OK, so a friend of mine said to me “What’s up? You haven’t been posting.” I said “That’s because I’ve been catching.”
So for the short report: I had numerous bass, generally between 36 and 46 inches, over a five day stretch. I got them trolling a crystal minnow in 20 feet of water around False Bar at night
.
The long report: It was not news that there were big bass spread between Moriches and Montauk. Big bass (40-50lbs) were taken from beneath bunker pods in about 40 feet of water throughout that stretch. I don’t launch from Long Island south shore ocean beaches at night unless conditions are absolutely perfect, so I ran the 80 minutes to the Point to access ocean bass that way.
I had an epic five nights. The first night (only my second trip out to the Point this season) I had nine big bass on the troll. Slow and low, and silver helped, but it really didn’t matter. The smallest fish was 30 inches. The rest were between 36 and 46 inches. I had a 42-pounder that night.
This would be a good point to digress a bit and explain that I have become an expert at photography and fish-reviving/releasing since the new slot limit was introduced and COVID gave birth to over 350 online fishing tournaments that involve fish photo apps. This first bass took me nearly 30 minutes to revive, as I clumsily stumbled among the boulders getting buffeted by waves as I gently pushed it back and forth. Lesson #1: Take it back out into deeper waters. It’s easier to keep that water flowing through the gills as it’s being pulled by the lip at 4mph than being pushed by the tail. And Montauk surf isn’t the place to be strolling around in for 25 minutes in the dark. What an amazing feeling it is to watch a 40-pound bass gently pull away from your grip and swim off into the deep. A real rush.
The next night – of COURSE I went back – was even better. The fish were all above the slot, again between 36 and 45 inches. The biggest was a 44 pounder. By now I’d gotten proficient at taking the fish to shore alive and still active, snapping two quick photos, and getting right back out into the surf with the fish. A vicarious benefit of all this landing and launching has been a renewed level of comfort with exactly that part of the process.
Again, some explanation is appropriate here: For an ocean-launching kayak fisherman, undoubtedly THE most stressful parts of the entire trip are the launching (really not so bad) and the landing (potentially catastrophic). Launching into a challenging break can get you, your tackle, and your electronics very wet, but more importantly, it can also plant the seeds of doubt that will be your undoing when it’s time to land later on. Indecision is a huge mistake when landing. I’ve also just had it ruin my night because even though I was catching big fish, I was worried about how I’d get back at the end. As the first and last things you do as a kayak fisherman that involve any significant risk, they frame the entire experience. The same is not true for the typical bay landing, where waves are less than three feet and you’re stepping out onto a sandy beach or a boat ramp. Night two: All good.
Night three: The bite goes on. By now I’m just sleeping according to the tides and doing whatever it takes to get out during the right conditions. My tackle was taking a beating, but I was religiously retying and checking drag resistance. I know I set my drag a little too high (40%), but it’s what I need to do to win the fight. I use light tackle and a relatively small spool, and when the fish are this big, the fight almost always plays out the same way. The really big ones don’t even know they’re hooked. That’s intimidating. But it’s also my chance; I have seconds to get a 16-foot-long kayak pointed in the direction of that fish before it takes off. As soon as it realizes that it’s hooked, it becomes a Nantucket Sleigh Ride if it’s done right, and the kayak does the work as I gain back all the line that it took. I can’t let it run too hard for too long before I run it down. After that, as long as I don’t run up on it too fast (It will go under the kayak and flip you), the game changes. Once you’ve caught up to it, the “stalemate” part ensues. Ten to 20 minutes of you directly above the fish. It’s holding to the bottom and you’re trying to get it up to the surface without it breaking off. It’s physically taxing as you hold the rod in a curling position to prevent it from hitting the edge of the kayak. Shockingly, my teammates were less-than-sympathetic when I told them how “tired” I was from catching big bass all night.?
At the stalemate part of the fight, patience is the key, but hooks straighten and tackle fatigues. I dropped a cow that was directly beneath me because my clip (rated for 45lbs) snapped. The devil is in the details. I didn’t switch it out when I retied. I assumed it was OK. I was recounting the experience to my father, a fishing legend, and he laughed. He said “When guys tell me that they ‘…lost it at the boat’ I say… You mean you screwed up, because once you get next to it, the fish should be yours.” I explained how things can get a little dicey when the fish is in your lap and you’re sitting in a kayak, but essentially he was right. My mantra is: You need to be prepared for complete success and utter failure. This would fall into the former category. You won’t need tackle to perform at its best until you have a huge fish on. I know it seems cocky to say it now, but I really wasn’t too concerned about it at the time because I was confident that I’d get others. I did. I had 7 bass, one 28-incher and 6 between 37 and 46 inches, the biggest at 43lbs.
