Trip Time

The Jeep is packed and ready to go. In about two hours I will be unplugging from the matrix for the next week. No computer, no internet, no working. I consider myself fortunate that I do not have a phone like most other people have, so I will be spending most of my time with my eyes up, taking in the world around me with no distraction. Hopefully the only time my eyes will be down and focused is when I am unhooking a nice striper, bluefish, or blackfish. So far the vacation has started well. When I checked the beach this morning I immediately saw some small bluefish blitzing on rain fish. I ran home and got a rod with a 1 oz sting silver and caught a handful of blues and one lone big shad. Since they were small blues I left them biting so I could get home and pack. What a great way to begin!



If I didn't have so much fun this may look like a disorder! Actually everything is neat and ordered and ready for battle.

I will be in Montauk for two days and Rhode Island for the remainder of the week. Montauk is the so called “Surf Fish Capital of the World”, a statement that makes me a bit weary, kind of like “World’s Finest Bathing Beach”, but I’ve been to Montauk before, briefly, and I remember it looking like a real nice place. We are leaving at 1:00 am to catch the morning bite. Amazing that when I was informed that we were leaving at 1:00 am I thought that perfectly normal and rational. I am excited too that there will be a 2-4ft clean south wind swell in the water. So it’s get up at 1:00 am, drive 3.5 hours, fish for 3 hours, and then surf sometime during mid to late morning. There will have to be a siesta in there at some point!

Weather wise, this feels a little more like a summer trip than an early fall one. Where did that nice cool high pressure from last week go? Well a low pressure has been stalled out over the Great Lakes for the past few days and it will continue sitting there for a few more. This uninspired weather pattern is causing a stationary front to hang over the East Coast, and ahead of the front a weak but persistent southeasterly flow is bringing in disgustingly humid air in off the ocean. We haven’t had too much rain here, but there is a chance for more rain inland from this stalled feature, exactly where more rain isn’t needed after a record wet spring and record wet August in many areas.

A map like this . . .

 . . . yields weather like this



It’s near time to power down. Let vacation begin!