Of all the elements important to fishing, there is one that anglers kill themselves to detect or work extra hard to protect.
This article was sent a few years back by the late and legendary Frank Daignault, for reasons unknown, it was not published. This story was written ‘pre slot limit’ so there are some references that reach back to a time when keeping a big striped bass was legal, but we felt it was better to present, what may be Frank’s final published work, in its original form. We hope you enjoy.
A guy walks into a bait and tackle shop with a big fish which he wants to have weighed. There is small talk speculating about the weight which folks can see is a decent size; some curiosity springs from what the fisherman was using to catch it. In addition, while everyone was thinking it, no one dares to ask, because they assume the answer will be a lie: Where was it caught? The rest of the issues regarding such a marvelous catch have little meaning. Knowing where the fishing is good means more than all the other issues put together. We’ve all seen it.
For that, masses will follow a successful angler, actually make a study of that guy’s lifestyle, note his license plate, even sneak around the gin mill where he drinks hoping for a hint of where he fishes or for a chance to follow him. Sometimes, but I wouldn’t count on it, if you buy him enough drinks he might say something about his pet spot. As they say, “Loose lips sink ships.” Of course knowing who to follow is part of the enigma of locating good fishing. Nevertheless, the guy wanting to weigh a monster fish, in this case an inordinately large striper, has solved that part of the problem.
They Will Kill You
Students of the striper surf, and no doubt many other species-specific endeavors, care more about where they should be fishing than what to use or when to use it. The binding in the cheese is the real estate mantra – location, location. Did I mention real estate? A couple of years ago at my website, we had a member who sold real estate on Cape Cod and stood to make a ton of money from the popularity of Cape fishing. Maybe he was forgetting that when he put up a complaint about my “spot burning” the Cape. Here is a quote that caused my administrators to ban him from the site before I had the chance to get even:
“There does exist, as Frank has pointed out in the past, a prevailing dislike of him on the Outer Cape. In many cases it truly borders on hatred. For a long time, I too felt a strong dislike and resentment toward Frank for his writings that essentially ‘burned’ the area for those who were regularly fishing here. I have, however, put aside the negative stories about Frank and his family that have been circulated here, because… well, because it’s second hand information.”
On his Long Island club website he is pictured with page after page of himself with monster Cape Cod stripers. So, he castigated me for doing something he has been displaying for years. Striper hotspots and the resultant spot burning is okay for you but a source of contempt when somebody else does it. That is firsthand information. The beat goes on.
In the writing of eight largely true striper specific books, I learned the hard way what matters to surfmen who specialize in stripers. Some of the books were poetic marvels and some, like Fly Fishing the Striper Surf, were less so. Nonetheless, the most popular, reprinted ten times, and resold to another publisher a second time, was Striper Hot Spots. Fishermen care less about what to use or when to use it. They will kill you to find out where they should be fishing and if they already know where to go they will kill you if you tell anybody. Those things are secrets. Big secrets. Pay attention because this gets better.
People don’t always buy a book. They often take them out of the library. Two things degrade my well executed prose: When anglers see a spot that interests them their first thought is they don’t want anyone else going there; or, if they are already fishing there and it is a favorite, it needs protection. Waiting for the librarian to powder her nose, they tear the page out of the book! I’m not flattered but I guess I should be. I have a ton more of examples but I am just doing the good ones.
It has to be worse now what with cell phones but in the old days, the year I taught Natalie Wood to swim, there was a lot of CB use in beach buggies. If a fishing club, and there were hundreds during the Schaefer Contest, had need for communication they called each other up on the CB radio. Collections of buddies could tell the whole club when and where they saw you: “He just went on at High Head and went south.” Hello America! Now the word is out on the location of the target to follow. Because he dropped a load of fish at the dock yesterday, he has to be going back again tonight. Right? Find and follow this guy and you know where to fish. Where is what the fishing world wants to know. I lived it and you have to know you can’t make this stuff up.
Spot Burning
Joe Lyons, who for years ran the Surfcasting Rhode Island guide service, used to take anglers to shore locations on the state’s South Shore. He once told me that a continual frustration he endured was that they would hire him once, just long enough to learn more about where, and be back without him the next night. After a while his spots were so crowded with former customers who no longer needed him that there was no room to park to say nothing of room to fish.
I have no firsthand experience with charter boat fishing because l puke too easily out there, but it would seem to me that charter skippers would guard their best wrecks and rock piles by covering GPS coordinates with a magazine or notebook to keep patrons from knowing too specifically about their location. If someone has the GPS coordinates they can come back in their brother-in-law’s boat and lower the existing fish population. Just a thought that springs from Joe Lyons’ charter business. Back to the beach.
Something that I never heard of until coming to the Internet is the notion of “spot burning”. I see it as a red herring for people who are looking for something to bitch about. Aren’t the best fishing spots already known? Still, if an angler becomes unpopular for any reason, his critics label him a spot burner. Years ago on Nauset Beach my wife and I were taking fish at a hole when two guys came up on us and began fishing right under our armpits. Since my wife wasn’t up for a fight (and neither was I, let alone with two grown men), I had two options: either move or put up with the crowding. In the course of the tide, my wife and I caught four bass to their one and by the time the tide slacked, or we had either caught or stuck every lineside in the hole, we had a pile of stripers compared to their dismal performance.
One of them, the guy who was doing the guiding for the other, asked me if I was the famous striper writer and how much I was paid to write about the Cape. “Next time you want to write something,” he said, “let me buy it. It would be worth it to keep people off the beach.” Two years later he caught a true monster and bragged about it in every publication he could find saying he had caught it on Nauset Beach. So much for keeping secrets!
On the Cape I remember guys who made up BS stories on fishing hoping to get you to open up on something. Create a conversation exchange. They were looking for oats in exchange for what had already been through the horse. Still, if you really want to know where to fish, ask the clerk at a B&T. The apples have already been picked from the spot trees and it happened a long time ago. Cape Cod Canal, Montauk, Kennebec River. I have an uncle who has been dead fifty years who fished those spots and it was crowded when he got there!
Who To Follow
Success is often related to the person who catches the most fish. In other words if you know who is catching what and he is doing well, find him and you have found the fish. For that reason, wise surfcasters who know the ropes, keep their mouths shut and avoid having someone know how they’re doing like it’s a social disease. Old guard snoops know who to look for and their victims know they are being hunted. There is an old Italian saying “staizitto” which means keep your mouth shut.
A favorite example that juices up this discussion relates to deer hunting. Give me that because I like to hunt. A well-known gun writer, Bryce Towsley, did a popular book about the Benoit family and their exploits in the Maine woods. An unintended consequence of the book is that hundreds of deer hunters from as far away as Chicago were not in Maine looking for the deer; they were looking for the Benoits. Hope this is as fun to read as it is to write!
Earlier I said spots protection is a social red herring. When you are accused of spot burning there is usually another problem. Still, it is cool to resort to a more offensive description like “spot burner” which is right up there with felony arrest. Make no mind that these spots were first discovered by Columbus himself. Thag wrote about Nauset Beach on his cave walls. Next time you go fishing at your favorite spot, some secret location which you’re certain no one knows about, try to remember that locations are the farmer’s daughter of surfcasting.
If you’re lucky, you’ll find a place to park.