Night four: I drive the drive to the Point, sit through a beautiful thunderstorm during the wee hours, just so that I can get out for maybe the last hour of my tide. The storm finally passes to the east and I launch. I’m trolling for about ten minutes and a thick fog rolls in. Dealbreaker. The end. After driving an hour and a half and waiting for two more hours, I’m off the water after ten minutes… and I KNOW those fish were still out there!
Night five: Fatigue sets in and I make a dumb decision. Too lazy to run out and get the right sized hooks, I replaced the (bent & re-straightened) hooks on my go-to lure with 6x hooks that wouldn’t bend as easily, but I didn’t have them in the right size. These were a size larger. Now I ALWAYS replace the stock lure hooks with 4x hooks, but I also size-up by a size anyway, because the standard hooks simply won’t fit around the lip of a cow bass. I’d read about how the Block Island bass fishing innovators of the 60s and 70s regularly up-sized their hooks to accommodate the lips of 50-pound behemoths that populated those waters. My father did the same. I figured that sizing up a little more couldn’t hurt, especially with the bass that I was coming across recently. Right away I realized that the bigger hooks rendered the lure no less attractive to the stripers, as I got big, rod-bending hits right out of the gate. I was psyched, because I thought it might not swim as effectively and now I knew that wouldn’t be a problem… but I didn’t get the hook-up, just the hard hit. This happened again moments later, but when you feel hits that big slam your lure, you’re confident that the hook’s going to set and it’ll be game-on. The hits continued, but that didn’t happen. In fact, I had at least six or seven big hits that turned into “misses” seconds later. I reluctantly switched to the spare of my go-to lure (with regular 1/0 4x hooks) and the very next fish I landed. The same happened with the hits that followed. Lesson learned. I’d missed several opportunities at bigger fish, but still managed about six or seven fish that night, the biggest of which was 38 inches.
I made another trip out, two nights ago, with lackluster results. The storms that passed through recently seem to have broken up the bait and the concentrations of big bass I’d been feasting on. What remained for me to harvest were a dozen small, sharp-toothed bluefish and one 24-inch striper. I’m confident that the bite will return, yet for the moment I welcome a respite from the all-night workouts. Tight lines!
So for the short report: I had numerous bass, generally between 36 and 46 inches, over a five day stretch. I got them trolling a crystal minnow in 20 feet of water around False Bar at night
The long report: It was not news that there were big bass spread between Moriches and Montauk. Big bass (40-50lbs) were taken from beneath bunker pods in about 40 feet of water throughout that stretch. I don’t launch from Long Island south shore ocean beaches at night unless conditions are absolutely perfect, so I ran the 80 minutes to the Point to access ocean bass that way.
I had an epic five nights. The first night (only my second trip out to the Point this season) I had nine big bass on the troll. Slow and low, and silver helped, but it really didn’t matter. The smallest fish was 30 inches. The rest were between 36 and 46 inches. I had a 42-pounder that night.
This would be a good point to digress a bit and explain that I have become an expert at photography and fish-reviving/releasing since the new slot limit was introduced and COVID gave birth to over 350 online fishing tournaments that involve fish photo apps. This first bass took me nearly 30 minutes to revive, as I clumsily stumbled among the boulders getting buffeted by waves as I gently pushed it back and forth. Lesson #1: Take it back out into deeper waters. It’s easier to keep that water flowing through the gills as it’s being pulled by the lip at 4mph than being pushed by the tail. And Montauk surf isn’t the place to be strolling around in for 25 minutes in the dark. What an amazing feeling it is to watch a 40-pound bass gently pull away from your grip and swim off into the deep. A real rush.
The next night – of COURSE I went back – was even better. The fish were all above the slot, again between 36 and 45 inches. The biggest was a 44 pounder. By now I’d gotten proficient at taking the fish to shore alive and still active, snapping two quick photos, and getting right back out into the surf with the fish. A vicarious benefit of all this landing and launching has been a renewed level of comfort with exactly that part of the process.
Again, some explanation is appropriate here: For an ocean-launching kayak fisherman, undoubtedly THE most stressful parts of the entire trip are the launching (really not so bad) and the landing (potentially catastrophic). Launching into a challenging break can get you, your tackle, and your electronics very wet, but more importantly, it can also plant the seeds of doubt that will be your undoing when it’s time to land later on. Indecision is a huge mistake when landing. I’ve also just had it ruin my night because even though I was catching big fish, I was worried about how I’d get back at the end. As the first and last things you do as a kayak fisherman that involve any significant risk, they frame the entire experience. The same is not true for the typical bay landing, where waves are less than three feet and you’re stepping out onto a sandy beach or a boat ramp. Night two: All good.
