Between the Seasons

I haven't done much fishing since the end of summer, and for the last week or so I haven't been very involved with the ocean at all.  I let a swell go by unridden last week, but that was mostly because I didn't want a bad cold to get any worse.  Whatever the reasons, it feels interesting to take some time away from the water, sometimes.  I actually made a point last week to see how long I could go without looking at the ocean- I made it four days.

And when I checked the ocean last night after being away from it, it was pretty awesome.  It was like I noticed things in a way I hadn't been noticing them before.  The smell coming from the water, the sound of the small waves rolling on the sandbar, the herring and shad dabbing the surface.  The experience seemed a lot richer and fresher, and I stood there for several minutes just observing.  No thoughts like oh let me get a rod, or when is there going to be swell again, whatever routine things I think so that I am more with my thoughts than with the outside.  It was a fresh perspective.  I didn't want anything from the sea.  I wasn't concerned with whether or not I was going to score fish, I wasn't concerned with anything.

I am one who gets very passionate with things, but sometimes passion is like wearing blinders.  So what I am taking time with right now, is removing my passion for the ocean, and taking my blinders off.  A hiatus.  A break or interruption in the continuity of work, series, action, etc.  A break in my normal habit of going to the sea and thinking how can I catch the most fish, how can I score the best waves.  So for the next two weeks I am going to continue to be more lightly involved with the water.  If some fish show up, I will be sure to fish for them, but I'm not waiting for them.  If the waves come up and break good, I will surf them, but I am not worrying about whether they will come.

So I will end the hiatus and resume my normal pattern on October 17th.  But it really won't be the same pattern, because I will have gained a new perspective on the water by observing it differently.  When in the next several weeks I find myself out in the first chilly night on a rocky beach, stealthily throwing a needlefish awaiting a strike, under the stars, with some good friends, away from the crowd, it won't be the same.  It will be better- I will be more awake, more aware, and more connected with my surroundings.  I will have the added knowledge of what it is just to be with the ocean, in addition to knowing what to do with it.

All that is some deep stuff, so here is something shallow . . .

"This is the result of many flatter, calmer years piling tons of sand literally up against a 'wall'.  There is a point where it is going to exceed capacity and begin to overfill beyond normal limits and have effects that are very rare.  This is that time.  In December, it will be 20 years since we had a real storm!"

Well, there is a chance this December and winter may end up like 2002, the warmest winter on record in New Jersey.  It's a matter of if the extra heat is going to park over the Great Lakes or farther north in eastern Canada.  If the heat is farther north, New Jersey will be cooler and a little stormier.  Otherwise, it's more blah blah blah and more straight sands.  Of course, fall fishing can be fantastic regardless.

So as it is, a hiatus between the seasons.



EPIC Weather Event, Loitering Leslie, and Fall in the Air

Surfing tropical cyclone swells in the Mid-Atlantic is sometimes a fickle thing.  While the storms will often make the most powerful groundswell lines of the year, groundswell lines don't do very well on straight beach break, especially when the sandbar is even straighter than normal.  The spots that can turn a block long wall into something manageable are usually balanced by an unmanageable crowd.  So what I did with the first half of Leslie was pretend there were no waves, sometimes it's easier that way.

When there is groundswell there can be a long lull between waves, which gives time for the whitewater to clear up so that the water remains fishable.  Proof of that was the bait fish I saw spraying into the air.  They looked like they were being chased by little underwater speed boats.  Albacore was the first thought to enter my mind.  While I have never caught one, the action I saw was like what everyone says about the fish: fast slashing through bait and an occasional launch into the air.  I didn't have a rod since I was in full surf mode, so all I could do was watch the bait get ripped through for 15 minutes, with the action easily reachable less than a half cast out.  Excited about the sighting I figured I could chase albacore instead of illusive shoulders on head high closeouts.

That plan was shut down by a very good south wind on Saturday the 8th, one of the best south winds in years, one that actually had some energy and some excitement with it.  So I was inside doing some reading when I had a thought to go to the screen door and look to the west.  HOLY SHIT! A FUCKING TORNADO!

For years I've had dreams and fantasies of looking out and seeing a tornado and it actually happened!  I froze watching it spin for at least 30 seconds before I ran and got the camera.  I got only this picture before it went up and dissipated!

Now behind that yellow house is the bay, so if it was over the bay technically it would have been a waterspout, but that cannot be determined from the photograph so I am calling it a tornado.  It's my once in a lifetime sighting and I get to claim it!  It was moving pretty quick from south to north and it traveled from at least the high roof on the house on the left in the foreground to the location in the photograph in not much time.  Before the photograph the condensation funnel was down farther and it was very clearly rotating.  It all happened so fast it didn't sink in until later just how incredible those 45 seconds were!

Fall arrived in the afternoon the day following the tornado.  A nice cool and dry air mass replaced the hot sticky weather that was in the area on Saturday.  Air mass changes are what cause 'extreme weather' in the middle latitudes.

