After a Long Skunking, We Caught th...

This story, “Day of the Monster,” appeared within the August 1960 challenge of Out of doors Life.

In line with all of the ex­perts, Cape Cod striped-bass fishing is meant to succeed in its seasonal peak over the past a part of September and the primary half of October. Statistically talking, when you common the fats and the lean years, that is true: late fall is a potent interval.

However, these ornery, unpredictable critters with stripes might determine emigrate in mid-Sep­tember or to gap up someplace within the northern bays, to journey south after the beach-buggy skippers have racked their rods and referred to as it a sea­son. Or they might additionally select to spend Indian summer season days on the offshore bars, lazily ignoring small boats, plugs, baits, and the exasperation of anglers who can see them, however can’t attain them.

For a few years now, I’ve fished for stripers by my very own floor guidelines. These are: to pay due homage to the statistics which show one season of the 12 months doubtlessly higher than one other, however to maintain a suspicious eye on the altering of tides, the motion of bait, the vagaries of climate, and the unpredictable nature of stripers.

To catch striped bass constantly, and even often, a person have to be one thing of an opportunist. He should take nothing as a right, and he needs to be prepared to maneuver quick when the birds, the beach-buggy grapevine, or perhaps a nagging hunch whisper that stripers might oblige.

Ralph Grey of Southville, Massa­chusetts, will agree, for through the 1958 season he and I noticed an uncommon demonstration of the pernickety na­ture of stripers — their moody disre­gard for plugs and lures on one tide and their sudden, explosive need to strike at something on one other.

Ralph’s a beach-buggy “common,” which signifies that he fishes the excessive surf throughout every weekend of the lengthy season, and at another time when he can manufacture an excuse to slide away from his enterprise of drilling artesian wells.

Like so many Cape Cod fanatics, he drives a car rigged for fishing — a four-wheel-drive truck fitted with oversize tires and a coach physique loaded with bunks, galley, and duffel compartments. He carries an alumi­num boat on a rack over the cab.

I’m editor of The Salt Water Sportsman and an outside author for the Worcester Night Gazette in Worcester, Mass. On the late-Sep­tember day when this journey be­gan, after I’d arrived at Province­city on the finish of the Cape, I hadn’t deliberate on fishing with Ralph Grey. I used to be going it alone. As I neared the seashore, there was no wind and the solar was good. It felt like July as an alternative of September, however I knew it was time for the massive stripers to be gorging on butterfish and menhaden — it was the now-or-never season.

On the way in which to the seashore, I ended at Natalie and Joe Roderick’s service station for the most recent information. Natalie and Joe aren’t striper addicts, however their retailer is the unofficial leaping­ off spot for seashore buggies going out over the dunes. Natalie was tending the place, and he or she knew precisely what I meant after I requested, “The place are they?”

“Wind was southwest final night time, in order that they’ll be at Peaked Hill,” she instructed me. “Charley noticed quite a lot of bass on the bars final night time, and Ralph had one on. Didn’t catch any, although.” 

I loaded the panel truck with gro­ceries, drove right down to Race Level Coast Guard Station and let air out of my tires. Provincetown seashores are gentle, and it’s typically essential to deflate to 10 kilos throughout. The seashore was unusually quiet. The sum­mer folks had been gone, and the roll­ing beige and inexperienced dunes stretched away for miles. It was as lonely because the day the Pilgrims got here to Race Level.

I drove over the well-packed monitor and hit the outer seashore simply west of The Cottages. The surf was light. No gulls had been flying, no bait flipped within the wash. Possibly tonight, I assumed, shifting to second velocity because the monitor straightened.
5 minutes later I noticed the primary group of buggies, possibly half a dozen huddled collectively on the excessive dunes. From a distance they at all times appear like autos from a far planet.

Charley Whitney was there together with his massive walk-in. Joe Enis, Ralph Grey, George Geddry, and Arnold Laine had been loafing within the daylight, listening to a baseball sport roaring out of an enormous, short-wave radio. These radios are additionally used to listen in on native constitution skippers.

Right here was a tough core of “regulars,” males who appear to spend extra time on the seashore than they do at residence. Whitney is the retired president of a trucking firm in Worces­ter, Mass. Joe Enis runs a scrap­ steel enterprise in Taunton, Mass., and Geddry is a gross sales government in Washington, D. C. Arnold Laine is a dwelling legend on the outer Cape; he makes a precarious dwelling at com­mercial rod-and-line striper fishing, and a few say that he catches extra bass than another surfman on the earth.

We had been all taking part in the averages, realizing that late September and early October simply would possibly produce among the quickest striped bass fish­ing of the season. Large linesiders get stressed right now of 12 months. They sense the approaching migration and have a tendency to feed ravenously.

Charley and Ralph had been there for per week, they usually had been starting to marvel. There weren’t any bass, to not catch, anyway. “However you must see ’em on these bars,” Charley growled. “They’re packed shoulder to shoulder, like sardines; and a few of ’em are actually enormous.” 

“Will they hit eels at night time?” I requested, pleased with the truth that I had a dozen contemporary ones on ice.

