Derby Stories

[DRUMCORPFAN]

MV Derby starts soon and I was thinking about some of the memories I've had there, One in particular always makes me laugh. So I fished all night walking the beaches of MV and called it quits at daybreak, So I get in the truck and head over to Menemsha to get some sleep. All curled up in the back seat and someone pulled up next to me and started dumping rocks from the beach into the bed of their truck, No @$!&;"&? Way...
I could not believe someone would just arbitrarily pull up next to me and start dumping rocks into their truck. I get up and out of the truck and see the Menemsha Jetty guys laughing, No Sleeping during the Derby..... All I could do was laugh..
Tired and beat I still laughed

[Fish On]

Leo, I'm guessing that musta been post 2006 and had something to do with your back to back shore striper victories. The more tired you are the less the chance of an off island threepeat. ;-) All in good fun. Good luck if you get over this year.

[DRUMCORPFAN]

Keith, Hello my friend. You must have a funny story to tell from the Derby. Like when you had your feet up on a log draining the water that filled your waders.....
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[Fish On]

Yeah that was back in my rubber wader days before I learned what real waders were form guys like you.

OK I'll park my pride and share a funny experience. One night mid derby I took the ferry over to Chappy and headed out to Wasque. After parking in the Wasque lot and lugging all my gear down the wooden walkway and over the dunes I picked what I thought was a good spot in the pitch black of a new moon. I hooked one of my newest plugs ( I think it was an afterhours original) on the line, stepped to the surf and launched my 65 lb powerpro as far as I could into the black. After a few cranks I hooked what felt like a thousand pound waterlogged railroad tie. A half hour later, with my head hung low, I packed my gear and began the long walk back to the truck stopping only to deposit my broken pole and a ball of braid into the only trash can I could find. Never got the plug back. Buying a new pole at #^&#^&#^&#^&'s the next morning Steve asked me how the fishing was at Wasque the night before. I hadn't said a word. There are very few secrets during the derby. I sure wish this could have been one of them.

If I hear a few more good stories I'll share an even more humbling experience of a trip to the pond opening in 2006.

I've got some scary ones too fishing in the boat alone at night but I guess this isn't the thread for those.

[BasicPatrick]

Many of my stories involve sleep driving...Right John R

There was this one time. Shore flyrod bluefish was a category I had placed a couple times. With two weeks left the leader was only 3 pounds and change. I left a note at the fishing shack declaring I would not return until I took the lead. THREE days later I was woken up by house mates because I was asleep with my engine running in the old Dodge Ramcharger. I was by the stalls where you either go left onto Norton Point dune road or straight onto South Beach. When they woke me up I moved and the truck surged forward. Apparently I fell asleep behind the wheel with the truck still in gear at the point where the road becomes the beach and the truck just stopped in idle. I don't know who laughed harder the crew that woke me up or me.

[BEETLE]

BP - I will never forget taking over the Blazer so we could get to XX spot to fish that night - talk about knowing MV like the back of your hand !!! - I have NO clue where TF I'm going - waking up BP as we go every 10 Min. - we're in the middle of the woods on a trail at a fork - in the middle of the night - I wake up BP - he looks around for a sec - mutters off more directions and off we go
Soon Patrick - GAME ON.
Good Luck - will watch the board for your name - Unless I hit the Lottery i'll be on this side - working.

[DRUMCORPFAN]

Keith, The waders were fine. It was you fishing in a tee shirt and no surf top. ( Boat Guys)

Good story Patrick, Did you get your Fly-rod Blue? I can say you do know MV very well. Catching a nap in your Jeep at Wasque waiting for daybreak, You fell a-sleep with the headlights on. You're are deep sleeper....

Who else has funny Derby moments?????

[Swimmer]

i remember coming back from the weigh in with Basic Patrick driving, it was getting dark, if not dark already, and every fifty feet Pat is nodding right F off. I new he did this and was crazy to go with him. So every 55 feet I am saying to Pat, wa ke up,, wake up Pat. He'd reply I'm awake, I'm awake. Never missed the turn into Dodger's Hole, never went anywhere with Pat after that.
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[stripermaineiac]

You'll like this. Was in my old Ford when a freind knocked on my window. Hey Ron you can go the lights turned green. Of course he was laughing at me too. I was stopped at the stop sign by Cumbys sound asleep. Plus there are no stop lights on The Vineyard. He was 5 cars back. Not sure how long I was there and still get busted on for this an it happened 10 yrs ago LOL.

