Last time out for the . . .

[BassyiusMaximus]

. . . season, the time after work is spent thinking about what to bring and not forget. It is still light out but the sky is blue, grey, and white with about 3 hours until darkness. 'Pile the rods in and do bring all of them, the two heavily braided 20-40lbBeefsticks and the rest of the fleet of Penn's with varying 6 1/2-7footers laced nice with 15-20lbtests, there were fish coming into the boat one way or the other.

Yup, plenty of 2 litre bottles of ice to keep things cool, the boat is on the trailer and it is time to take the rig to the ramp. The ramp is nice and the water in the cradle isn't moving, this ramp is at the top of a saltwater river and it is pretty calm at this time as it usually is. It was a good day to ride the bike back and forth to work since it was a nice mild late fall day but it was getting cooler out even though the sun was still a low orange glow out to the westnorthwest.

The boat slides in easily and the motor plays its song, I power up the CDmixer and cue up some nightfall Supertramp, grooving to Goodbye Stranger and Take the Long Way Home and Little River Band's Cool Change and set to idling down the river, a small prevailling SW and the sky is a changin', it is magnificent to be out just before sunset.

We idle past a mall little island, dogleg left and find the 3 sets of reds and greens and turn South down the little bay, curve around the requisite rockpiles/jetties that lie down either side of any entrance/exit of ocean to bay conjunction here in New England.
The water is still a little warm, much warmer than the sound and the fishies are jumping all-round and the birds are flying about and showing us where the little fish are on the ride out, it is classic late-fall and Mo'-Nature is proving it. By now the deep-orange ball is halfway below the land across the bay and the whole sky cleared out to just deeper and deeper shades of blue.
The throttles are pushed down to about 3/4 and the Tach is showing us at just about 4,000r'spm and gps is showing a sweety-sweet 47mph, the new two-stroke high horsepower technology is thrusting us along just nicely. No tabs, trimmed up and the current is running our way, a light current in the sound pushing north making the rip-line stand out nicely against the dark, glassy surface of the water.

The eels are snugged coldly in the cut-out green rabbit/pvc wire boxes, inside a cooler, on top of the frozen 2-liters which should be able to keep the eelies numb for at least until the next nights try or 24 hours.

The herring, snapper, scup and chubs are along for the ride in the livewell, ready for a 6/0, 7/0, 8/0 to be put through the nose, out the throat or behind the dorsal fin then gently tossed overboard, they get a little anxious as we try to get them to wiggle and sink closer to the bottom of the rip, but that is for later, we have every kind of bait and we are psyched for we're making our way to the islands with Crosby Stills and Nash playing "Southern Cross" in the background.

On the way in the rips is the guaranteed deepwater bluefish rip that I know well, it is a sort of "Honeycomb-Hideout" for the Al Queda Blues that I know live and train there and I'll be darned if I'd rather fight a mostly fightless striped bass just knowing that after enough tension over time the fish will roll in while the bluie will run till it is in the net, still thrashing about on deck, and getting a lure in the water, wiggling it a little and being fast-on isn't a bad feeling for first cast either.

The sun is down and it is time to head to the honey-hole and this day it is the southside of the rockpiles which stretch for as far as the eye can see. The boulderline will hold our bass with the wind and the tide is running just the way we like it. We trim up the motors a little just to get us to use the hull to bump-steer if it ever comes to it and the water gets a little too shallow under the keel.

It is much darker and if you need to see now the headlamp is going on to tie the knot or check the eel or to see anything. For some reason the big bass never come out to bite till that big ball falls below the waterline. So for the most part, as soon as we've crept up to the spot, cut motor and just drift for a minute or two until things calm down and all is quiet on the southern front, it is only then when bowman and backman will cast into the stones, and after splashdown and having made sure that the drag is loose, they'll let the eel wiggle in the water column for a second or two knowing that at the first good tug the fish has . . .


. . . 'This my rockpile . . . . ' thinks the fat bass that "owns" the water in and around his bunch of rocks as he/she has chased away any other similar or smaller fish from the area, it can feel the wiggle of the worm through the vibrations in the water through its own centerline and ambles on over to check out the tasty eel tensioned with nothing but 15 lb floro to the b/b swivel to the 15lbtest on the reel. It makes one turn and thrusts towards its newfound meal, and with mouth closed just before the strike, the huge rush water into it's mouth along with it's last tail thrust, the eel is clear in its mouth with the hook still free as the spines at the back its gullet forcing the shocked mass fourther down its gullet, 'No problem yet.' thinks this bass.

