This story, “Day of the Monster,” appeared within the August 1960 situation of Outside Life.
In response to all of the experts, Cape Cod striped-bass fishing is meant to succeed in its seasonal peak over the past a part of September and the primary half of October. Statistically talking, in case you common the fats and the lean years, that is true: late fall is a potent interval.
Then again, these ornery, unpredictable critters with stripes could determine emigrate in mid-September or to gap up someplace within the northern bays, to journey south after the beach-buggy skippers have racked their rods and known as it a season. Or they could additionally select to spend Indian summer season days on the offshore bars, lazily ignoring small boats, plugs, baits, and the exasperation of anglers who can see them, however can’t attain them.
For a few years now, I’ve fished for stripers by my very own floor guidelines. These are: to pay due homage to the statistics which show one season of the yr probably higher than one other, however to maintain a suspicious eye on the altering of tides, the motion of bait, the vagaries of climate, and the unpredictable nature of stripers.
To catch striped bass constantly, and even often, a person have to be one thing of an opportunist. He should take nothing with no consideration, and he ought to be prepared to maneuver quick when the birds, the beach-buggy grapevine, or perhaps a nagging hunch whisper that stripers could oblige.
Ralph Grey of Southville, Massachusetts, will agree, for in the course of the 1958 season he and I noticed an uncommon demonstration of the pernickety nature of stripers — their moody disregard for plugs and lures on one tide and their sudden, explosive need to strike at something on one other.
Ralph’s a beach-buggy “common,” which signifies that he fishes the excessive surf throughout every weekend of the lengthy season, and at every other time when he can manufacture an excuse to slide away from his enterprise of drilling artesian wells.
Like so many Cape Cod fanatics, he drives a car rigged for fishing — a four-wheel-drive truck fitted with oversize tires and a coach physique loaded with bunks, galley, and duffel compartments. He carries an aluminum boat on a rack over the cab.
I’m editor of The Salt Water Sportsman and an outside author for the Worcester Night Gazette in Worcester, Mass. On the late-September day when this journey began, after I’d arrived at Provincecity on the finish of the Cape, I hadn’t deliberate on fishing with Ralph Grey. I used to be going it alone. As I neared the seaside, there was no wind and the solar was sensible. It felt like July as an alternative of September, however I knew it was time for the large stripers to be gorging on butterfish and menhaden — it was the now-or-never season.
On the way in which to the seaside, I ended at Natalie and Joe Roderick’s service station for the newest information. Natalie and Joe aren’t striper addicts, however their retailer is the unofficial leaping off spot for seaside buggies going out over the dunes. Natalie was tending the place, and he or she knew precisely what I meant after I requested, “The place are they?”
“Wind was southwest final night time, in order that they’ll be at Peaked Hill,” she advised me. “Charley noticed a variety of bass on the bars final night time, and Ralph had one on. Didn’t catch any, although.”
I loaded the panel truck with groceries, drove all the way down to Race Level Coast Guard Station and let air out of my tires. Provincetown seashores are comfortable, and it’s usually essential to deflate to 10 kilos throughout. The seaside was unusually quiet. The summer folks have been gone, and the rolling beige and inexperienced dunes stretched away for miles. It was as lonely because the day the Pilgrims got here to Race Level.
I drove over the well-packed monitor and hit the outer seaside simply west of The Cottages. The surf was light. No gulls have been flying, no bait flipped within the wash. Perhaps tonight, I assumed, shifting to second velocity because the monitor straightened.
5 minutes later I noticed the primary group of buggies, possibly half a dozen huddled collectively on the excessive dunes. From a distance they at all times seem like autos from a far planet.
Charley Whitney was there along with his massive walk-in. Joe Enis, Ralph Grey, George Geddry, and Arnold Laine have been loafing within the daylight, listening to a baseball recreation roaring out of an enormous, short-wave radio. These radios are additionally used to listen in on native constitution skippers.
Right here was a tough core of “regulars,” males who appear to spend extra time on the seaside than they do at house. Whitney is the retired president of a trucking firm in Worcester, Mass. Joe Enis runs a scrap steel enterprise in Taunton, Mass., and Geddry is a gross sales government in Washington, D. C. Arnold Laine is a residing legend on the outer Cape; he makes a precarious residing at commercial rod-and-line striper fishing, and a few say that he catches extra bass than every other surfman on the planet.
We have been all enjoying the averages, understanding that late September and early October simply may produce a number of the quickest striped bass fishing of the season. Big linesiders get stressed at the moment of yr. They sense the approaching migration and have a tendency to feed ravenously.
Charley and Ralph had been there for every week, they usually have been starting to marvel. There weren’t any bass, to not catch, anyway. “However you must see ’em on these bars,” Charley growled. “They’re packed shoulder to shoulder, like sardines; and a few of ’em are actually large.”
“Will they hit eels at night time?” I requested, happy with the truth that I had a dozen contemporary ones on ice.
