Stalking the Striped Bass on the Beaches of Long Island

[weinoo]

Went out fishing for striped bass this week, with a friend who has a house (and a boat) out in Mastic Beach, which is a bit west (and a bit less fancy than) of Westhampton.

At first, during the early afternoon, he wanted to play around (i.e. fish) on the jetties which line the Moriches Inlet...

 

Moriches Inlet

 

Now, I enjoy fishing; it's relaxing, it's fun, it allows me to commune with nature, etc. etc. You see people enjoying it, sitting on a dock or on a boat, perhaps smoking a corncob pipe or chewing on a blade of grass. Like this:

 

 

This was nothing like that.

 

My first task was putting on waders. I've never put on waders; had it not been for the fishing part, this was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

 

LL Bean Waders

 

These keep you dry, even while standing on the shoreline and casting into the surf, praying that you're not gonna get pulled out by the undertow, which is, let's just say, stronger than you think. (Being told to stand on one leg when you think the undertow is going to pull you down was not necessarily a comfort.)  While surf casting on the beach is fun (and driving on the beach is even more fun, though sometimes it feels like driving might be like on the surface of the moon), getting onto the jetties in order to cast into the inlet, is a whole different story. For that, you have to put on boots with spikes on the bottom. Like these:

 

LL Bean Fishing Boots

 

Because the jetty is rocks, which are wet, uneven, slippery and dangerous. Let's also just say I didn't last too long on the jetty; my first cast get caught on the rocks, I lost the lure, and that was that. 

 

Here's a Google maps screenshot of the beach we drove along, from Smith Point to the Moriches Inlet on the right-hand side.  When the beach is impassable (high tide, dunes, whatever), there's a "road" just behind the beach which gets used; it makes 2nd Avenue look like the smoothest road you've ever been on.

 

 

Okay, so that was fun, and after an hour or two we drove back to the house to relax a bit, and then went over to the boat to fish again, an hour or two before sunset.  First, I had to put back on the damn waders, and we had to gas up the boat on the way out...

 

 

Gassing up in one of the marinas near the inlet, look how beautiful it is! Also, this is one of the few pictures I could take, as it was one of the few times I wasn't holding on for dear life. Actually...I kid...a little - it was mostly pretty smooth. Getting in and out of the inlet to the ocean, not quite as smooth. One of the little pieces of advice given to me by the captain: always have one hand for the boat; meaning, if we hit a wake or a wave and start bouncing around a bit (trust me, you bounce), you want to be able to grab a rail and hold on.

 

Out of the marina, out of the inlet, and into the ocean we went.  My friend is a fisherman; i.e. he knows how to find fish. Every minute or two he would say: "Did you see that?!"  My answer: "What?" You're basically looking for birds diving for bait fish, and you're looking for the ocean to boil - or what's called a blitz.  While we never hit a true blitz, there were birds, there was bait, and we ended up with these beauties, caught in full view of the multi-million dollar houses on Westhampton Beach.

 

 

Recreational striped bass fishing is highly regulated.  One fish per day per person may be kept - we each caught one.  And the size must be between 28" and 31" (used to be 35"), which these are. Successfully we fished the sun going down; coming back in the dark is interesting as well, but my buddy, in addition to being an experienced fisherman, is also an experienced boater. Radar helps!

 

We went out again the next morning (or, as they like to say, at first light (I learned so much on this short trip)), but no fish were around. All was not lost however, as there were plenty of dolphins all around, either playing or chasing food. After a leisurely breakfast, I drove back into the city (as any experienced cab driver might do) with my gorgeous striped bass fillets.  He went out again that afternoon, and caught and released a bunch of fish caught surfcasting. I'd do it again in a NY minute!

 

Oh - here's what a real blitz, off Montauk, looks like:

 

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by weinoo (log)

[Shelby]

17 minutes ago, weinoo said:

this was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

 

🤣

 

You are a great writer and I enjoyed this.  Beautiful fish, too.  I was surprised at the one fish limit.

[weinoo]

2 minutes ago, Shelby said:

🤣

 

You are a great writer and I enjoyed this.  Beautiful fish, too.  I was surprised at the one fish limit.

 

Thanks!  The one-fish limit, the size limit, all instituted so that every last fish (hopefully) isn't fished out of the ocean.

 

I just imagine what it must have been like when the lands and waters of Long Island were inhabited by Native Americans. There were so many different groups:

 

Quote

 When the Island was first settled by the whites it was inhabited by 13 tribes or groups of Indians. The Canarsee, Rockaway, Merrick, Marsapeague, Secatogue, and Unkechaug lived on the South Shore. On the north were the Matinecock, Nesaquake, Setalcott, and Corchaug. On the east end of the Island were the Shinnecock, Manhasset and the Montauks.

