..hello again anglers and readers......I cant thank you enough  for all the kind words that came as a result of the last edition...the tuna fish and all the great things that came from landing it... I want to thank Pete Belsan , from Belsans Bait and Tackle in Scituate,http://www.belsanbait.com ,for guiding me through the steps to assure the catch was legal by connecting me with Brad McHale......head of pelagic fisheries....I also appreciate Petes advice on calling VanStaal to give their product the praise it deserves..and for contacting the Patriot Ledger and allowing me to meet Warren ..the editor of the south shore edition.  I am also glad that I met members of the Van Staal Team and spent very enjoyable time fishing and hanging out with them.........nice 35" bass Chris Murray!!!!!I also want to thank modern technology for uncovering the very very very concerned person...that's right, ONE person, who was  deeply worried about the Patriot Ledger and Van Staal corporation because...he........assured them that the fish floated into my hands and then into the freezer and eventually gained the recognition that it did.   Although he insisted on remaining  anonymous, modern technology allowed us......to uncover his identity. 

    But the real focus of this edition remains the glorious striper and those of us that search for the thrill of hooking them up.  How was your fall?  Did you get that trophy you dreamt of.?  My striper season for big cows was less than most years.  Not the numbers or size that I am used to.  Except the glorious tuna fish.  I want to say that I hope you had your best fall run ever...and that you had moments of unbridled excitement and success.  I hope by now you all realize that not only do I hope to have you relive my moments through my stories ...but that I also love to vicariously experience your moments.  I have caught to many fish and had too many great moments in the sport of surfcasting to let jealousy or envy invade the comradery .   May every fish you get be bigger and stronger than your last one. may you always have the fire in you to expand your sagas so that when old age approaches and a warm fire awaits you........you can sit quietly.and remember them.!  Fishing is made for personal moments......not an avenue for acclaim.

  Enough of my small talk about some snake in the grass......lets talk about the snakes in the sea.......and so........

Anguilla Rostrata
 

.....I could not remember ever finding one washed up in the surf.  Its as rare as finding a crow hit by a car....just never seems to happen.  After putting two and two together...the reason why that sea serpent lay before me at high tide was more than coincidence.
     Many surfcasters are like a one man band.  They choose a means of pursuing the linesiders and when it works they tend to use it each and every time...no matter when and where.  If plugs were a success at the canal.....then guys become plug men...and so on with bait and jigs and....................eels! 
     Earlier that very sunny day at dead low tide on a Sunday afternoon, I saw two surfcasters set up for some fishing near my house.  I do believe that if your line is in the water you have a better chance than the couch potato, to catch a fish.......but......in full sun..with people everywhere..at low tide...my impression is that you will have yourself a biteless land charter.  Let me assure you, I am not the kind of person that will go down and tell these guys otherwise.  When I approached them and saw the vigor and excitement they had as they got ready for their first cast, I was absolutely not going to question their approach at all!
     Hey guys.....wow this is a nice day huh?...It sure is...we plan on sitting here, catching some fish, and having a few beers. This is our Vacation.  Should be a great day for you guys.  Hey what are you using for bait?..or are you plugging?  We are fishing for stripers and as far as I am concerned..there is only one way to catch them and that is using live eels.  I chimed in with some reinforcing comments on that bait for our beloved foam feeders.  Its the only thing we use for stripers.....every time we go we use eels.  I nodded with approval, but since that is my turf and I know it well...low tide ..on a sunny day...on a sandy beach...with yelling kids everywhere seemed to make their quest futile, but remember hope is part of fishing. 
     I enjoyed the beach also that day, swimming, reading, and generally nodding in and out of la la land from the soothing sun.  I also kept an eye on the two eel boys.  It a natural thing for fisherman to watch other fisherman.  The two guys laughed and talked about fishing and recast a number of times and never even moaned about the cold truth at the end of the day...........they never had a bite.  So as the tanning crowd was heading home, I was heading out again, with my fishing gear.  High tide was rolling in and on my beach, the gradual sand arena, that is when I fish. 
     It was a calm evening and I planned on chumming a bit and using my fish oil to take advantage of the calmness.  It was during this prep time that I noticed the washed up eel.  It was from those guys earlier in the day.  They had discarded it before heading home.  I chuckled as I recalled their insistence on eels all the time.  I chuckled at the enthusiasm they had when on the beach.  I chuckled how fishing can make men kids in a second.  After my chuckles I put my fishing cap on and leaned down to pick up the used...washed out...EEL (Anguilla Rostrata) 
     I had brought two rods. One for chunking and one for plugging if pluggable fish entered my domain.  I took the plugging rod...lightened the sinker down to an ounce, and rehooked ol Mr. sea serpent through the eyes.....and heaved him.  After gathering the slack I opened the drag and would just put it in the holder in case some striper decided she wanted an ol limp dead eel.  I wasn't in the mood to work it.  I had recent success with mackerel and I focused on that rod for my possibilities.  I held that one.

