“Fly snob,” isn’t a fully inaccurate description of me. I proffer the value of a multi-tackle approach and will readily say, “Use whatever method brings you enjoyment and allows you to learn more about fish.” Internally though, if I see a big striped bass grip and grin with an eel, or bucktail, or whatever else in its mouth, my mind does jump to how much cooler it would be if that fish were caught on the fly.
Why? I don’t know…
To some degree we all want to feel better about ourselves, we all have egos. And I do, in virtually all scenarios possible – even when I’m targeting tuna or cod or catfish – have a fly rod in my hand. Basically any time the water isn’t frozen, I want to have a fly rod in my hand. When it is frozen, you can bet I still want to but simply can’t. That’s the way I like to do it. That gets me more excited, and I think it’s “better.” …Whatever that means.
But there’s a dirty secret hidden just under the surface. Rowan Lytle, “CT Fly Angler”, is a filthy chunker. A few times a month, I’d much rather sit on the river bank or beach – all night – while a greasy hunk o’ bunker, bluegill or shad does its thing at the end of a heavy leader. While that meat marinates, tied to 50-pound braid leading to a heavy surf rod, stuffed in a rod holder, I don’t even respect the soak. Sitting in a chair or on a cooler… That’s how filthy I really am. Enough standing and walking happens during fly fishing, can you blame a guy for needing a break?
There’s more to it than that. There’s the waiting in the dark, trying to picture what the bait and rig is doing out there, and what fish of what species could be around it. Sometimes the waiting is the biggest part of chunking. It just builds anticipation, which comes to a head when the rod tip moves… or the bait runner starts clicking. When that happens, there’s the adrenaline. Maybe the run is slow, or the fish picks up and drops the bait more than once. I stand at attention, heart rate ticking up. Or, the rod just buckles. That’s what the rod did one night in July some years back when my friend Garth and I were pursuing a run of giant bluefish.
For a couple nights there’d been some bait and rig frustrations. Bunker were scarce, we even resorted to bluegill chunks at one point. They worked. But our luck changed when a few menhaden entangled in the braid of a lighter rod we’d set out for northern kingfish or other smaller fare. Our bluegills were swapped for the freshest bunker we could ask for, and to rub in how much better that was than the freshwater baits, the big rod buckled over, just minutes after sending it out.
The funny thing is I couldn’t tell you which of us grabbed the rod. It frankly doesn’t matter. Headlamps on, Garth and I were both fully cognizant of what was going on. We corked down the drag, let the circle hook bury and the fish just continued to run, hard and fast and nearly straight away. For a moment, we wondered if this could be a shark. But it then began to do “very bluefish” things, head shaking and giving in just a little for a moment. It jumped. That’s the memory that’s still vivid. The waters were extremely calm that night and the jump was not only telegraphed through the rod and line but was audible. Pretty far out there, and cliché as can be, it sounded like a small child jumping into the sound. The fish jumped twice; not visible but plainly obvious out there.
Yes, sharks can jump and perform surface chaos too, I’ve experienced that and it wasn’t the same. That was a bluefish, a goliath bluefish. Of course, right then our rig failure luck returned. The fact that it wasn’t the first failure perhaps shifted the frustration, as in the moment I recall being more upset that it happened again than I was that it happened at that moment.
The next night was our redemption. Garth and I beached some true gators, fishing right into dawn to get the best of the bite that we could. They were big bluefish, especially in a time and place where encountering such specimens was a challenge in itself. It wasn’t terribly easy to load up on even cocktail blues that year. Each fish fought and landed just reinforced what should have already been obvious: the one that night before, the jumper in the dark… that bluefish was huge. That bluefish haunts my dreams. It’s been some years since, I’ve caught plenty more, but none like that one. The next year was a pretty good one for local bluefish and I did it the way my fly-snob inner psyche wanted me to. Those fish are memorable, I still tell stories about those fining schools of gators and vicious popper blowups. I just want to know how monstrous that one that jumped twice over the sand flat that muggy, July night was. I’d probably want to try to catch it on a fly, but I’d rather just know how big it was, even if we still lost the fish. Is that strange?
