House On The Rocks –
Report by Ed from Stripercoast Surfcasters Club
8/31/09
So we got to
it the other night. I think the first place I wanted to skish after the first
time I actually got in was the House. The place is a series of reefs that over
the years has eaten a boat or two. It's a place the old man would fish at night
using nothing but eels as we drifted through the cuts in the rips.
We didn’t have a big tide and the drift with the incoming tide brought us in
fairly comfortably. There is a large reef to the outside and Jake was working
the wash along it. I worked the shear drop cliff along the shoreline of the
island. Funny how you can get so concentrated on what you're
doing that you don't even hear someone swim up behind you. Jake smacked
the water a foot from behind my head and nearly made me drop a deuce in my wet
suit!
We continued our swim into the cove behind the reefs and Jake picked up a
decent but small Bass foul hooked in the back. We both had several hits before
Jake picked up his second fish, along with a cast off Needle.
We continued in to the reefs and I climbed out of the water onto a large reef.
The seagulls voiced their collective displeasure at me disturbing them on their
night perch. After all 300 or so flew off, I made my way to the outer point of
the rock. I worked a couple of different plugs, until I hit a nice fat barely
keeper on a G/R in Blurple. A few more casts and missed hits later, I moved to
a different point of the rock due to the change in tide and change in the rip.
As I stood on the point, I cast toward what I thought was a small reef point
sticking out of the water I realized it was Jake standing on the rock. With a
confirmation call out I cast in a different direction. He had moved from the
other reef I saw him on earlier. I picked up another Bass around 29 or 30
inches, released and got back in the water after another 20 or so casts got no
attention.
We rode the outgoing tide back to the trucks and Jake picked up another decent
Bass along the way.
We parted ways as he headed home and I headed to the Tail.
It was still dark as I picked my way down a rock face and made my way to the
water. I took a few casts from the end of the rock and picked up mop heads of
eel grass weighing around 10 pounds. I almost called it quits but decided to
see if I could get into cleaner water on the outside. 100 yards later I was
coming in clean. The twilight was just starting to add some tinges of red to
the clouds and I changed over to one of Sconie's Darters, the plug I wished I
had with me at the house. 3rd cast I'm into something small but feisty. A few
seconds later a 2 pound Bluefish is giving me a hard time to get the hooks out
of its mouth.
And so it went, every cast a hit or a fish. As the sun
came up over the horizon the Bass showed up, nothing big or even Keeper. I
think the biggest was around 20 inches, but it was steady with a fish hitting
or on every cast.
The rollers were starting to build, and I was losing track of myself as I
drifted along totally immersed in concentration on the school of fish I was in.
I heard the crash of a large wave behind and turned around to see I was quickly
approaching the end of the point.
I hooked the Darter to the bottom guide and started in looking for my landing
point. I chose a gully between 2 points and made my way for it. The larger
swells were climbing up and over the points and the outflow rips were pretty
swift. I used the incoming surge to carry me in and finned as fast as I could
to keep the rips from pushing me back out. Just as I got into the gully a very
large roller decided to curl over as it approached me. I looked at it, flipped
it of, yelled "F" you and went under. When I came up I was 2 feet
from the rock and crawled out onto it.
Man that was a friggin Blast!
Several of the large crowd Tog fishing clapped their hands as they had enjoyed
the show. I took off my fins, emptied the bottle of water I had with me, and
walked back to the truck.
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