“An excessive amount of hearth within the water,” Ralph mentioned. “That phosphorescence makes an eel appear like a red-hot poker. They simply aren’t hitting.”

We fished in useless for per week. We fished morning and night tides with plugs, rigged eels, and block tin squids. We experimented with sea worms on backside and caught a large number of skates. Each time a slick unfold its telltale sign on the offshore swells we launched small boats and went out to analyze. Bass had been there, however they weren’t feeding. 

“They’ll eat ultimately,” Ralph mentioned, “and once they do, we’ll be right here.”

However they didn’t eat, or in the event that they did, it was surreptitiously through the few hours we slept. Ralph would possibly be capable of wait them out, however I needed to get again to my job. Two extra days, I made a decision.

On the final night time of September I launched my 12-foot aluminum boat and labored my manner rigorously out by means of the offshore bars to a degree reverse Pilgrim Springs, down the coast at North Truro. It was quiet and unusually shiny on the market. A delicate swell pulsed in from the Atlantic. The shoreside dunes had been etched in opposition to the sky. I’d been casting rigged eels for some time, when one other boat loomed out of the gloom. It was Ralph, additionally prospecting the offshore bars. We sat there, every with a hand on the opposite’s gunwale to carry our boats collectively, and loved an outdated New England gam. 

“We must sleep at night time,” Ralph mentioned. “Final week these fish rushed bait through the afternoon. I received my 51-pounder on a popping plug.”

Slightly wind puffed out of the south­west. An outboard went droning up the coast. “Pay attention,” Ralph whispered.

“Only a boat,” I muttered. “Man’s quitting for the night time.”

“Not that,” he mentioned — after which I heard it.

From the southeast, not too far out, we heard an intermittent rustling and popping. A faculty of bass was driving bait our manner. Quickly we might see an extended patch of black, troubled water shot with little explosions of white spray. We additionally noticed bait taking pictures across the boats, every tiny fish glowing like a inexperienced ghost and trailing a comet’s tail of phosphorescence.

The stripers got here racing in like a wolf pack, wallowing on the floor, slapping their tales and taking pictures off like rockets. It was a superb show, however we weren’t in any respect spellbound by it. 

When the feeding bass ignored a rigged eel, I switched to a plug, then to a bucktail. Ralph was dropping his casts exactly, proper within the convulsive boils brought on by the linesiders. They wouldn’t hit; lastly it was over.

By that point the wind had freshened and a skein of clouds had misted the celebrities. “Let’s go to mattress,” Ralph grumbled, and I agreed. We yanked starter cords and planed again to our seashore­-buggy village. A full week of fishing with out a strike! Who mentioned stripers chunk greatest in September?

The wind blew up a storm that night time. I might really feel my buggy rocking within the blast. There was rain, too, with some jagged lightning over the Atlantic, and at daybreak a blood-colored solar glow­ered by means of low scud.

Arnold’s seashore buggy had developed motor bother, and within the morning he needed to go to Provincetown for repairs. We went in with him. We topped off the fuel tanks at Natalie’s, laid in professional­visions, and purchased newspapers. The wind was nonetheless freshening, blowing half a gale from the southwest, and gusts of chilly rain pattered in opposition to the wind­defend. We had been bone-weary and dissatisfied. The stripers wouldn’t co­-operate, and the climate was turning as awful as it will probably get in New England within the fall. Stop and go residence?

“Let’s strive Pilgrim Springs,” some­one prompt. “We’ll be capable of forged a mile on this wind.”

“I’ll comply with you out, later,” Arnold mentioned. “Can’t inform, this climate would possibly stir ’em up.”

We entertained no hope. This was October 1, and every of us noticed the awful ending of one other season. October is a month of balmy, blue days — and line storms that half your hair right down to the cranium. If Cape Cod’s temperature soars to 80° on Monday, you may be fairly certain it’ll plummet to 50° on Tuesday. With wind. And rain.

Ralph led the parade, and I adopted. George Geddry was trailering an enormous lapstrake boat behind his jeep, however the remainder of us had small aluminum skiffs on our racks. You’re feeling these boats in a excessive wind, and you retain questioning whether or not the tie-downs are safe.

There are two methods to succeed in Pilgrim Springs. You’ll be able to drive the outer seashore from Race Level Coast Guard Station, chopping up over a excessive dune at Peaked Hill, or you possibly can are available in from the land aspect, grinding by means of a soft-as-sugar monitor bordered by wild roses and bayberries. We took the latter route, so we couldn’t see the water till the monitor wormed its manner up and over a few sculptured sand hills.

An indignant sea was rolling in off the bars. White water spurted as combers slammed into the seashore. Past the surf, lots of of sea birds had been circling and diving, and beneath them had been swirls of froth and flashes of silver as baitfish skittered into the air. There was little doubt about it: Acres of massive stripers had been engaged in a feeding spree. This was the lengthy­ awaited blitz.

Ralph plowed his buggy down off the excessive dunes, all 4 wheels clutching for a toehold. I adopted him, and noticed that the opposite buggies had been hurtling off the peak behind us. A number of slowed down within the gentle sand, however nobody considered shovels or planks. The boats had been coming off the racks be­fore the mud had settled.

