Experienced fishermen, who have been around for some time may frequently quote, “In the good old days there was better fishing.” Contrast that with today’s results and they may have a valid foundation for a good debate. Take a look at all the all time fishing records. Many date back decades remain the same, few have been broken recently. Although no records were broken here, keep in mind the following surprising facts. Remember fishing slows down during summer months. That’s the common cry.
Middle of summer, 95 degree heat, clear skies, bright sunshine, 9:00-11:00AM
Water temperature, surface 68 degrees
Streamer flies with 1/0 hooks
18 -20 lb test leaders, 9 wgt. fly rods only
Joe Herbert rolled the tables Wednesday morning out at Block Island Sound. Was this a fore nominal run of luck or skill, who really knows? I’ve never seen it before in fly fishing circles. It was remarkable to see so many large stripers lying on the bottom in this oppressive heat wave.
I do know that Joe is a remarkable angler that took up fly fishing only 3 ½ years ago at age seventy. Joe landed six stripers all over 25 pounds on a fly that day. Numerous stripers over ten to twenty pounds, nothing smaller than ten. Not one of these large fish was lost to structure or broken free, all this on a feathered fly with only a single barb, 1/0 hook. That’s not a lot of hooking power compared to multiple treble hooks on other type lures.
We’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story.
Ira Asher and Dave Pollack got together Thursday morning for a run to the island. Temperatures were in the high eighties on the water, compared to the oppressive heat of the mainland. The stripers were still presents chasing sand eels in smaller pods along the southern shore. Conditions were great for fly fishing. Along the western side there were many stripers rolling along the surface. These were very finicky fish, tougher to catch under quiet conditions. We moved outside, this produced better results with moving water and tidal convergences.
Visibility was low today with fog under three hundred yards along the south shore. We landed a few nice stripers under these conditions, but it wasn’t till the fog cleared, that fishing started too improve. Once we had some visibility is was just a question of moving to the birds. Stripers started to collect and feed in larger pods on the incoming tide. It was just a question of getting the fly far enough away from the boat to have some success.
Ira Asher holding a nice Block Island striper. Ira mainly enjoys the thrill of trout fishing the ripples and pockets of clear water streams and rivers. This is Ira’s personal best striper to date.
Dave Pollack on the other hand is no stranger to blue water striper fishing. That’s at the top of his list. The bottom line, they both got to enjoy calm conditions, blue skies, a few laughs, and a day of friendship together.
