Hopefully, I’m not the only one whose garage becomes a disaster by the end of the summer. If I’m being honest, my wife won’t even go in there! As the season progresses, the tactics change and I have a tendency to put things aside to be ‘put away later’ while I hurriedly prepare for what I believe to be the next phase of the season. By August there’s a mountain of tackle on my workbench, multiple plug bags on the floor, Plano boxes stacked all over and rods leaned up wherever there’s room.
Some might say I should be embarrassed by this, but I kind of look at it as a physical representation of the progress of the season. When it goes from early-season largemouth bass, to trout, to plugging stripers, to bottom fishing, to summer carp, to deep-drop yak fishing for stripers, to frogging largemouth and on and on from there… it means I’m fishing hard and following the cues given to me by nature and my own personal history, and I love that.
But at some point, the trail of tactics I’ve left in my frantic wake will need to be reset and that’s when this tendency can become frustrating. As we’re living out summer’s final weeks and watching as the runway comes into view for the fall run, there has to be a moment to pause. I picture the fall run as something like a giant water tower… stay with me here… and at a predetermined moment, someone will pull the plug out of the bottom of that massive vat. From that moment, the water will continue to run out and with every gallon that splashes to the ground, an opportunity will pass. If you’re not ready when the albies show up – for example – you’ll waste that pivotal moment when you get “the call” because you’ll have to find your albie stick, make sure the reel is full, tie a few leaders, find your albie boxes, find your Albie Snax, find your 4/0 swimbait hooks. And that’s a moment of frustration and urgency that you could easily avoid by preparing before you hear that first report.
For those of us who fish the inshore waters between Nantucket Sound and Nappatree Point, you may be itching for that first report of mullet showing in the surf. These little tightly-schooled baits can fuel incredible blitzes of stripers of all sizes, big bluefish and sometimes some impressive albies, too. But once again, when that call comes in, you don’t want to be caught unprepared, because there’s no guarantee that those baitfish and bass will be there the next morning when you finally have all you stuff sorted out.
So get your Super Strike Poppers and Guppy Pencils together now! Get your Yo-Zuri Hydro Minnows and Hydro Pencils packed into a mullet box, now too! Make a soft plastic box with NLBN Paddles and K-Tails, Albie Snax XL’s, Fin-S Fish, Slug-Go’s and whatever other soft plastics you like, now. And make double-sure that you have the hooks and jigheads you need, now.
The same could be said for togging. At some point in September, the tog bite is going to go full-red and if you’re looking for your jigs that have been sitting in the same box since last year, you might find a sad situation when you finally unearth it. You may realize that you used all the 3/4-ounce and 1-1/2-ounce jigs you had last year and never replaced them, good luck finding them when the tog reports have already caught fire! Or you might find a rusty pile of hooks so far gone that you feel compelled to check your vaccine status before snapping the latches open. This is a situation that can be avoided, with just a little forethought and preparation.
My point is, now is the time to prepare for the fall run and all the species that make it a magical time of year for saltwater anglers in the Northeast. The timing is right because you’re not too late. But it’s also the right time because you can stroll into your local tackle shop and find all of the things you need to replace or replenish before things go wild.
You can thank me later.