After a foray to the Midwest without having to drive, it was back to being a surfer in New Jersey during a tropical cyclone swell.  Oh yeah, what am I supposed to do with these waves?  It's not just that I want to ride the best waves, it's that I also want to ride the best waves with no one else.  Picture living in one of the most populated areas of the world during a hyped up closing out swell in the most pleasant time of the year with a goal of finding non-closed out uncrowded surf.  A loose plan was made and I set out to accomplish that goal.

What I found was a pretty good wave that was not really crowded.  It was no Hurricane Earl or Hurricane Katia, it was definitely on the smallest level to even be worth making the trip, but nonetheless it was better than anything I would have found at home.  And I didn't have to fight anybody for it, actually I traded set waves with the locals who were more than nice and willing to share.  Just a little more oomph in the swell would have made it complete, so there was still something to be desired, but overall it was ok.  After four hours and about 100 roundhouse cutbacks on the mellow wave, I made the decision to travel back home based on the moderate swell forecast and a change of plans that cancelled the second half of the trip.  Driving ten hours, surfing for five hours, and sleeping in my truck bed- when I get back from something like that I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation.

Something that wouldn't take a metal or popper was blasting through bait.  It was refreshing to see clean green water, purple blobs of bait, and whitewater fish on the surface even if it was in miniature.

Arriving back home was a real treat not because I'd force myself to surf closing out waves again, but because fall was in the air.  My definition of the first fall air is: sunny skies and highs in the 60s or a clear night with lows in the 50s.  The first fall day usually shows up sometime in September and this year that day was right on time, in spite of the last two years being the warmest ever in New Jersey and over much of the planet.  What's encouraging is that maybe this fall will have a more moderate temperature than the previous warmth.  Though I was more interested in jumping back into dumping closeout barrels, it was nice to see baitfish spraying out of green water under a cotton ball sky.

September.

I don't really consider September a fall fishing month as it is more of a transition.  October, November, and December are what I consider the official fall fishing months.  But that's not to say September cannot have great fishing.  In the fall of 2009, which was different because it was cool and there were a lot of nor'easters, there were epic bass and sand eel bites well before anybody picked up on what was going on.  Sometimes the mullet run will bring good bass and blues action, and there have been some reports of that kind of action the last few days.  While another dumping groundswell may be looming for next weekend or next week, there will be time until then to see what the mullet run will do.  Fall is in the air!

Labor Day Transition

The end of summer is a bittersweet time of year.  But as the years go by without having to wait for a school bus, the end of summer is less bitter and more sweet.  The burning sun of summer is lowering and the days are shorter, the air has the potential to actually be comfortable, the beaches are clear and the water will be nice for at least a month and a half.  There are hurricane swells to look forward to in September and October before fall fishing in November and December.  Most people feel a twinge of remorse on Labor Day Monday, but I don't like doing what most people do.  This is the beginning of the best third of the year, the best four months, the climax.  The only people who are sad, I imagine, are the ones who leave too early and miss it.

BIG sand sharks ended the season under the second August full moon.  Though they are not 'real' sharks, they still put a bend in the rod.  Photos: Olivia Frawley.

While I was learning a lessson about the importance of cooking food thoroughly, Will and Olivia fished hard Thursday and Friday under the second August full moon.  In spite of their efforts, giant sand sharks dominated the bite and there were no 'real' sharks.  There was talk of a hit that bent the rod and zzzziipped the drag, but the hook up was missed leaving only speculation.  A more concrete report of a shark came from Dave Arnold who told me he had a hit that took everything.  "You know I always hold the rod in my hand, I never dead stick," he told me.  "So I finally put the rod in the spike [I have never once seen him do that] and a minute later I get a hit that rips everything off."  The irony feels playfully scripted sometimes.  What I expected to be an epic weekend of sharking turned out not to be.  Thankfully, after all this time there is still more to know.

Tropical Cyclone Leslie will likely dominate the ocean through the middle of next week.  Groundswell began to fill in on Tuesday.  Put the rods away it's time to surf!

Under a somber gray sky with drizzle and a cool east wind on Labor Day, I cleaned up the shark gear and put it in the shed for next year.  With a surf alert, there was no time to mourn the end of summer fishing.  Slow moving Tropical Storm Leslie is poised to develop into a hurricane, possibly a Category 2 hurricane, north of Bermuda.  The initial slow movement of the storm is great for generating a swell since the more time wind blows over the same water the more formed the swell will be.  An often overlooked factor is the swell shadow cast by Bermuda.  It's a small island, but it's surrounded by reefs that can redirect and cut apart the swells well beyond the shoreline.  Even if the right side of the storm is behind Bermuda, once the system is north of Bermuda the ocean is clear and the groundswell will reach the coast unimpeded.

Someone who is very reactionary and less of a thinker will hear 'hurricane offshore' and think 'epic, I'll surf until my arms fall off'.  Fortunately, life is more interesting than that.  What are you going to do with an 8ft wave that is three blocks long?  And then it gets more interesting.  I am here right now, and in a few days I see myself riding a wave so long that it makes my legs cramp up.  It's a great process to get from where I am now to riding a wave so long I don't even paddle the whole way outside to ride another one.  But it's not a soccer field or a basketball court.  I may work and work and not even be able to play.  It's up to Leslie.