Night three: The bite goes on. By now I’m just sleeping according to the tides and doing whatever it takes to get out during the right conditions. My tackle was taking a beating, but I was religiously retying and checking drag resistance. I know I set my drag a little too high (40%), but it’s what I need to do to win the fight. I use light tackle and a relatively small spool, and when the fish are this big, the fight almost always plays out the same way. The really big ones don’t even know they’re hooked. That’s intimidating. But it’s also my chance; I have seconds to get a 16-foot-long kayak pointed in the direction of that fish before it takes off. As soon as it realizes that it’s hooked, it becomes a Nantucket Sleigh Ride if it’s done right, and the kayak does the work as I gain back all the line that it took. I can’t let it run too hard for too long before I run it down. After that, as long as I don’t run up on it too fast (It will go under the kayak and flip you), the game changes. Once you’ve caught up to it, the “stalemate” part ensues. Ten to 20 minutes of you directly above the fish. It’s holding to the bottom and you’re trying to get it up to the surface without it breaking off. It’s physically taxing as you hold the rod in a curling position to prevent it from hitting the edge of the kayak. Shockingly, my teammates were less-than-sympathetic when I told them how “tired” I was from catching big bass all night.?
At the stalemate part of the fight, patience is the key, but hooks straighten and tackle fatigues. I dropped a cow that was directly beneath me because my clip (rated for 45lbs) snapped. The devil is in the details. I didn’t switch it out when I retied. I assumed it was OK. I was recounting the experience to my father, a fishing legend, and he laughed. He said “When guys tell me that they ‘…lost it at the boat’ I say… You mean you screwed up, because once you get next to it, the fish should be yours.” I explained how things can get a little dicey when the fish is in your lap and you’re sitting in a kayak, but essentially he was right. My mantra is: You need to be prepared for complete success and utter failure. This would fall into the former category. You won’t need tackle to perform at its best until you have a huge fish on. I know it seems cocky to say it now, but I really wasn’t too concerned about it at the time because I was confident that I’d get others. I did. I had 7 bass, one 28-incher and 6 between 37 and 46 inches, the biggest at 43lbs.
Night four: I drive the drive to the Point, sit through a beautiful thunderstorm during the wee hours, just so that I can get out for maybe the last hour of my tide. The storm finally passes to the east and I launch. I’m trolling for about ten minutes and a thick fog rolls in. Dealbreaker. The end. After driving an hour and a half and waiting for two more hours, I’m off the water after ten minutes… and I KNOW those fish were still out there!
Night five: Fatigue sets in and I make a dumb decision. Too lazy to run out and get the right sized hooks, I replaced the (bent & re-straightened) hooks on my go-to lure with 6x hooks that wouldn’t bend as easily, but I didn’t have them in the right size. These were a size larger. Now I ALWAYS replace the stock lure hooks with 4x hooks, but I also size-up by a size anyway, because the standard hooks simply won’t fit around the lip of a cow bass. I’d read about how the Block Island bass fishing innovators of the 60s and 70s regularly up-sized their hooks to accommodate the lips of 50-pound behemoths that populated those waters. My father did the same. I figured that sizing up a little more couldn’t hurt, especially with the bass that I was coming across recently. Right away I realized that the bigger hooks rendered the lure no less attractive to the stripers, as I got big, rod-bending hits right out of the gate. I was psyched, because I thought it might not swim as effectively and now I knew that wouldn’t be a problem… but I didn’t get the hook-up, just the hard hit. This happened again moments later, but when you feel hits that big slam your lure, you’re confident that the hook’s going to set and it’ll be game-on. The hits continued, but that didn’t happen. In fact, I had at least six or seven big hits that turned into “misses” seconds later. I reluctantly switched to the spare of my go-to lure (with regular 1/0 4x hooks) and the very next fish I landed. The same happened with the hits that followed. Lesson learned. I’d missed several opportunities at bigger fish, but still managed about six or seven fish that night, the biggest of which was 38 inches.
I made another trip out, two nights ago, with lackluster results. The storms that passed through recently seem to have broken up the bait and the concentrations of big bass I’d been feasting on. What remained for me to harvest were a dozen small, sharp-toothed bluefish and one 24-inch striper. I’m confident that the bite will return, yet for the moment I welcome a respite from the all-night workouts. Tight lines!
Last edited:
