BALLSTON BEACH, TRURO, MA

There is something magical about fishing the Back Side of the Cape for me.

Perhaps it is the storied history of surfcasting along this stretch of fabled beach or maybe it is simply the natural beauty of such a wild place that can still exist in today’s world. Or maybe, just maybe it is something more.

I had been here many times before, but none as memorable as one night in 2001. The first two nights of a three-day fishing weekend proved to be rather fruitless. The first night I found myself stumbling around the beach in the thickest fog I have ever seen in my life as I cast lures into a sea so full of mung that I was still picking it out of my reel a week later. After several fishless hours of casting I made my way to my truck to sneak in some shut-eye before hitting daybreak to get a better look at the structure. A short time into my slumber, and around the turn in the tide, I was startled by the sight of several sets of headlights pulling into the lot.

Normally the addition of a few casters would spark my interest and cause me to head back out, but with all the mung seen earlier I figured I would let them discover it on their own. Back to sleep I went only to be awoken once again, about two hours later, as the sound of several large striped bass being dragged through the lot was too much to sleep through. I kept quiet and listened to the casters talk about the awesome bite they had just experienced.

I returned the following night only to find more mung, bigger surf, even thicker fog and no fish. The two guys from the night before did not return but I fished up and down that beach until I was so exhausted that I almost fell asleep on my feet. Again I returned to my truck, tail between my legs and caught a few hours of sleep before the sun began to peak over the dune the following morning. After grabbing a bite to eat, I returned to the parking lot once again around low tide and walked the beach with camera and notepad in hand. I made notes of exactly where the bowls were set up in relation to the dunes, committed some landmarks to memory and made plans to make the most of my final night of fishing.

My first cast of the evening was sent eastward prior to sunset, and I methodically worked the dropping tide as I made my way north making sure to work every bar, trough, cut and break as thoroughly as possible. I fished about a mile and a half to two miles up the beach, then turned and made my way back south towards where I began. As I approached the large bowl just north of the parking lot I could barely make out several casters lined up on the southern edge of the bowl. They were working the bar where it dropped into the deep water and what was most interesting was that they all appeared to be tight to a fish. I feverishly cast my now-dead eel into the bowl and had a quick bump but I failed to set the hook in time and the fish made off with my eel. Into my jug I went and I selected a new eel, one of only six I had left. Another cast to the east and I was quickly tight to a bass.

After marking the length on my rod and releasing the fish I got into rotation and followed the lead of the other anglers who would cast an eel onto the bar, let it drift into the bowl and then almost immediately come tight to a bass. I did my best to conserve eels but six quickly became one as bass after bass found their way onto the end of my line. When my eighth fish of the bite was hauled onto the sand and it became apparent that my final eel was gone, I made a few half-hearted casts with plugs but to no avail; the fish simply wanted eels, and I was all out.

It wasn’t until the following day that I was able to begin to fully comprehend and get a grasp on some of the fish that were in that school. All eight of my fish bottomed out my 30-pound Boga, and all of the fish that I saw landed were of comparable size. I later found out that fish to 59 pounds were weighed-in that week, and my largest fish of the tide—roughly 53 inches per the marks on my rod—was one I have yet to best to this day.