[PaulS]

Anyone who wins 2 times is my hero.

[fishpoopoo]

Dragged my buddy Kadir to MV years ago.

He's a die-hard rock-hopper from LI.

Anyways, we got there late and he's exhausted to start with. We annoy the hell out of him by jigging for squid at the Edgartown docks (this is well before the opening at Katama widened up). He's rolling his eyes and shaking his head wondering why we're going through all the trouble.

About an hour and a half later we're done getting a bucketfull and he's sleeping on the hood of my sled.

We mosie on over to S. Beach. I wake him up and we do a death march (couple miles each way) to a well known opening and start lobbing squid.

I don't think it was more than 15-20 minutes and Kadir hooks up on a nice fish. We wrap up after an hour or so and he's complaining about lugging the fish back to the sled. LOL.

Next morning we stop by #^&#^&#^&#^&'s and say hello to Bill Morris. Bill weighed the (now partially dehydrated) fish at 27+ lbs.

Not a bad haul for a stranger in a strange land.

For the next few days we returned Kadir to his natural habitat (standing on the rocks at Squibby etc) but I don't think the fishing was quite the same.

[Swimmer]

Originally Posted by PaulS

Anyone who wins 2 times is my hero.

I have two first place finishes but no key fish, does that count a little?
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[PaulS]

Heck ya.

[Thumper]

Originally Posted by Swimmer

i remember coming back from the weigh in with Basic Patrick driving, it was getting dark, if not dark already, and every fifty feet Pat is nodding right F off. I new he did this and was crazy to go with him. So every 55 feet I am saying to Pat, wa ke up,, wake up Pat. He'd reply I'm awake, I'm awake. Never missed the turn into Dodger's Hole, never went anywhere with Pat after that.
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Too funny. I have a story just like this with some friends on BI. Needless to say, we almost made a back road into twin maples. good times.

[DRUMCORPFAN]

Fishing the Derby does strange things to you, I always pour water on my wader boots before I start walking to the beach. Never go to the weigh in shack unless I have a fish to weigh, Listen to Pink Floyd wish you were here cd on my way to fishing. I do this stuff every time I go...... Also never leave home without my Sluggos....

[rphud]

There ya go, the secret is out!

Pink Floyd that is. I found out the hard way that Cannibal Corpse just does not get it done, but sometimes it's what you need to stay awake on the ride home from a death march or such.

[hardcore from shore]

I was at the basic fishing shack and it was late and was looking to head out but lacked a vehicle. Leo was there, but I did not know him from Adam but he invited me to ride along. A full moon night and we spooked a few fish at Philbin. Hit Squibby and nothing as I was putting my rod in the back of the truck I said, great ride, how long have you had it? He said just under a year. When I got in, I noticed the derby logo on the door. I said your Leo who won the truck last year. He said yes. Nice humble guy. I only wish we had hit some fish that night.
Bill
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[agsurfr]

Now that is a good story😉
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[DRUMCORPFAN]

That would be Keith who won the Truck, Yes he is a humble guy. We rented a house together for a week in 2005 he won the truck I won the boat.
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[Mike P]

Driving out to the beach side of the Gut, right at false dawn. Just enough light to see a few details. What I see is a an absolute frothing of water, looking like a feeding frenzy. I'm thinking, oh man, an absolute blitz and there's not another truck in sight. All to myself for right now. I grab my rod down from the roof rack, snap on a tin (no matter what they are, they should hit tin, right?) and run down to the water. Just as I'm setting up to cast, it gets light enough to see a little more detail. My "blitz" is a good 200 cormorants beating the water white with their wings, trying to take off.

