Landing a big bluefin
I went out to Cape Cod bay last week looking for the schools of bluefin tuna our scouts had been describing for the past few weeks. We hit the water around 9 am with Dave Bebon of Capitol Mercury Apparel and his dedicated employee Tim Shields. The 18-foot Maritime Skiff rolled through the 4-6 foot swells effortlessly with Tim's expert piloting skills. It wasn't long before we spotted large schools of surfacing bluefin, some in the 200 pound range.
Dave cast a Deadly Dick metal spoon and I fired a 5-ounce Crippled Herring. I hooked up my second cast to what turned out to be a 60-70 pound bluefin. Of course the fish hit and vaporized 300 yards of forty pound Diawa braided line off my 8000 Shimano Stella spinning reel in a few seconds. My new Loomis 7'9" Bacura spinning rod performed flawlessly as I put heavy pressure on the fish. I got it to the side of the boat in about 30 minutes and boated the fish with Sushi on our minds.
The rest of the day was spent running and gunning after multiple schools of fish, hooking up and loosing them due to equipment failures, angler fatigue and just pure mayhem. We returned to the dock happy campers and headed back to Connecticut for a bluefin feast.
Labels: angler, bluefin, Cape Cod fishing
Releasing more than 60 30-40" stipers
Well, we recently had an epic striper fishing excursion in Cape Cod. I went out with my buddy Rick and fished a local reef about 5 miles from the Osterville Cut. The seas were calm (unusual for
Nantucket Sound) and the tide was right. We drifted through the rip line letting our sluggos and flies settle to the bottom. With a slight jigging action we literally hooked up everytime through! At the end of the day we had released over 60 bass -- most being keepers and most of those in the 30-40 inch range. We did keep our limit to enjoy on the "barbie" later. The next morning the kids were exhausted and Rick and I headed out to the same spot and started all over again. Four hours and approximately 30 fish later we'd had enough and high fived all the way home!
Next adventure is my long awaited Florida trip to Palm Beach to fish with Captain Scott Hamilton of
Flyfishing Extremes.com. Scott specializes in flyfishing for the adrenalin inducing false albacore as well as all other species including skipjack, yellowfin, blackfin tuna, dolphin, tarpon, kingfish, etc. We may take a day and go to the Bahamas to fish the skipjack-yellowfin surface bite which could be sick considering the yellowfin are running to 50 pounds. I will fill everyone in when I return. Anyone interested in joining the
Old Harbor Outfitters fishing team can contact Steve Termpini at stempini@oldharboroutfitters.com. The company has made a strong start and will be a premier fishing and outfitting company in the years to come. tight lines and screaming drags to all Glen
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Stripers are in at the Cape
Spoke with Rick Angelo this weekend and the stripers are in at the Cape and the larger fish are making their presence known. The seven inch, unweighted pink sluggo is still the ticket. Also outside the Osterville Cut the bluefish have arrived for some awesome sightfishing opportunities along the flats there. You need to use a popper that makes a lot of splashing to incite a hit. Locally, I personally have not been out but have heard the typical reports of schoolies inshore basically all over the sound and some bigger fish being taken at the 11b bouy. If memory serves me correct the BH bouy held some large stripers at this time last year so that might be a spot to try with some bait. My younger brother Rob of Branford Dental Care called with a report of one blackfish and one lobster the other day. He said he was going for the trifecta and hoped to land a bass that evening. I guess anything could be a trifecta these days like a cherrystone, a mussel and a searobin all in one day! Way to go Rob! ...tight lines and screaming drags
Secret spot nets $300 prize
Spoke with Rick Angelo last night and he reports that his son Jake caught the winning fish in the
Osterville Angler's Club Striper Tournament this past weekend on the Cape. They decided to go after the largest fish rather than large numbers of fish because Rick had scouted out a couple "secret spots" that he knew held some larger (for this time of year) stripers. They walked away with a cool $300 for their efforts (if you call fishing an effort!). Next on the schedule is the
Martha's Vineyard Pink Squid Tournament which should be a blast.
I took out the boat for the first time this season and cast my fly rod for a bit with no luck but it was great to get out on the water. In two weeks I will be headed to Palm Beach for some high adrenaline fly rod action fishing for
false albacore with Captain Scott Hamilton of
Flyfishing Extremes. Tight lines and screaming drags to all...
Striped bass in North Bay
I spoke with Rick Angelo (
Rick and Bluefin) and he's been hammering the striped bass in North Bay, just outside Princes Cove. He caught a couple keepers by slinging a 7 1/2" pink Sluggo with no weight and retrieving on the surface. The bass loved it and were relentlessly attacking right up to the boat! Sounds like the start of something good if we can get some decent weather. My buddy Dave Bebon tried for some schoolies in
Ash Creek in Fairfield last night and landed five big pieces of seaweed and was driven off by clouds of no-see-ums. This is normal for Dave as he needs me to show him how to do it and I couldn't be there that night. Tight lines and screaming drags...
Rough seas
I spoke with Alrick Mann of Manmade Services, a boyhood friend, who fished the Vineyard this past weekend. He fished
Wasque Point in 40 knot winds and 12-15 foot seas! Al actually landed four bass in that slop (from shore) one of them being a keeper. He was throwiing a bucktail and said it was tough fishing.
The weather has been horrible and looks like we won't see the light until the end of the week. I will be starting a portrait of a nice fluke caught off
Montauk last season on Steve Tempini's 35' Cabo. Steve has started a company called
Old Harbor Outfitters, clothing and fishing gear for the offshore fisherman. Knowing Steve and his business history this will be a major success as well. 'Til next time - tight lines and screaming drags...
Menhaden and squid in record numbers
Fairfield Magazine wrote a great (I think) article on myself and my art in the May issue. They included a number of my seascapes and portraits with the article and devoted a number of well written pages, giving a quick summary of how I got started and what I'm up to now. If anyone would like a copy
let me know. My closest childhood friend and fishing buddy Dave Bebon of
Capitol Mercury Apparel called this morning to report that his buddy and fishing enthusiast Tim Sheilds reported record numbers of adult menhaden and squid have arrived in Rhode Island waters. The signifigance of this is obvious, more predatory species will be coming to dinner! Tight lines and screaming drags -Glen Also, I've put my 1996 26' Regulator up for sale -
see it at Boats.com - I'm purchasing a 23' Regulator with a trailer for a little more manueverability.
