So I was in the Hobie World Qualifier in the Striper Cup. And you are either number one and they fly you to Europe or somewhere else to compete in the World Championship or you are one of the top 10 finishers and you are eligible for the raffle for a free kayak. This summer I made it my mission to win the Hobie Cup Striper World Qualifier. I was even briefly ranked as high as a distant fourth, but since 10th place is as good as second I was still rather pleased with myself back in May. When the contest started I estimated that I was going to need to catch at least 10 fish over 40 in just to be competitive. I wasn't far off.
Now I've never had a year that good, but it was something to aspire toward. As May turned into June I was catching fish earlier in the season than usual which boded well for me. There were no 40 inch fish for me in May or June, but entering July my vision was being realized in the form of a 47 inch bass and a 48 inch bass caught within a week of each other. At this point I still thought I had a chance, but I knew that August was coming and there were lean times ahead.
Other forces intervened as well during that August. My wife and I dropped our daughter off at college for her first year. I bought my son his own Hobie that we needed to use in waters less imposing than Montauk Point at night.
Throughout August and into September I watched as my ranking dropped from 4 to 5, then to 7, then 8 and at that point with only a week left in the tournament I vowed not to look at the standings.
It was frustrating me. It was pulling me away from important parts of my life and I wasn't going to allow that to happen. Instead I would focus on the quality of my fishing time. There was precious little kayak fishing time available anyway as consecutive tropical storms passed by the Island throwing our ocean surf into chaos. I'd be surfcasting with my son. In the wake of the storms, however, the bite seemed to return, at least for the smaller bass.
I needed a bass bigger than my 10th biggest (my smallest) fish, which happened to be 32 inches long. Night after night I caught dozens of fish to 30 inches and no bigger. I surf casted with my son, texted my daughter at school and did my best to focus on my work. But with 3 days left in my season-long quest I broke my vow and peeked at the standings.
I was tied for 10th place at 369 points. The next closest competitor was a mere three quarters of an inch behind us. First place was over a hundred points ahead of us and was pretty much locked up at this point. Among the 140 OTHER competitors there was no tie. The drama was at the chopping block and it was MY ass that was going to get chopped off if I didn't do something to break the tie.
Upon learning of this my fishing teammate "Pistol" Pete Kelly drove two and a half hours to join me in my quest for bass in excess of 32 in. Success in his vocation prevented Pete from fishing most of this summer season and this was just the reason he needed to drop everything and help out for 2 days.
There was a reason that I didn't want to look at the standings; they would compel me to do things that my better judgment might advise against. Here we go: It was Wednesday night. There was a small craft warning and the National Weather Service was calling for 3 to 5 ft seas and gusts to 20 miles per hour. I immediately headed to the point anyway.
Many times I've read of a small craft warning and drove out to find the low end of the prediction, which - in this case as long as the wind stayed out of the southest - was fishable. Yes, I'd be wet. but I was looking at the blitz. I fished and I caught fish, but only one fish at 33 inches. Not likely to be enough.
What Pete and I found on Saturday night was the other end of the spectrum: The National Weather Service calls for "about 4 feet" and we arrived to find 4+ feet at the break and 8 foot swells outside of the break. We got our kayaks ready. I launched ahead of Pete.
As I met the surf I knew that I wasn't completely comfortable with conditions, but I was highly motivated. There were big rollers coming in at the point where I would normally be still paddling. Pete has a Hobie Pro Angler. Getting beyond the break in that was going to be a lot more challenging. So before Pete even launched I turned around and landed again inbetween a pair of 5 ft waves. Pete wondered why I had returned, thinking that I had forgotten something and I explained what conditions we're going to be like. I had already sensed some trepidation and Pete was a guest. I came back to let him know that it was not going to be an easy launch and I was perfectly okay with surfcasting or kayak fishing in a calm East End bay somewhere. We had a lot of options.
Pete deferred to my local knowledge and I suggested that we have a couple of the beers we had brought and watch the surf as the sun set. If the surf was settling, we did what we came to do. If it was building... Liars'Saloon.
