Montauk 2013

This is a replica of Great White shark Frank Mundus caught in the 1980's. It weighed over 3,000 pounds. Mundus was supposedly the inspiration for Captain Quint in "Jaws"

         I just got back from Montauk, New York. Fishing was a bit slow but we still had a great time. Montauk is full of surprises and cool little tidbits like the picture above.

For more pics, click the "read more" button.

       

        I'd been preparing for this trip for several weeks. I had flies to tie, rods to rig, and bags to pack. Last year everything I tied was a bit big so I concentrated on smaller flies. Of course, this year the local bait was of the larger variety. Didn't get to use too many of my flies.

       Last year we got very lucky and hit Montauk at its best. This fishery is based on the migration of bait fish, Striped bass, and False Albacore. At its best, this migration may be one of the largest in the world rivaled only by the Serengeti migrations. This year the fish were there but were spread out and action was quite sporadic. We still managed to land a few but overall, the fishing was not conducive to fly fishing.

      We fished pretty hard. I landed three smaller bass on the first night on bait fish and squid flies. One of the guys in our group managed to land a really nice Bluefish on the first night.

       Bluefish are equal opponents and some of the hardest fighting fish I have caught so far. If you get lucky and hook them in the corner of the mouth you may even land them. Without wire tippet thought we lost quite a few.

     I saw this cool ride scanning the horizon and surf for working birds or fish.

          One of my favorite spots to fish is a nice quiet little inlet where we often night fish. The stars were pretty amazing and when you get tired of casting you can lay down on the beach and take a nap with no worries.

          I attempted to do some surf fishing but was there wasn't much around at the time. I am still a beginner when it comes to tides so my planning may have been a bit off.

Fishing this stuff demands the right gear...Here are a few of the tools of the trade.

Korkers give us traction on slimy, wet rocks....

A stripping basket keeps you from stepping on your fly line with those korkers and makes casting much easier.

         Saltwater fishing and surf fishing, in particular, are hard on equipment. Some of it is just nice to have while items like korkers may save you from serious injury. I build my own stripping baskets but they are also commercially available. I brought two setups for this trip. I fished a Hardy Proaxis 10 weight and a Sage Xi3 11 weight. I used Hardy Fortuna X2 reels on both and loaded both with Rio fly lines.

       We fished with Paul Dixon while there. He has been guiding up around Montauk for many years and is a pretty cool guy to be around. We caught a handful of stripers and blues with him but conditions were tough and we spent a lot of time casting and retrieving with only a few takes. The fish we caught were good size fish.

Here are a few remaining pics from the trip. Enjoy.

-Luke