In the winter of 2005 I scouted a location that I just knew would produce some big striped bass. In June of that year, my friend Dave Parrillo and I set out to try it on June 13, my 25th birthday. On the very first cast I made from that rocky platform, I landed a 45-inch striper and the fast action went on, nearly non-stop, for the better part of three hours. The following night, the results were the same, and by the end of that incredible 2-night run, we had somewhere in the realm of 20 to 30 fish each, all of them between 25 and 40 pounds. It was my first big fish blitz and with that experience, I was finally able to understand the magnitude of some of the famous blitzes I’d obsessively read about in books by Frank Daignault and Tim Coleman and articles by Tony Stetzko, Dennis Zambrotta and so many others.
In the 20 years since, I have always fished on the night of my birthday, and while I have enjoyed some solid nights, I’ve never come close to that amazing night on my 25th birthday. As the calendar in my kitchen has continued to change, from Monet to botanical prints to that one year when my mother-in-law got us that cat calendar, I have systematically lowered my expectations, from hoping for a birthday blitz, to just catching a single big birthday bass.
In 2021 I wrote an Editor’s Log called “Birthday Bash” about hoping to land a 41-pounder on my 41st birthday, but all I got was punished by a massive set of waves. This year, 20 years to the day after the big blitz that began this quest, I set out for another attempt, this time from the seat of my kayak.
I met my friend Mario at the launch and we readied all of our gear, before pushing off into the black water. It was June 12th, but midnight would pass soon and it would be my birthday. The fishing was decent from the outset, but the bites were scattered. As the tide came up to speed and the midnight hour passed, the bite became more predictable and I hooked into a good one, after a spirited battle I wrangled the low 30-pound striper alongside my kayak and felt like I had achieved something… a solid fish on my birthday.
An hour later, the bite had cooled off to some degree and Mario and I had split up. I saw him crisscrossing the area at a higher rate of speed and figured he must be on a good one. Then he called me on the radio, “I think I’m on a really good fish!” I pedaled over in time to see him grab it and heard him exclaim, “This thing is enormous!” The fish was easily over 40 pounds and over 48 inches long. I was happy for him, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little jilted by the fish gods, I mean, it was my birthday!
The following night I went right back there with Mario, it was still my birthday for a few hours, maybe I could pull it off! Casting a wooden swimmer I made, one that swims very deep, I finally connected with a fish that felt like the one I was looking for. Three heavy runs, a straight-up-and-down stalemate and then she surfaced, I watched her roll in the ambient light and I knew it was a big fish. Mario pedaled over and helped me shoot a few photos, weighing a big striper is hard on a kayak, so I don’t have an official weight, but I’m confident that she was right around the 40-pound mark if not a pound or two past it. Twenty years later I had done it, I finally landed another (estimated) 40-pounder on my birthday!
When I downloaded the pics, I checked the timestamp and it was 12:26 a.m. June 14th, but I’m counting it!