 

 

[Shelby]

8 minutes ago, weinoo said:

so that every last fish (hopefully) isn't fished out of the ocean.

 

I get that....we have strict limits here at the lakes, but it's the ocean and it is so much bigger lol.

[Senior Sea Kayaker]

@weinoo

Looks like a good fishing trip. I've never fished for striped bass however I've experienced 'blitzes' when a school of herring are near the surface.

With respect to the waders (apologies if you already knew this) the easy way to don them is to turn them inside out except for the 'shoe' section, sit in a chair, put the 'shoes' on, then roll the waders on and adjust as you go.

I'm curious why you were wearing the waders when you were in the boat. Were they the style shown or were they neoprene 

waders?

 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Senior Sea Kayaker (log)

[Shelby]

1 hour ago, Senior Sea Kayaker said:

@weinoo

Looks like a good fishing trip. I've never fished for striped bass however I've experienced 'blitzes' when a school of herring are near the surface.

With respect to the waders (apologies if you already knew this) the easy way to don them is to turn them inside out except for the 'shoe' section, sit in a chair, put the 'shoes' on, then roll the waders on and adjust as you go.

I'm curious why you were wearing the waders when you were in the boat. Were they the style shown or were they neoprene 

waders?

 

 

 

Not to take away from @weinoo at all, but, it is amazing when the schools of fish (in our lakes they are usually shad and they are being chased by bigger fish to eat) pop out of the water.  We watch for that, too.  When we see it, we quickly make our way over and try to get in the line of the bigger fish that are down below the schools.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

5 hours ago, Shelby said:

Not to take away from @weinoo at all, but, it is amazing when the schools of fish (in our lakes they are usually shad and they are being chased by bigger fish to eat) pop out of the water.  We watch for that, too.  When we see it, we quickly make our way over and try to get in the line of the bigger fish that are down below the schools.

 

Without question shad are my favorite fish.  I know Pacific shad were introduced to the Northwest from the East coast.  But how do your Kansas shad migrate to the ocean?  Do they travel down the Mississippi to the Gulf?  Locally I'm pretty sure shad are our largest fish, so adults have few predators besides bear and hungry humans.

 

Lambertville, a small city a few miles west of here promotes a shad festival every spring.  I've watched the commercial fishing companies hauling in their nets.  Quite an impressive sight.

[weinoo]

6 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

But how do your Kansas shad migrate to the ocean? 

 

They're not migratory:

 

Quote

Freshwater shad are arguably the most numerous of all baitfish in America. In many lakes, the shad population accounts for more than 50 percent of the total fish biomass. There are two primary freshwater species, threadfin shad (Dorosoma petenense) and gizzard shad (Dorosoma cepedianum). Other common shad, American, Hickory and Alabama, are migratory species that commonly invade freshwater estuaries or rivers to spawn, but live most of their lives in saltwater.

 

https://www.bassmaster.com/conservation-news/news/understanding-bass-forage-shad/

[Shelby]

6 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Without question shad are my favorite fish.  I know Pacific shad were introduced to the Northwest from the East coast.  But how do your Kansas shad migrate to the ocean?  Do they travel down the Mississippi to the Gulf?  Locally I'm pretty sure shad are our largest fish, so adults have few predators besides bear and hungry humans.

 

Lambertville, a small city a few miles west of here promotes a shad festival every spring.  I've watched the commercial fishing companies hauling in their nets.  Quite an impressive sight.

Ours are mostly the Gizzard Shad that @weinoomentioned above.

[chromedome]

Huh. I didn't know there were landlocked shad. Go figure!

 

Shad were one of my favorite fish when I was a kid, because a) it was the largest thing I could expect to catch from the bank with a spinning rod; and b) as a smart-alec little kid, they gave me an opportunity to casually drop the word "anadromous" into conversation.

[Katie Meadow]

I absolutely adore shad, which is not available here on the west coast. Whenever I used to visit my mother in NY I would make a pilgrimage to Citarella, where they would debone it. One of her all-time favorite foods was shad roe, wrapped in bacon and sautéed. Shad are iconic. John McPhee's book "The Founding Fish" is really a great read.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

13 hours ago, Katie Meadow said:

I absolutely adore shad, which is not available here on the west coast. Whenever I used to visit my mother in NY I would make a pilgrimage to Citarella, where they would debone it. One of her all-time favorite foods was shad roe, wrapped in bacon and sautéed. Shad are iconic. John McPhee's book "The Founding Fish" is really a great read.

 

Yes, great food book!