. . . inhaled the eel and after waiting since the first tiny tug, the rodman now leans back and sets the hook. The big fish, feeling the sudden tension in its jaw holds for a moment knowing that there hasn't been this feeling from any other eel he/she has swallowed before. It sets to getting shallower, where it knows it can go full speed in a safe direction. Most of the time it will run shallow or around the rocks it knows it can fit around and zig and zag. Rodman knows this and might apply some tension on the drag top and pointing the rod tip up and out of the boulder fields and letting it run out to the clearer sea where Rodman can get the fish to stop, start rearing back to try and get a wrap or two around the reel, just beginning the long wait to get the fish in on the 15 lb test that's been under strain for the first 10-15 minutes.

'Once I made my first, startled realization that I couldn't shake the eel flavored lip-ring, I headed for the tall rocks first, making the longest sustained run that I could, this thing wasn't getting out of my mouth anytime fast so I just kept on going. After my lungs and heart were pounding so hard in my chest and with my shoulder and tail muscles starting to burn I had to stop as it got harder and harder to run against the line.'

Once I can tighten down on the drag just a little more to slowly pump the line back on the reel and make up some space, the fish decides to run again and takes me out another 50-65 yards, I've slacked up on the drag just a little bit more as I know this fish is no less than 30lbs and could be the heaviest I've felt all season.

Now don't get me wrong here, I've had much better fights with 5 foot plus sand sharks except the sand sharks are just in deep sandy-bottom water and this bass is being fought in rocks, at night. Not being able to see just adds to the thrill.

'After a good 30-40 second rest, I'm ready to make another pull, probably in the same direction, I'll get up some more speed this time as I'm warmed up now and when the tension starts wearing me down, I'll pull myself broadside using my girth and all my outstretched fins to against the pull of the line and hope that just my weight will hold me steady against this line. I want to be free.'

The fish can't pull any longer, its flesh rife with acids produced by constant, full motion. It has fanned out its fins, holding itself sideways, its eyes looking down where the line is in the water, giving it all it has to pull a time or two right towards the boat and the light in the water.

Netman has had one kind of light on the fish, just the low powered led headlamp all the while being mildly impressed at the size of this fish and it's swirls in the water at a distance, any break of the fishes body along its length above the water would show a 5-foot ring of water, just lit up with a small headlamp, the swirls border on the ominous. Slowly the fish lazes up the the side of the boat, the rodman only able to walk the fish to the boat as any added tension on the line will snap it, but the netman has the body of the fish the bag of the net and slowly raises it with two hands/arms above the gunwale into the boat.

'The light in the water is bright in my eyes and the net against my body feels awkward as I'm laid on the nonskid, and I'm beat from all the runs at full power. I'm tired and I'm caught, I will await my fate.

The passengers for this trip have pretty much used all their eels, isn't that the idea anyway?, and it is time to set anchor on shoreline to set up camp for the night. We're backing the twin motors back to set the front hook, it's set and we can calm the motors for the night and play the bowline out to get the stern close enough to unload after which we'll ready our tents and sleeping bags for the night.


So we get the stern anchor set up on the beach and there is no one around on this part of the island, in fact, the island is uninhabited by humans, the only other living things are the seagulls and the cormorants on the northside and up on the bluff behind the beach. Up on the sandy part, we pitch tent and get a fire going using the newfangled "duraflame" logs and just let it burn while we ready for some shore fishing.

It had been a long time since I had fished from the shore as having a boat spoils one by allowing one to access water in ways not possible by foot. My buddy asks me "What do we do if we catch one?" and I realize he is serious because I thought the same thing for a moment. Incredible that we have these thoughts since for years, before we ever made close to enough money to be able to buy outright or make payments on a boat, we fished from shore, from beach, from bridge, jetty, and dock and never worried about how we were going to get our fish in, but after having fished from season to season and never have landing a fish on shore for so long, he simply forgot how it is done. I quickly told him that he'd just reel it in, right to his feet.

We hiked a short ways to the southwest side of the island as the wind was at our backs this way and the current flowing by the island was favorable and would help us put our eels into the boulder fields just offshore. It was about on the 10th cast that I got a take, feeling like the laser-hard strike of the bluefish, the one who bites instead of inhales, regardless, I still let the fish take the eel like I always do, assuming it is a bass and letting it run for a few seconds with the eel in its mouth before rearing back on the rod and when I do, I'm fast-to.

