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Originally Posted by Slingah
anybody know how to post that article????
I aint fillin that thing out....it'll bombard me with junk
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Outdoor Notes by Tom Meade: 'Eel Man' undaunted by storms; catches stripers before and after
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, July 17, 2005
Tropical-storm season may keep some fishermen indoors, but not Bill "Eel Man" Nolan. Almost nothing keeps the 40-year-old Warwick resident away from the beach at night. Since May 23, he has missed two nights in the surf.
"It's an addiction," he says. "And it's not just catching fish that I'm addicted to; It's the night, the hit -- everything."
Tropical storms? Nolan loves them.
"The fishing is better before a storm and right at the beginning," he says. "And it's tremendous afterwards. When you have a couple days of northeast wind followed by a clearing wind out of the southwest, fishing explodes."
Nolan is strictly a surf fisherman, and he uses eels almost exclusively. Thus, his nickname. Occasionally, in the autumn, he may cast an artificial lure, but those times are rare. He does concede, however, that his fishing partner, Steve McKenna, catches a lot of big bass on Slug-Go soft-plastic lures. Then Nolan adds, "but Slug-Gos really look like eels."
Nolan prefers large eels impaled on a No. 6 Mustad 94150 hook. He stuns the eel before casting so it won't curl around the leader, fouling the line.
Following a tropical storm, it takes only a couple of tide changes with a clearing wind to bring stripers back to the beach in a feeding mood.
After a storm passes, Nolan says, "I prefer Narragansett, from the short wall in Galilee all the way to the Narrow River. The lighthouse, the Sheeps Pen -- all the traditional spots are good."
Nolan generally prefers the last hour before a high tide and the first two hours afterward, but, he says, "I never let tide keep me home. Fish don't know about these (theories). If you don't have your line in the water, you're not going to catch fish."
Nolan casts a stiff, 9-foot rod with a conventional reel. His line is 20-pound monofilament with an 8-foot fluorocarbon leader. "I really like the Orvis Mirage leader material," he says. "My hook-up rate has increased with it, and it's more abrasion-resistant (than standard monofilament line), which is important because I like to fish around rocks." Because his conventional rig resists line twisting, he doesn't need a swivel to join the line and leader. A simple Albright knot does the trick. "If you're using spinning gear," he says, "you do need a swivel."
Nolan uses strong line and a stout rod because he releases most of his fish. "I don't believe in light tackle," he says. "I want to get a fish in and off the hook as fast as possible. It's fighting for its life. Same with a fish I'm going to keep: I want it in fast."
After we spoke Friday, Nolan sent this e-mail:
"This is by far one of the best seasons I have ever had. I have 22 fish over the 20-pound mark and that's since May 23. Four of those fish are 30 pounds-plus. So it's a great year for anyone new at surf-casting for stripers to get out there and fish."
oke:
caught to smallies
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