Well obviously we fished or I wouldn't have written the report. I got out a little cleaner this second time around but Pete took a wave to the face and was initially a little pissed off, thinking that his neck was going to be wet all night, but no sooner had we gotten outside the break than we were both into bass. Pete went his own way after that and found 15 fish, mostly bass. I did about the same, but I stayed closer to the light and had a slightly better ratio of bass to blues.
The tide began to slow and we were both ready to get back. We knew that wasn't going to be easy. There were (not exaggerating) 10 ft swells passing beneath us as we reconvened and approached our landing site. We had a stiff 20 mile per hour west wind in our faces. It's one thing for me to do it in a kayak that's 32 in wide and pretty quick. It's another thing for Pete to try to land a 14 foot Hobie Pro Angler in a 12 ft surf. So I was coaching Pete a little as we came in. "Wait for your spot, read the pattern of the waves. Be patient during the approach, decisive when it's time to go. DON'T surf the wave, and when the time seems right... paddle like a mother****er."
We both picked the same break and we were both being carried in within a few feet of each other. I had considered this actually and didn't think it was a bad thing. Close proximity meant we could not only "raft" in, but we could help each other out if we got dumped and it got dicey. Neither of us surfed the wave, but the inevitable momentum of the breaking swell propelled us forward faster than either of us wanted and by the time we were in the foam and rocks, we had both been turned sideways. Pete saw it coming and hopped out in about 3 feet of water. I did likewise in about 2 feet of water and it was a clean landing with no loss of cargo.
The tournament officially ended Sunday night at 6:00pm.
Sunday night. At 7:00 pm I pulled into a much more sedate Montauk under a beautiful yellow moon headed toward the Point where I knew bass awaied me. I wasn't going because it was going to improve my score. I was not doing it for Misfit Kayak Fishing (which managed to stay in the top 10 for the entire season!). I drove east for an hour and a half with my kayak on a Sunday night because there was nowhere else in the world I would rather be. It was strange to even go out in my kayak and look at the Striper Cup logo prominently affixed
and think that it was suddenly irrelevant. Just like that.
I left it all out there. Amidst high seas and cold beers at Liars' I added 5 points to my score, Pete crushed the bass like he'd wanted to all summer and we both had a great time.
I finished eleventh. I may not have won the tournament or even a chance in the raffle but there I was again in front of the lighthouse under a huge moon catching bass. I ended up in Paradise again and that's not such a bad place to finish.
Now I've never had a year that good, but it was something to aspire toward. As May turned into June I was catching fish earlier in the season than usual which boded well for me. There were no 40 inch fish for me in May or June, but entering July my vision was being realized in the form of a 47 inch bass and a 48 inch bass caught within a week of each other. At this point I still thought I had a chance, but I knew that August was coming and there were lean times ahead.
Other forces intervened as well during that August. My wife and I dropped our daughter off at college for her first year. I bought my son his own Hobie that we needed to use in waters less imposing than Montauk Point at night.
Throughout August and into September I watched as my ranking dropped from 4 to 5, then to 7, then 8 and at that point with only a week left in the tournament I vowed not to look at the standings.
It was frustrating me. It was pulling me away from important parts of my life and I wasn't going to allow that to happen. Instead I would focus on the quality of my fishing time. There was precious little kayak fishing time available anyway as consecutive tropical storms passed by the Island throwing our ocean surf into chaos. I'd be surfcasting with my son. In the wake of the storms, however, the bite seemed to return, at least for the smaller bass.
I needed a bass bigger than my 10th biggest (my smallest) fish, which happened to be 32 inches long. Night after night I caught dozens of fish to 30 inches and no bigger. I surf casted with my son, texted my daughter at school and did my best to focus on my work. But with 3 days left in my season-long quest I broke my vow and peeked at the standings.
I was tied for 10th place at 369 points. The next closest competitor was a mere three quarters of an inch behind us. First place was over a hundred points ahead of us and was pretty much locked up at this point. Among the 140 OTHER competitors there was no tie. The drama was at the chopping block and it was MY ass that was going to get chopped off if I didn't do something to break the tie.
