Thanks to Greg, I spent a glorious three and a bit days of fishing for
stripers at Cape Cod. It is one gorgeous place to be (unfortunately,
way too many people think the same thing) but still, it's a
wonderfully peaceful place to be. Also got to meet Greg's mom, a
wonderful lady who appears more capable and determined than many women
half her age. John, Greg's fishing buddy' also showed up so we had a
nice mini-clave going.

The first evening we went to Pleasant Bay where we made the
acquaintance of some schoolies. We both had our new CND Atlantis 11'
- 11 wt. rods to try and they are a joy, though a challenge to cast
well. Even at our modest skill level, we can bang out 110' overhead
casts. At this point, I'll have to say that the days blurred together
so I can't remember what happen on what day, so here are some
highlights in no particular order.

We were fishing Nausett beach at night, casting into the surf,
directly out into the Atlantic in all her glory. Greg hooked and
landed a very nice striper (28" IIRC) and my only regret is that, not
realizing that it was such a nice fish, I didn't run over and take a
picture.

John was tossing a big Rapala most of the time and he managed a number
of nice fish. Though he couldn't cast any farther than us,
unencumbered by a stripping basket and not vertically challenged like
me, he could wade out farther and deeper, putting his lure closer to
the fish that always seemed to be just out of range. That ability got
him some nice ones.

On Thursday, we went to Morris Island South Beach to try our luck.
Unfortunately, we had a north wind which is apparently the striper
fisherman's kiss of death -- it was tough fishing. We waded across
this large bay where the average depth was probably around 3' at high
tide. We all waded as close as possible to deeper water to try our
luck. It was a cast and move sort of deal but me being the slowest, I
trailed the rear by an ever widening distance. Greg and John are
almost across but I'm just about half way -- probably 150 yards
between us, when I hook a fish. No big deal, feels like a schoolie.
Then Ms. Monster Striper decided she had had enough of this nonsense
and proceeded to peel off the fly line and about two thirds of the
backing (I had about 250 yards on the reel). Me old ticker is going
pumpitty-pump-pump-pump, the reel handle is going
knocketty-knock-knock on my knuckles and the fish isn't stopping.
Worse, it's heading straight for John and Greg. I yell, they hear me
but can't figure out what I'm yelling about. I think the fish sees
them for it veers further into the bay. Bad news. At some point it's
gonna run out of water and turn to the open water -- in the process,
wrapping my line around Greg and John. I applied the brakes hard.

The fish stops, there's a moment of massive head thrashing that is
tangible even over the length of line and backing that's stretched
across the bay. Then nothing. I reel in forlornly not knowing where
the failure occurred. I might have lost the fly line. After what
seems to be endless reeling in, the fly line backing loop appears,
letting me know that the backing and the backing loop, nor the loop on
the line failed. Next, the leader appears, then the fly. Nothing
broke, but the Mustad 34007 2/0 SS hook bent open, allowing the fish
to pop off. Since I was tying so many flies for this trip, I opted
for the cheap 34007. Now I wonder if my choice cost me a fish of a
lifetime.

I'll let Greg fill in the rest here for as I said before -- it's a bit
of a blur . . . .



Peter

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