There isn't too much of a more satisfying feeling after ones eel has been taken than to let the fish run for a moment before deciding when the right time is to set the hook, and when one does and waits for any slack or stretch in the line to pay out until the arc of the rod takes its set and your arm and upper body brace for the weight, to know that the fish is well hooked and one might have a chance at getting the fish out of the water.

As is sometimes the case with bluefish, those toothsome creatures whose teeth cut, wholly unlike those of the striper, fish who can take the hook deep in the mouth, and with line running from hook past its teeth, jaw and lips, one largely need not worry about the line breaking due to tooth abrasion. Not so with the blue. For if the blue takes the eel anywhere but the jaw, the razor/serrated/ginzu-like teeth of the blue will make quick work of any mono or floro-line, 20lb test to 50lb test, however, when the hookset is made just right, the rodman has a chance to bring that fish in.

So this fish makes a valiant first run, fast and searing, it is most likely a blue since it zigs fast in one direction and equally as fast or faster in another and it takes twice as long to fight this fish in than any sub-40lb bass will ever take. It is why this author wonders why so many shun the pull of the mighty blue? Nonetheless, the fish rolls up in the small shorewash, is unhooked and allowed to slide back into the juice. Eel still intact, it is time for more casts and yet more fish.

This fishing goes on in the dark until the water slowly makes its way to low tide. Rodman number 2 makes a trifecta of striper, bluefish and sand shark for the night and is satisfied. All roll into tent and lay out for the night. Morning comes and the menu for breakfast is steak, onions, peppers, tomatoes and fish, wrapped in aluminum foil and broiled/basted/poached on the fire. We're packing up to head to another big island to get coffe.

It is always a thrill to pull up to either dockage/pierage or dinkage to see others who have come to the island by means of public steerage and who don't have boats themselves. I oftentimes feel as if they are looking at me and wondering where I might have come from, knowing that I spent time in an area that the full 99.9% of them will never, ever see or experience. No matter for I know where I've been and for all I know, they would not be happy anywhere but on a mattress or couch, slaves to switches and holes in the walls.

Coffe is tasty and it is nice to see the crowds, both small and large, seemingly enjoying their morning on the island. We head back out knowing that the tide is running right for the next mission, trolling up Bonito or Albacore.

The twin 250's spool right up and we're on plane again, the sun is just peeking its top over the horizon and the rips have set up quite nicely as the water this morning is calm and smooth yet again, picture perfect, and of course it is, I'm typing this on the internet, everything is perfect! wink-wink.

The lines are set out, the sky is brightening but not bright enough to have to break out the polarized's and the lures are running in clean water, we don't have to worry about weeds fouling our lures and wondering if we are trolling uselessly when first the portside line goes off, the light action 7ft rod bending gracefully down on what is probably a nice fish judging from the bend. The Cap'n cuts engine and moves to pull rod from holder when the starboard rod goes off and matie sets to slightly tensioning the drag and pulling the rod out of holder as well.

Whenever matie pulls the rod from its holder when a fish is on and the drag is streaming out and the boat is still making way, he won't tighten the drag until the boat stops making forward motion because as the lure and fish started out about 100 yards out and as the drag has gone out for another 30-50 yards, so as the line is tensioned out, matie will let 'er run until he feels it will be the right time to tighten down and pump it back.

Cap has begun the slow pump and grind to get his fish to the boat, it take a while as the fish make good, blazing runs out in all different directions. The most curious difference with the fish is that when it runs, it doesn't run against the line or the pull of the rod, rather, it goes in a direction where there will be no resistance for it. It is as if the fish is almost smart and knows that it is much easier to swim with no resistance than against it like most other fish. When all is said and done, there is one nice Bonito and one nice Albacore on deck. This whole scene goes on for a good two hours as the sun is now higher in the late fall sky and it has warmed up nicely from the chilling coolness of the pre-dawn morning.

It was a long day as we started fishing earlier that day, in an area about 120 miles north of where we are now as we had taken 2 other friends out for a short day trip, then packed up the truck after a short workday to head down to the paradise we are in now. Tired, almost out of bait, and knowing that the season, while at its peak, is also at a close. With thoughts of spring and the squid run along with the first signs of the bass coming back to feed on the squid, and getting to see the acres of spring blues spread out all around the sound, the boat is slowly slid back on the trailers rollers, the click-click of the winch yanks the good-girl back on her travel trailer, the outboards are buzzed up to their travel positions on rams, bow and transom tiedowns cinched and we are on our way home, safe and content, knowing that next season will soon be here.

And to this, we do for love.