June 4th 2013: Windy weekend on the Cape!

Got to the Cape on Friday PM. Picked up my hobie drive and rudder after getting repaired at Sturgis Boat Works. Much cheaper to rebuild the drive than buying a whole new drive. Very nice crew there and now I'm back in business.

5/31 PM: Windy as hell, SW 20+ - so I leave the newly fixed kayaks at home and take some casts at the beach. I took the skunk but saw a couple blues caught. Did I mention it was windy? Maybe another day of SW wind will blow in more fish...

6/1 AM: Still windy - kayaks stayed in dry dock. From the looks of things, I missed the bite by about 20 minutes getting there after sunrise. Total slacker.

6/1 PM: Still windy - so back to the beach. Tons of people fishing now - most who can cast against the wind are catching blues. I pick a spot away from everyone else and start hucking loaded pencils + poppers. I'm hooking blues on every other cast but the bastards are using my loaded lures to throw the hooks. That wasn't part of my plan. I took off the belly hook so it's even easier for them to throw the hook. Takes me about 6 fish lost to figure out what is happening. Wind is honking. Not a full-out gale with the street signs shaking, but enough to make the flags go straight out. I'm fishing with a 9' Tica rod + Pflueger Arbor reel with 30 lb Samurai braid and putting everything I have into each cast. That Pflueger reel does OK, but if I bump the reel at all the spool shuts and off goes my lure. The newer Shimano's are much better. Or if I slip a little, that Samarui braid cuts me on the cast - it casts great, tho. I'm used to fishing in kayak or surf fishing with the wind at my back. This surf fishing into the wind is a pain in ass - except the fish are here and it's too windy to do anything else.

And then this guy comes along with about 10 lbs of gear strapped to his wading belt, an oversized Shimano surf reel that you can only get from Japan, a G-Loomis surf rod. [<--I made up at least half of that but I don't think I'm too far off]. Yup, that's my friend Roy. We say hello. He finds a spot. Makes a few casts and drags in a 20 lb striper. He's been there maybe 5 minutes. Meanwhile, everyone else is catching blues or nothing. I think a few people hurt their necks twisting them around as he dragged that fish past them. I saw a few of them do a full pirouette with their necks leading them around. Then he does it again. Unbelievable! Meanwhile, I'm losing lures, bluefish, and blood from the braid cutting my fingers. Somehow I got enough for the smoker, so I was happy.

6/2 AM: On Sunday AM, I'd almost had enough of fishing into that damn wind and it was blowing even harder now. I got myself there early and had good fishing there for about 30 minutes until the bite slowed. Got some more blues for the smoker with the belly hook back on the plugs. One more cast off and I was done fishing for the day and focused on smoking fish and prepping for the grill.

Didn't take many pics....but here's some blues going on the smoker...