Photo essay: Crazy Al & Friends Visit RI - Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

Fish_Eye · 09-03-2002, 07:36 AM

Photo essay: Crazy Al & Friends Visit RI

Crazy Al was in town this weekend with Oznavard and Kadir. It seems that there was some talk of a showdown between Al and Bassmaster, but that never materialized. The “plug assassin” had been given an open invite but just couldn’t venture off sandland. TOO BAD! Slipknot, you missed some HOT action as well…for that matter so did Oznavard…I’ll explain later.

I’ll start the “photo essay” post with a few shots from Friday night off Jamestown and then post the images from Sunday morning at Beavertail and early afternoon at Newport.

We arrived just as the sun was setting over Narragansett. The wind had dropped off finally and it was the calm before the proverbial storm. The water was shimmering with the red highlights of a blazing sunset…it turned out to be a sailor’s warning, not “delight”.

With only an hour to spend fishing – the boys needed their rest for a 2:00 am wake up call for a day of fishing with Captain Gary Corsetti.

The Crazy man banged this nice bluefish on a Storm teaser.

Before we left we managed to catch a fireworks show that was going off across the bay in Newport.

The sun was long gone when I took this image by leaving the shutter open for 20 seconds.

The master plug builder John Haberek aka “The Hab’s Guy” joined us for Sake and little light show of his own.

With his flash light he charged up his squid popper until it glowed in the dark more than the Beavertail Lighthouse!

Continued...

Fish_Eye · 09-03-2002, 08:34 AM

Photo essay: Crazy Al & Friends Visit RI
Day 3 - The early morning hours

After rolling around in 6’ seas, with 20 to 25knt winds, the boys returned to my place with a cooler full of fluke, sea bass and scup. Only one bass jumped on the fresh bunker offerings and I believe it was Oznavad that managed to avoid the bass-skunking. After power-sleeping for only 4 hours, everyone was out the door and heading for Jamestown again.

I met up with the gang just prior to sunrise.

The night fishing had been very slow, but everyone was awaiting the dawn with great expectations. Beavertail had given up lots of BIG albies from shore and a number of nice bass…including one of 32 pounds on a flyrod!

Kadir changing his rig before first light:

The seas were sloppy with lots of backwash and white water.

As the sunlight bounced off the heavy cloud cover, it gave the water an incredible red hue.

The fishing was slow with less than a dozen small striper between Oz, Kadir and Crazy Al

We made the journey over to Newport and scoured Ocean Drive looking for signs of fish.
There were few working birds and nobody seemed to be catching anything. We pulled up at Lands End where Crazy Al started flipping over rocks for tautog bait…we knew he was looking for lunch…that boy will eat ANYTHING!

Continued...

Jenn · 09-03-2002, 10:59 PM

woo wee.....nice pics.......but they HURT! make me think I am really there....but I am not.....

Fish_Eye · 09-04-2002, 04:58 AM

Photo essay: Crazy Al & Friends Visit RI

We continued to watch the water looking for signs of life. For the last two weeks there had been many blitz situations with bass, blues, bonito, false albacore, skipjack or oceanic bonito, and even bluefin tuna action.

The size of the schools were enormous and both shore and boat anglers had been having a ball.

Birds were hovering over massive schools of bluefish with bass and little footballs mixed in.

Bonito like this had been everywhere.

The hungry predators were feeding on clouds of bay anchovies and lots of small peanut bunker; sometimes driving them right up on the beach.

Late Sunday morning nothing was showing and just before noontime Phil (Oz) decided it was time to head for Queens. His last words were, “I know that a half hour after I leave all hell will break out.” How right he was!

Fish_Eye · 09-04-2002, 05:05 AM

We talked about how Tattoo had been hammering fish on his new Zara Spook-like “dogs”. He couldn’t keep these through-wired beauties in the water without fish succumbing to the walk the dog, zigzag action.

Crazy Al mustered up the energy to walk down to the shoreline and started blind casting. We had just discussed the fact that you can’t catch fish in a parking lot and too many anglers depend on surefire signs that fish are there before they wet a line…not Al!

Within five minutes his rod was throbbing with the first of many, many cooperative stripers. Kadir and I ran down and joined the party. I shot tons of video showing bass after bass exploding on a wide variety of surface offerings.

Hab’s black needlefish with a purple belly seemed to be the most effective lure of the bunch.

I left those guys and they continued to pound the fish for a couple of more hours.

Needless to say, a lot of this hot action will make its way into upcoming videos and for next seasons seminars and shows. It was “ALIVE” as Al would say…”STUPID FISHING” at its finest.

Continued....

Fish_Eye · 09-04-2002, 05:14 AM

Remember to sharpen your hooks, think about crushing the barbs, and practice catch and release.

The early bird doesn’t always get the fish…fish when you can get out there…

and get out there!

Good luck!

Mike

JohnR · 09-04-2002, 08:00 AM

Nice pics & Nice fishing guys

Crazy Alberto · 09-04-2002, 11:01 AM

Hey Mike… Those are really beautiful pictures!

Hi John R… It was an incredible day… Unfortunately there weren’t many big fish around but we had over 70 bass (two guys) in 3 hours or so…

This was the day BassMaster was supposed to challenge me on a surf contest… but I guess once he found out that RI had rocks… he bagged it.

“Crazy” Alberto

Slipknot · 09-04-2002, 06:23 PM

Real nice pictures Mike

Crazy Al, I thought we were to meet you at night, because that day you were out on a boat and you would be at Mikes' in the afternoon.

unless you mean that blitz was Sunday morning which by then we would have been long gone home.
Al, you need to get up the the Cape in Sept. , big fish this time of year just chowing all over the beaches.

shore manic · 09-04-2002, 06:45 PM

fisheye: those are super pics, are they all from video? those sure look like awesome spots to fish. glad to see ya all had a great time.maybe R.i. is the place to be!!!!