Upon learning of this my fishing teammate "Pistol" Pete Kelly drove two and a half hours to join me in my quest for bass in excess of 32 in. Success in his vocation prevented Pete from fishing most of this summer season and this was just the reason he needed to drop everything and help out for 2 days.
There was a reason that I didn't want to look at the standings; they would compel me to do things that my better judgment might advise against. Here we go: It was Wednesday night. There was a small craft warning and the National Weather Service was calling for 3 to 5 ft seas and gusts to 20 miles per hour. I immediately headed to the point anyway.
Many times I've read of a small craft warning and drove out to find the low end of the prediction, which - in this case as long as the wind stayed out of the southest - was fishable. Yes, I'd be wet. but I was looking at the blitz. I fished and I caught fish, but only one fish at 33 inches. Not likely to be enough.
What Pete and I found on Saturday night was the other end of the spectrum: The National Weather Service calls for "about 4 feet" and we arrived to find 4+ feet at the break and 8 foot swells outside of the break. We got our kayaks ready. I launched ahead of Pete.
As I met the surf I knew that I wasn't completely comfortable with conditions, but I was highly motivated. There were big rollers coming in at the point where I would normally be still paddling. Pete has a Hobie Pro Angler. Getting beyond the break in that was going to be a lot more challenging. So before Pete even launched I turned around and landed again inbetween a pair of 5 ft waves. Pete wondered why I had returned, thinking that I had forgotten something and I explained what conditions we're going to be like. I had already sensed some trepidation and Pete was a guest. I came back to let him know that it was not going to be an easy launch and I was perfectly okay with surfcasting or kayak fishing in a calm East End bay somewhere. We had a lot of options.
Pete deferred to my local knowledge and I suggested that we have a couple of the beers we had brought and watch the surf as the sun set. If the surf was settling, we did what we came to do. If it was building... Liars'Saloon.
Well obviously we fished or I wouldn't have written the report. I got out a little cleaner this second time around but Pete took a wave to the face and was initially a little pissed off, thinking that his neck was going to be wet all night, but no sooner had we gotten outside the break than we were both into bass. Pete went his own way after that and found 15 fish, mostly bass. I did about the same, but I stayed closer to the light and had a slightly better ratio of bass to blues.
The tide began to slow and we were both ready to get back. We knew that wasn't going to be easy. There were (not exaggerating) 10 ft swells passing beneath us as we reconvened and approached our landing site. We had a stiff 20 mile per hour west wind in our faces. It's one thing for me to do it in a kayak that's 32 in wide and pretty quick. It's another thing for Pete to try to land a 14 foot Hobie Pro Angler in a 12 ft surf. So I was coaching Pete a little as we came in. "Wait for your spot, read the pattern of the waves. Be patient during the approach, decisive when it's time to go. DON'T surf the wave, and when the time seems right... paddle like a mother****er."
We both picked the same break and we were both being carried in within a few feet of each other. I had considered this actually and didn't think it was a bad thing. Close proximity meant we could not only "raft" in, but we could help each other out if we got dumped and it got dicey. Neither of us surfed the wave, but the inevitable momentum of the breaking swell propelled us forward faster than either of us wanted and by the time we were in the foam and rocks, we had both been turned sideways. Pete saw it coming and hopped out in about 3 feet of water. I did likewise in about 2 feet of water and it was a clean landing with no loss of cargo.
The tournament officially ended Sunday night at 6:00pm.
Sunday night. At 7:00 pm I pulled into a much more sedate Montauk under a beautiful yellow moon headed toward the Point where I knew bass awaied me. I wasn't going because it was going to improve my score. I was not doing it for Misfit Kayak Fishing (which managed to stay in the top 10 for the entire season!). I drove east for an hour and a half with my kayak on a Sunday night because there was nowhere else in the world I would rather be. It was strange to even go out in my kayak and look at the Striper Cup logo prominently affixed
I left it all out there. Amidst high seas and cold beers at Liars' I added 5 points to my score, Pete crushed the bass like he'd wanted to all summer and we both had a great time.
I finished eleventh. I may not have won the tournament or even a chance in the raffle but there I was again in front of the lighthouse under a huge moon catching bass. I ended up in Paradise again and that's not such a bad place to finish.