“An excessive amount of hearth within the water,” Ralph stated. “That phosphorescence makes an eel seem like a red-hot poker. They only aren’t hitting.”
We fished in useless for every week. We fished morning and night tides with plugs, rigged eels, and block tin squids. We experimented with sea worms on backside and caught a multitude of skates. Each time a slick unfold its telltale sign on the offshore swells we launched small boats and went out to analyze. Bass have been there, however they weren’t feeding.
“They’ll eat finally,” Ralph stated, “and after they do, we’ll be right here.”
However they didn’t eat, or in the event that they did, it was surreptitiously in the course of the few hours we slept. Ralph may be capable of wait them out, however I needed to get again to my job. Two extra days, I made a decision.
On the final night time of September I launched my 12-foot aluminum boat and labored my method rigorously out by way of the offshore bars to some extent reverse Pilgrim Springs, down the coast at North Truro. It was quiet and unusually vivid on the market. A mild swell pulsed in from the Atlantic. The shoreside dunes have been etched in opposition to the sky. I’d been casting rigged eels for some time, when one other boat loomed out of the gloom. It was Ralph, additionally prospecting the offshore bars. We sat there, every with a hand on the opposite’s gunwale to carry our boats collectively, and loved an outdated New England gam.
“We must sleep at night time,” Ralph stated. “Final week these fish rushed bait in the course of the afternoon. I acquired my 51-pounder on a popping plug.”
Somewhat wind puffed out of the southwest. An outboard went droning up the coast. “Pay attention,” Ralph whispered.
“Only a boat,” I muttered. “Man’s quitting for the night time.”
“Not that,” he stated — after which I heard it.
From the southeast, not too far out, we heard an intermittent rustling and popping. A faculty of bass was driving bait our method. Quickly we may see an extended patch of black, troubled water shot with little explosions of white spray. We additionally noticed bait taking pictures across the boats, every tiny fish glowing like a inexperienced ghost and trailing a comet’s tail of phosphorescence.
The stripers got here racing in like a wolf pack, wallowing on the floor, slapping their tales and taking pictures off like rockets. It was a superb show, however we weren’t in any respect spellbound by it.
When the feeding bass ignored a rigged eel, I switched to a plug, then to a bucktail. Ralph was dropping his casts exactly, proper within the convulsive boils attributable to the linesiders. They wouldn’t hit; lastly it was over.
By that point the wind had freshened and a skein of clouds had misted the celebs. “Let’s go to mattress,” Ralph grumbled, and I agreed. We yanked starter cords and planed again to our seaside-buggy village. A full week of fishing with no strike! Who stated stripers chew greatest in September?
The wind blew up a storm that night time. I may really feel my buggy rocking within the blast. There was rain, too, with some jagged lightning over the Atlantic, and at daybreak a blood-colored solar glowered by way of low scud.
Arnold’s seaside buggy had developed motor bother, and within the morning he needed to go to Provincetown for repairs. We went in with him. We topped off the gasoline tanks at Natalie’s, laid in professionalvisions, and purchased newspapers. The wind was nonetheless freshening, blowing half a gale from the southwest, and gusts of chilly rain pattered in opposition to the winddefend. We have been bone-weary and disillusioned. The stripers wouldn’t co-operate, and the climate was turning as awful as it could possibly get in New England within the fall. Stop and go house?
“Let’s strive Pilgrim Springs,” someone recommended. “We’ll be capable of solid a mile on this wind.”
“I’ll comply with you out, later,” Arnold stated. “Can’t inform, this climate may stir ’em up.”
We entertained no hope. This was October 1, and every of us noticed the awful ending of one other season. October is a month of balmy, blue days — and line storms that half your hair all the way down to the cranium. If Cape Cod’s temperature soars to 80° on Monday, you could be fairly certain it’ll plummet to 50° on Tuesday. With wind. And rain.
Ralph led the parade, and I adopted. George Geddry was trailering an enormous lapstrake boat behind his jeep, however the remainder of us had small aluminum skiffs on our racks. You’re feeling these boats in a excessive wind, and you retain questioning whether or not the tie-downs are safe.
There are two methods to succeed in Pilgrim Springs. You possibly can drive the outer seaside from Race Level Coast Guard Station, reducing up over a excessive dune at Peaked Hill, or you’ll be able to are available from the land facet, grinding by way of a soft-as-sugar monitor bordered by wild roses and bayberries. We took the latter route, so we couldn’t see the water till the monitor wormed its method up and over a few sculptured sand hills.
An offended sea was rolling in off the bars. White water spurted as combers slammed into the seaside. Past the surf, a whole lot of sea birds have been circling and diving, and beneath them have been swirls of froth and flashes of silver as baitfish skittered into the air. There was little doubt about it: Acres of massive stripers have been engaged in a feeding spree. This was the lengthy awaited blitz.
Ralph plowed his buggy down off the excessive dunes, all 4 wheels clutching for a toehold. I adopted him, and noticed that the opposite buggies have been hurtling off the peak behind us. A number of slowed down within the comfortable sand, however nobody considered shovels or planks. The boats have been coming off the racks before the mud had settled.
