High surf fly casting is an exciting way to fish for large striped bass and bluefish on the Atlantic Beaches of the Cape and the Islands. It is a specialized form of fishing that demands proper equipment, preparation, and technique as well as the sixth sense known as "reading the water." Saltwater fly casting combines the classic skills of conventional surf casting with the challenges of handling a fly rod in an extreme wind and sea.
While it is true that a fly rod can, on occasion, be a more productive outfit than a spinning or revolving spool outfit, it is much more fatiguing, and in the beginning, frustrating for casters with years of experience in calmer waters. So why do it all? The answer is in the satisfaction of casting under impossible circumstances, on a vast stretch of crashing water with no obvious signs of fish, and feeling the first impatient tugs on the line as a striper starts chasing the fly. When that fish is on and running, no dawn on any beach will ever be as glorious.
Sunsets are the consolation prize of surf fishing. You meet the sun rise face on, and so do the fish.
Got the picture?
That said, beach fishing is a beautiful experience. Stalking the sands in the moonlight is one of the all-time best things a person can do on Cape Cod, fishing rod in their hand or not. The beach can become an eerie place in the darkness, with all sorts of skunks and foxes and raccoons patrolling the line of wrack and seaweed looking for dead skates to eat. Other fishermen are spectral presences. If you want to do another angler a favor, don't wait until the last second to say: "HEY! HOW'S THE FISHING?" They probably will suffer a massive heart cramp on the spot, turn purple, and die from freight. Anglers have been known to run, screaming, down the sands, after being interrupted after hours of being lost in the reverie of their own thoughts. So, cough, clear your throat, whatever to announce your arrival.
Fish at Dawn:
In my first years of surf casting, I tended to equate time on
water with more fish, when in fact, it became obvious that the
best time to stand on the sand and have a good opportunity to
greet a feeding fish was during the transition between day and night, especially at first light. Not sunrise,
but the false dawn when the eastern horizon subtly shows itself
and the first light begins to wake up the dormant waters.
A low incoming tide is best:
Figuring out the optimum stage in the tide to fish is a science
unto itself, deserving of a more detailed treatmen. Nevertheless, let me relate
the following anecdote:
In 1989, while fishing the Chatham break, I followed years of
advice and arrived just before the peak of the high tide, intending
to fish the outgoing tide until dawn, six hours away. Trudging
down the sands for half an hour, I met a group of flyfishers heading
back to the parking lot. It was obvious they were a tired but
very happy bunch. "Best fishing I've ever experienced."
"You should have been here three hours ago."
The reasoning was obvious when I saw that the spit and the bars surrounding it were exposed and open to study. I could see where the breaches in the bars allowed the surf to dump bait into the holes and hollows beyond them. Access was better because there simply was more beach to work on, with the structure far more defined than it was when high tide covered it all over with eight feet of impenetrable water.
As the slack period ended and the flood tide began to cover the bars, the surf started to work more aggressively, building obvious holes and churning vigorously in some places and not others.
One of the best rules of thumb for surf fly fishing is work the most disturbed water. That's where the sand eels are being pounded the hardest and disoriented the most by the waves. That's where you want to put your fly.
Plovers hatch and the fledglings run back and forth from nest to the water's edge, crossing and sometimes getting stuck in the wheel ruts of the beach vehicles. Squashing the little buggers is a bad thing, so the Massachusetts Audubon Society and other environmental groups have successfully closed many beaches on Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Cape during the peak of the breeding season, which coincidentally coincides with the spring and early summer run of migrating fish. To say that tempers run high would be an understatement.
On the Cape, we deal with it by walking the beach. I've had the pleasure of fishing from a jeep, and it is wonderful to be able to move quickly from one hot spot to another without trudging in waders down the soft sand for an hour.
But we walk and here's how to do it.
First off, don't carry more than one rod. Hedging your bets with a spinning rod is counterproductive and a pain in the neck. Everytime you want to cover new water you have to remember to leave the water, find the other outfit and drag it along. Then, new spot found, you have to stash the other outfit, make sure sand doesn't get blown into the reel, and remember where you left it. Either you fly fish or you don't. Bringing a spinning rod along may make you feel better equipped, and while having a spinning rig may save a fishless night with the ability to make that one long cast when the first are just out of fly casting range, it can become a millstone.
Waders suck. Try walking for a half hour in a set of waders and you'll understand the meaning of pain. We're thinking of investing in some sort of backpack to carry our waders in, rather than wear them. If you so walk with waders on, then you need to wear long pants and high socks to guard against rubbing and chafing. Shorts may be more comfortable, but it has been our experience that the spot at the top of the boot rubs like the dickens and will open up a bloody hole in your leg. FishWire contributor Leslie Smith has the most light, portable set of waders we have ever seen. They are stocking foots, made out of some light nylon Gore-tex kind of material, and the boots are special Orvis wading boots designed for the surf. The waders pack into a small nylon bag with a draw string.
I fish with a chest pack designed by FishWire correspondent Chip Gouger. It has two front compartments for fly boxes, a commodious back pack, and lots of little flaps and pouches for nippers, flash lights, and tippets. It cost under $50 and has held up well for the past few seasons as long as we remember to oil the zippers every now and then. Chip mentioned he's having problems with his supplier, but it is a good product.
In June of 1995, after fishing with Kib Bramhall on Dogfish Bar
on Martha's Vineyard, I was taken by how light he travels. Just
a couple small fly boxes tucked into his waders, and little else.
A good fanny pack seems like a good solution. Here is an inventory
of what I carry:
Shooting Heads Rule
Shooting heads first came to our attention four years ago via
alt.fishing, the granddaddy of all the Internet's online fishing
resources. Thomas Gilg, a Hewlett Packard engineer in Oregon and
avid steelhead fisherman, was extolling the virtues of the shooting
head for achieving mega-distances without an extraordinary amount
of effort.
Shooting heads are most effective in the surf because of the reduced number of false casts required to lay out a long line. With just the head and a short section of the running line laying outside of the rod tip, some very experienced shooting head experts can toss 100 feet with a single false cast. This is essential in a strong breeze, which on the Atlantic beaches is almost always out of the southwest, and therefore crossing a right-handed casters casting shoulder. The tendency for this prevailing wind to blow flies into the back or head of an unwary fisherman is very real and very annoying. A shooting head reduces the amount of time a fly is aloft, cutting down on the chances that the breeze will blow a fly off course.
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