[hardcore from shore]

A Basic Patrick story. Really learned a lot about fishing the derby in several days at the Basic Shack. Several nights we went to Squibby to catch his favorite tide. First night I use a needle and hook up to the biggest fish if my life to that time. After a long battle it wraps me in the muscle bed and breaks free. Next night we go again after waiting a long time for the perfect time of the tide. As we hit the lot 2 guys are coming off beach with 30 pound fish. They must have missed the perfect tide seminar.
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[milo]

This was like 6-8 yrs ago , not sure.Rick Hern and me were headed to fish the Derby , and we had a early morning ferry, but he wanted to go squidding at woods hole the nite before.So I meet him at the canal and we unload my rods onto his truck.And we go park my van at his buddies house up the road. It is the middle of the nite and we are driving down 28 to go squidding . We are in the right lane and these cars are passing us up and staring, I figured the are just amazed on the amount of #^&#^&#^&#^& this suburban has, front cooler rack, rear cargo carrier loaded with stuff, about 15 rods on the roof , plus the cargo carrier on top of the truck with the albied rods, plus the tackle shop that was inside.....He is driving and not paying attention to the cars passing us by, but after about 6 or 7 cars staring at us , I said, "rick man you better pull over , all these f&!^/3^3ing people are staring at us. So he pulls over and we get out.His truck looked like a porcine, with rods sticking out in every direction, straight up , to the sides and even backwards.There were a few rods dragging the road behind us, one was mine.He was also carrying rods for a few friends that were meeting us there during the week.We had about 15 surf rods up there and the only damage was a couple of tips were ground down to nothing from dragging the road, and were still there because the reels were hung up on the rod rack.And one rod was a lami ss that he just built for our friend matt, never fished.Still amazes me that we didnt lose 1 rod and all those fuchin people didnt say anything, or point or something.He thought I locked the racks and I thought he did lol ...oh yea we were probably half way to woods hole when we found out
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[stripermaineiac]

Ouch. Yrs ago I was heading down when I saw what looked like a rod leaning against a guard rail. Pulled over an backed up to check it out. It wasn't 1 rod but a barecrafter rod rack with 4 rods on each side with ,you know the old gutter mount ones. I had a big white ford van at the time. I put it on my roof rack and headed to Woods Hole. I let a cop know that I knew on the PD there. He told me to hold onto the stuff and he'd put the word out. I was on the Island for a couple days and stopped in at Derby Jacks. I'd spread the word about the rods an rack around. The owner knew about the rods as the owner that lost them had written them off when he found them missing and bought a pair of Cleight Hoyle rods from him. We connected at the OB weigh station and the owner an rods were reconnected. Haven't seen the owner for quite a while but he sure was happy to get his stuff back.2 yrs later he place in the Striped bass shore catgory.

[striperjerk1]

As we all know M V has a lot of fishy spots. Some of them are easy to get to on main roads, but some of them you have to look for signs or rocks or markers and in the middle of the night is to say a little tough. One night my buddy Leo [ drumcorpfan] went to look for a new place this new place was a little dirt road in the woods, the sign we were looking for was a gator sign. needless to say, it was quite the ride. going down a one lane rd : trail: in the middle of the woods. we found it. a trail ill never forget.

[Swimmer]

Originally Posted by striperjerk1

As we all know M V has a lot of fishy spots. Some of them are easy to get to on main roads, but some of them you have to look for signs or rocks or markers and in the middle of the night is to say a little tough. One night my buddy Leo [ drumcorpfan] went to look for a new place this new place was a little dirt road in the woods, the sign we were looking for was a gator sign. needless to say, it was quite the ride. going down a one lane rd : trail: in the middle of the woods. we found it. a trail ill never forget.

Ha Ha, I know that "gator sign".
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[Fish On]

Dennis! How the heck are you my friend! I hope all is well. Please elaborate on your unforgettable adventure down that trail. I'm guessing if Leo was leading the way it must be a fishy interesting story!

[striperjerk1]

Keith, good buddy, im retired and doing ok.
you telling some stories.like when you caught your 1st striper from shore or the trip to wasgue with leo and i.

[striperjerk1]

Keith maybe you,ll remember some of these....

[Fish On]

Hey thanks for the memmories Dennis! You guys, and Sandman too, really showed me the surf ropes those couple of years. I really had a lot of fun and still have some great memmories.

Still wish I found you guys on the night of the new moon in 2005 while you were all slaying the cows. All I had to show for the full death march was a torn rotator cuff and a bruised ego :-) A night to remember and a night to forget! ;-)

Take advantage of the retirement and hit those beaches bud!

[Mr. Sandman]

Good luck out there guys!