous fish in the high 20’s. We packed up and left, back in our regular clothes, with the exception of our long surf rods, we looked like regular tourist. We were soon on the 8:15 a.m. ferry back to Point Judith, smiling all the way home. It truly was a night to remember.