New York: Long Island North Shore: Caumsett

Date / Time: 6/14/09 Location: Long Island North Shore: Caumsett State Park The Characters: Kory Kapaloski, Karl Andersen Weather: Partly Sunny mid 70s in the day, cool evening in the 60s Water Temp: 60’s (guess) Water Level / Tide: Low tide 4:00 p.m. high tide around 11 p.m. Water Clarity/Quality: perfect Moon Phase: Almost Last quarter Fishing: Got there mid day and fished the rip on the point for a few fluke or winter flounder not sure which, althought doesn’t really matter as it wasn’t what I was after. Couple other guys out there bait fishing and plugging with no success. They said sand eels had been around thick lately though. Fished the back pond on the incoming and got a small schoolie. Karl and I both picked up a few other schoolies fishing around the beach. After talking with people, the word was that is had been going off the night before with fish showing all over the place on sand eels so we decided to stick it out. After a trip to town for a few beers and a slice, we headed back out around 7 p.m. As the sun dropped, swirls started to occur and then more, then boils then fish jumping and porpoising. Pretty soon, fish were showing all ove the place. That didn’t mean you had a hook up on every cast as they were very keyed on very small sand eels about 2-3 inches long.  In fact there were several guys plugging that never hooked a fish. After switching to a sparse, bead chain eye ultra hair clouser i started hooking up. At first it was small fish, but as the light got lower, the fish got bigger. I started trying different patterns, but they were very reluctant to hit anything that was more than 3 inches long. Eventually as it started getting really late, it started to slightly subside but not all the way. Some very big fish were then starting to show but it was getting late and I was pretty worn out and we had caught a ton of fish. I made one more cast to retrieve my line over some fish that were showing and as I got about 10 feet of the shore i came tight and a huge boil erupted. I was into my backing in no time and could tell it was a good fish. After about 8-10 minutes of tug of war with some great runs on the 7 weight I beached the fish and it was  a good 10-12 pound 31 incher. To date, my biggest surf striper (not a real monster in fact many people would consider it a small schoolie but to me it was a great fish). I was going to end on that but Karl wanted to make a few more casts so i figured I would as well and hooked another fish close to the same size. Being my superstitious self, I ended on that fish since I like to have my last cast be a fish. Awesome night to be on the water. Perfect weather, not a breath of wind and fish chowing down on sand eels all over the place.