I used to be frantically making an attempt to yank the tie-downs off my skiff when Ralph yelled over his shoulder. “It’s so tough, why don’t we exit collectively this time? That surf isn’t any picnic!”

I dropped every part and we man­ dealt with his 14-footer off the rack. Geddry was backing his lapstrake into the suds by the point we had our motor clamped on the transom, and rods aboard. We then loaded an anchor, buoyant seat cushions, a few tin squids, half a dozen plugs apiece, and a model new gaff that hadn’t been christened.

“Take her out,” Ralph howled in opposition to the scream of the wind, and I grabbed the oars. He gauged the incoming swells, picked the suitable second, and shoved off. It was a great launching. The motor began on the primary pull, and Ralph throttled down as we climbed, nearly vertically, up the face of an enormous swell. “Have a look at these fish,” he was yelling. “Man, that is it. It’s now or by no means!”

The motion was nearer shore than we’d thought. Stripers had been sagging in over the bar, then racing out to sea once more, battering the milling bait.

Faculty tuna weighing between 75 and 100 kilos had been there too, however we needed no a part of them.

Ralph had slapped his rod in a holder as quickly as we had been away from the surf, and now he flipped the free-spool lever and let the road stream again, checked solely by the clicking. His lure was a subsurface swimming plug, and he had two dowels of lead pinched on the chief 4 ft forward of the lure. 

We weren’t 50 yards off the seashore when Ralph’s reel shrilled in protest. He grabbed his surf rod, slapped the winch into gear and whooped as the primary striper of the day started stirring up the floor. It was an enormous one.

The wind was whistling and our boat went scudding alongside. Ralph was consuming a shredded cigarette because the berserk monster saved stripping line off the spool. He lastly turned the fish and introduced it again, pumping steadily. His medium-weight surf rod was bent nearly double, and I keep in mind considering that the ability of the striper and the drive of the wind would possibly mix to provide a sticky state of affairs. I waited, gaff in hand.

However this was simply one other bass to Ralph. He’s caught some massive ones, and misplaced just a few that will have raised eyebrows. “Fairly quickly, now,” he muttered between clenched tooth. I noticed the chief after which the huge, brassy aspect of the fish.

We received him on the primary move. The gaff bit deep, however I discovered it troublesome to haul the fish over the gunwale. Each arms turned the trick, nevertheless, and we paused to admire the primary one of many day. We would have been much less matter of reality about it had we identified that this was the second largest striper ever taken on rod and line, and the most important whipped by a sport fisherman since 1913! For the time being, nevertheless, it was nonetheless “simply one other fish.” We hadn’t clocked preventing time: possibly 10 minutes, possibly 20. It was early afternoon, between 1 and a couple of o’clock.

“Should go 50 kilos,” Ralph mentioned. The lunker wasn’t very lengthy as massive bass go, however he was abnormally deep-bodied. The tape measure, later, mentioned 50 inches. We’d figured that, however the girth shocked us — 34 inches. It was the scales, an hour later, that basically popped our eyes: 68 ½ kilos.

I hung the following bass, a cartwheeling battler that wolfed a subsurface plug so totally that we needed to reduce the chief and fix one other lure. “A minimum of 30 kilos,” I grinned, including one other understatement. The bass weighed in at higher than 46.

We boated three extra massive fish earlier than the wind hauled into the north­west, and the climate actually misplaced its head with a sequence of violent rain squalls. A confused chop was constructing: white water exploded to port and starboard. One ragged, spitting wave got here proper over the bow. The birds had been nonetheless round us, screaming within the wind — however we headed residence.

Seaside-buggy boats on Cape Cod journey the combers ashore. Miss a wave and also you get swamped, however hit it proper, at full throttle, and also you’re in. Ralph circled on the primary run. The breakers had been build up and working nearer collectively. We got here round, following an enormous swell. Ralph poured the smoke to her, and we had been dedicated. I held on to the gunwales anxiously. Ralph had hit the wave good, and we rode it ashore, proper on the crest. When the comber blew up beneath us, we got here down as simply as if we’d had a parachute to ease the drop. Half a dozen surfmen ran to assist us tote the craft above imply excessive water.

All arms had been soaked to the pores and skin, chattering with chilly, however utterly pleased. Everybody appeared to have struck it wealthy. Joe Enis produced the scales, and that was the climax. Nobody within the annals of latter-day surf fishing had taken a bass as massive as Grey’s. In all of angling historical past, just one rod-and-line striper had topped this catch — the 73-pounder boated by Charles B. Church in 1913.

It was an awesome day. The lengthy­ awaited fall blitz gave the impression to be underneath manner, and no man amongst us was pre­pared to give up and go residence. All of us knew, with that peculiar, fanatic de­termination widespread to surfmen, that tomorrow would deliver greater bass.

However you understand one thing? That was the final essential flurry of the 1958 striper season on Cape Cod. Like I say, it’s a must to be an opportunist.