I used to be frantically attempting to yank the tie-downs off my skiff when Ralph yelled over his shoulder. “It’s so tough, why don’t we exit collectively this time? That surf is not any picnic!”
I dropped every part and we man dealt with his 14-footer off the rack. Geddry was backing his lapstrake into the suds by the point we had our motor clamped on the transom, and rods aboard. We then loaded an anchor, buoyant seat cushions, a few tin squids, half a dozen plugs apiece, and a model new gaff that hadn’t been christened.
“Take her out,” Ralph howled in opposition to the scream of the wind, and I grabbed the oars. He gauged the incoming swells, picked the suitable second, and shoved off. It was an excellent launching. The motor began on the primary pull, and Ralph throttled down as we climbed, nearly vertically, up the face of an enormous swell. “Take a look at these fish,” he was yelling. “Man, that is it. It’s now or by no means!”
The motion was nearer shore than we’d thought. Stripers have been sagging in over the bar, then racing out to sea once more, battering the milling bait.
College tuna weighing between 75 and 100 kilos have been there too, however we wished no a part of them.
Ralph had slapped his rod in a holder as quickly as we have been away from the surf, and now he flipped the free-spool lever and let the road stream again, checked solely by the press. His lure was a subsurface swimming plug, and he had two dowels of lead pinched on the chief 4 ft forward of the lure.
We weren’t 50 yards off the seaside when Ralph’s reel shrilled in protest. He grabbed his surf rod, slapped the winch into gear and whooped as the primary striper of the day started stirring up the floor. It was an enormous one.
The wind was whistling and our boat went scudding alongside. Ralph was consuming a shredded cigarette because the berserk monster saved stripping line off the spool. He lastly turned the fish and introduced it again, pumping steadily. His medium-weight surf rod was bent nearly double, and I bear in mind considering that the ability of the striper and the power of the wind may mix to supply a sticky scenario. I waited, gaff in hand.
However this was simply one other bass to Ralph. He’s caught some massive ones, and misplaced a couple of that will have raised eyebrows. “Fairly quickly, now,” he muttered between clenched enamel. I noticed the chief after which the large, brassy facet of the fish.
We acquired him on the primary cross. The gaff bit deep, however I discovered it tough to haul the fish over the gunwale. Each palms turned the trick, nevertheless, and we paused to admire the primary one of many day. We’d have been much less matter of reality about it had we recognized that this was the second largest striper ever taken on rod and line, and the most important whipped by a sport fisherman since 1913! In the intervening time, nevertheless, it was nonetheless “simply one other fish.” We hadn’t clocked combating time: possibly 10 minutes, possibly 20. It was early afternoon, between 1 and a pair of o’clock.
“Must go 50 kilos,” Ralph stated. The lunker wasn’t very lengthy as massive bass go, however he was abnormally deep-bodied. The tape measure, later, stated 50 inches. We’d figured that, however the girth stunned us — 34 inches. It was the scales, an hour later, that actually popped our eyes: 68 ½ kilos.
I hung the following bass, a cartwheeling battler that wolfed a subsurface plug so totally that we needed to minimize the chief and fix one other lure. “No less than 30 kilos,” I grinned, including one other understatement. The bass weighed in at higher than 46.
We boated three extra massive fish earlier than the wind hauled into the northwest, and the climate actually misplaced its head with a collection of violent rain squalls. A confused chop was constructing: white water exploded to port and starboard. One ragged, spitting wave got here proper over the bow. The birds have been nonetheless round us, screaming within the wind — however we headed house.
Seaside-buggy boats on Cape Cod journey the combers ashore. Miss a wave and also you get swamped, however hit it proper, at full throttle, and also you’re in. Ralph circled on the primary run. The breakers have been build up and working nearer collectively. We got here round, following an enormous swell. Ralph poured the smoke to her, and we have been dedicated. I held on to the gunwales anxiously. Ralph had hit the wave excellent, and we rode it ashore, proper on the crest. When the comber blew up beneath us, we got here down as simply as if we’d had a parachute to ease the drop. Half a dozen surfmen ran to assist us tote the craft above imply excessive water.
All palms have been soaked to the pores and skin, chattering with chilly, however utterly blissful. Everybody appeared to have struck it wealthy. Joe Enis produced the scales, and that was the climax. Nobody within the annals of latter-day surf fishing had taken a bass as massive as Grey’s. In all of angling historical past, just one rod-and-line striper had topped this catch — the 73-pounder boated by Charles B. Church in 1913.
It was a fantastic day. The lengthy awaited fall blitz gave the impression to be below method, and no man amongst us was prepared to stop and go house. All of us knew, with that peculiar, fanatic determination widespread to surfmen, that tomorrow would carry greater bass.
However you realize one thing? That was the final vital flurry of the 1958 striper season on Cape Cod. Like I say, it’s important to be an opportunist.
