Summer is a great time to get the blues. They are showing up in big numbers all along the Southern Maine Coast. I got to admit, I am a little tired of the stripers. They are fun to catch and obviously they can get big, but they lack the raw predatorial nastiness of blue fish. The stripers are kind of layed back and when you get them on the hook, they will fight for a while but at a certain point they will give up the fight. Blue fish on the other hand, never quit and they will fight to the very end. They are strong, sleak and mean and that is why I have always loved to catch the blue fish. I caught tonights bluefish in a very unorthodox way, but boy was it a blast. I was in my kyak rowing to one spot and then another but the fishing was slow. I knew the fish were around because the water was full of bait, but I just could not find them. So I sat back in my kyak, lit a smoke and just enjoyed the evening for a moment. Then something struck me. I noticed all of the boats trolling around for fish. I noticed that they were trolling at very slow speeds so I thought to myself, “Hmm, maybe I can troll my fly off the back of my kyak.” It would be simple take a cast and let out some extra line and then start rowing. I have 350 grain sinking line so the fly should stay at a perfect depth. So, I finished my smoke, casted my line and began to paddle at a steady pace. There I was in my little yellow kyak, trolling with the big dogs. They had all the big gear and all the equipment, but the bottom line is that I had just as much of a chance of catching a fish as they did. Anyway, the novelty wore off pretty quick and I was getting tired or paddling. I was just about to call it quits and pretend I had never attempted such a foolish thing, when all of a sudden WHAM. My rod was double over, I grabbed it and brought this nice blue fish to the side of the kyak. What a trip – I can’t believe it actually worked and I was so psyched when I saw it was a blue fish. It brought back memories of fishing in Rhode Island from sun up until sun down chasing the bluefish along miles of shoreline. Those were the days that I love to remember and days like today help me to never forget.
