I always say that I hate this time of year because it's mostly about your timing. If you put it in enough time along the shoreline eventually you'll come across the blitz that you can reach. I spend a lot of time along the shore so that plays to a strength of sorts. If there was an evolutionary chart for kayak fishing it would start out with a surfcaster staring forlornly out to sea at the unreachable blitz. The ability to launch into the water on the spot and pursue the fish into deeper water is in my opinion an advantage over both surfcasting and boat fishing, as I can move my watercraft from the South Shore to the North Shore in about 10 minutes. The limitation lies in the size of the surf and one's own willingness to launch into it. As any kayak fisherman knows, the launch is the easy part. It's the landing that will get you.
Now "willingness" is not an objective measure. It is weighed against the percieved chances of success. And seeing a splashing quarter mile long pod of fish can be a strong indication of likely success, and it can also be a strong pull in the wrong direction, at times clouding one's judgment. I found myself in just such a situation this morning in Quogue/WHB. Except that parts of this particular stretch of bunker would occasionally erupt in wild splashing, spraying bunker everywhere and sending larger fish airborn. Through the binoculars I could see what I recognized as the tail of a thresher seeming to hang in the air above the frey and then suddenly slicing down into the foamy aftermath. Here again however is a question that neither a boater nor a surfcaster need bother to ask themselves: "Is that a shark, a whale, or just a bunch of big bass splashing around out there?" And it's kind of important that you know which one before you launch yourself into the middle of it. Today, as it often is this time of year, it was very much a "comfort zone" question. Today I got everything loaded up and got all the way to the water's edge before I decided not to launch. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe an innate sense of discomfort as I started doing something I hadn't done very often. I don't know, but I won't regret my decision, or I run the risk of doing something stupid next time.
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Now "willingness" is not an objective measure. It is weighed against the percieved chances of success. And seeing a splashing quarter mile long pod of fish can be a strong indication of likely success, and it can also be a strong pull in the wrong direction, at times clouding one's judgment. I found myself in just such a situation this morning in Quogue/WHB. Except that parts of this particular stretch of bunker would occasionally erupt in wild splashing, spraying bunker everywhere and sending larger fish airborn. Through the binoculars I could see what I recognized as the tail of a thresher seeming to hang in the air above the frey and then suddenly slicing down into the foamy aftermath. Here again however is a question that neither a boater nor a surfcaster need bother to ask themselves: "Is that a shark, a whale, or just a bunch of big bass splashing around out there?" And it's kind of important that you know which one before you launch yourself into the middle of it. Today, as it often is this time of year, it was very much a "comfort zone" question. Today I got everything loaded up and got all the way to the water's edge before I decided not to launch. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe an innate sense of discomfort as I started doing something I hadn't done very often. I don't know, but I won't regret my decision, or I run the risk of doing something stupid next time.
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