     The American eel, Anguilla rostrata, also known as the common or freshwater eel, can be found in a variety of habitats across an extensive geographic range. It probably has the broadest diversity of habitats of any fish species in the world. The American eel occurs in freshwater rivers and lakes, estuaries, coastal areas and open ocean from the southern tip of Greenland, along the Atlantic coast of North America, throughout the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, to Venezuela, and inland in the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes. The eel is an abundant resident of all tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay in its yellow eel phase. Before reaching this life-history phase, which comprises most of its life, the eel has undergone several physical and geographical changes
     The life history of the American eel is complex and not fully understood. It is a catadromous species, which spends most of its life in rivers, lakes and estuaries, but migrates to the ocean to spawn.
     The eel begins and ends its life in the waters of the Sargasso Sea, an area north of the Bahamas. The leptocephalus, a pelagic larvae of less than two inches in length, drifts with the ocean currents for 9 to12 months before entering coastal waters.
When it reaches approximately 2.4 inches in length, the leptocephalus metamorphoses into a transparent, "glass" eel.
In autumn the glass eels migrate into estuaries along the Atlantic coast, including Chesapeake Bay, where they become pigmented. These eels are known as elvers. Some elvers remain in the estuaries, but others migrate varying distances upstream, often for several hundred kilometers, overcoming seemingly impassible obstacles such as spillways, dams, falls and rapids. Now in their yellow eel phase, the American eels will remain in the brackish and fresh waters of these rivers for the majority of their lives for at least five and possibly as many as twenty years. The yellow eels are uniformly greenish-brown to yellowish-brown dorsally, and whitish-gray ventrally. Females reach a maximum length of five feet, and males grow as long as two feet. These residents of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries are nocturnally active omnivores, feeding on insects, mollusks, crustaceans, worms and other fish. Before beginning its life-ending migration back to the waters of the Sargasso Sea to spawn, the eel must undergo further profound physical changes. Just prior to the reproductive migration, the eel stops feeding, the eyes and pectoral fins enlarge, the visual pigments change and the body color pattern transforms. The sexually mature eel has a gray back, pure white belly, and a silvery bronze sheen on its flanks. The migration occurs throughout autumn nights with adults descending streams and rivers, swimming through deep grass and shallow ditches, for a January spawning in the warm Caribbean waters.
     So lets see what striper mikes little science lesson did for you.  Here is your QUIZ:
     Every American eel ever caught in rivers, bays, and ponds in the Bay was hatched from an egg below the surface of the Sargasso Sea, southwest of Bermuda.

True
False

     the answer is TRUE. Incredible as it may seem, ALL eels originate from this location and migrate to other parts of the world, including the Chesapeake Bay!!!!!!!!!!
     In a typical sand bar fashion, the crabs kept invading the mackerel and I was kept busy rebaiting the chunking rod.  Some tiny nibbles that I felt were stripers kept me going, but as we all know, surfcasting can be veryyyy unrewarding.  This tide had Nada written all over it.  I would go both barrels. I will use the limpy eel rod for a chunk now and hope that would up my odds for a fish. 
     Only because I am so fanatical, I actually slowly worked the eel in even though it had sat there for an hour......without the company of a striper!  I kid you not, I hadn't moved the dead eel 5 feet when a nice fish put the brakes on my retrieve.  I was hooked up..unbelievable!!!!!!  A scrawny 34' striper gazed up at me from the sand after a spunky fight. and the washed out eel dangled from its mouth.

     I wish I could have found the guy again......The eel Man.....cuz you know what, He was right...his eels did work!! 
     After countless hours from the beach, I have learned one thing and I hope you all learn it too........the absolute most that we can do is learn information about stripers and surfcasting, but one fact remains....we are humans and they are fish. Accept that.  because, we will always be using guesswork and hope to bait our lines, while our quarry already knows what it wants.  Accept your amateurism with humility....its part of surfcasting.....Striper Mike
     
 

EEL FISH

!

.............GOD BLESS AMERICA
 

Hi there striper mike,

Why is it that my clams keep falling off when I try to cast them??

mike

Hey mike...try buying bait holder hooks...they have extra barbs on the hook....be sure to use fresh clams....don't use to much weight.........and finally. throw some kosher salt in with them.....it stiffens them up........Good Luck...........Striper Mike.

TEACHING.........take the time to do it....

Hi Striper Mike

I want to buy a surf rod and I am wondering the best size for me?  Any suggestions, and I don't want to spend a fortune.  I think the site is super and congrats on that tuna fish.  I doubt if I could have got it in.

Nick

Thanks for the compliments and the email Nick

.  That question has many components that you COULD use to determine your rod size.  Note I said could.  The questions are. where are you planning on fishing????.......and with what???? and how much weight??? ...and how big are you???? etc.  Or you can go spend 80-100$ on a 10 ft Ugly Stick and do pretty much what you want to. If you want a good one..........you will spend money on it....its worth it to me.........but is it to you?

Good Luck .........Mike

Hello Striper Mike,

My name is Justin.  My question is , How do you catch so many big striped bass?  You site has so many pictures of really big stripers.  If you tell me I promise not to tell to many people......but I will have to tell my brothers and father if you don't mind.

signed

Justin

 (I wonder how old Justin is?)............Hello Justin

thank you so much for the email.  I will try and be as honest as possible when answering this.  Luck is very important!!!!  I also go surfcasting alot....the area I usually go can have moments where big fish are common....................I keep all my equipment in top shape...especially hooks........but most of all I think that having done it for so many years , two things happen to me more often than most people that surfcast.  1.  I set the hook more often than most guys and when hooked I definitely land the big fish more often than most casters.  The "why " for those reasons is because I am very in tuned with the rod and the bite....I use the mono as communication .....not the attachment.  And finally.....I when I am hooked up. I play the fish with talent and not force....I move during the dance........not simply stand there and reel against the drag...the result is a much higher % of stripers laying on the sand.......if that helps.........I am  glad......

Mike

 

OSKAR'S GRILLED STRIPED BASS WITH SLICED ARTICHOKES

3lb. artichokes...1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil...8 cloves of garlic sliced in slivers...1 teas. salt...1/8 teas. black pepper...1 Tab. thyme...juice of one lemon...4 striped bass fillets about 6 oz each.

     Remove the tough outer leaves of the artichoke. Trim the stems and tops.  Slice lengthwise into thin pieces.  Remove the chokes.

     Warm the oil in a stainless steel pot.  Add the artichoke leaves, garlic, salt, pepper, thyme and lemon juice.

     Cover and cook slowly until artichokes are tender, about 20 min.

     Brush the bass on both sides with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Grill over a medium-hot fire, flipping once until cooked through.

     Place a portion of the stewed artichokes on top of each serving.............serves 4.

Nice size to keep...........Looks like Fallon is not to thrilled with the tiny keeper.....NOTE the rod going off behind us!!!!!

                        

PLEASE NOTE THE AGE OF THE BIG ONES, THEY ARE THE PROVEN BREEDERS, LET THEM GO.

I LOVE letting the big cows go.....it is like being a guest and not an intruder.

...that from their third year on, female stripers grow faster and generally larger than males. A study involving the Chesapeake area in Maryland found their large sample to be 92% female fish, if they weighed over 15 lbs!!!!!!  Large males do exist, but they are far and few between.  It may be noted that virtually all...I mean all...fish 14 yrs and older, are females.  The oldest recorded striper was a 31 yr old fish from the Chesapeake.  NOW DOES CATCH AND RELEASE MAKE MORE SENSE?.......feel good,.... not just full.!!.......release a big one.

.

Needlefish lures.

......This months lure and some tips to accompany it.  These renowned plugs..made by various companies..are great in rough surf  and wind.  It is ideal if sand eels are on the menu for the linesiders that day.  This should be darted back and forth and can even swim if that slower mode seems to work.  This plug is usually the Big Boy in you bag...the weights can get high for those of you that get surfcasting muscles by just heaving the thing as far as it will go.  You all know who you Ron Arra Wanna bees are!!!!.  Get this edition to you plug bag...they catch fish and will get you ooooos and ahhhs when people watch you cast it.  Please practice catch and release......Striper Mike

Surfcasting is Fun!!!!!!!!

 .

................

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Time takes its time...........slowly strolling the pebbled beach, hesitating briefly on the waves crest.

Times takes its time........settling in the dunes, briefly lighting the sea grass.

Time takes its time......for the sake of goodness.

Time takes its time...........Thank God.

......Oct 2002....journal entry by Susan.