09.01.25 Thirty day countdown...

Menemsha Inlet

     I've never made a Martha's Vineyard fall run trip but that'll change next month. I've always heard about the fantastic albie fishing in and around the inlets and jetties there. There's two things you know about me, I hate boats and I hate albies. But the truth is the only times I've really targeted and

caught them were from my boat. I had a banner week-long run in Montauk one fall when I towed my Jones up and then a few times when they were going good between Breezy and The Hook. Outside of the visual eats, and the frustration of getting to them when they are up, the screaming drags and fights I can do without. On foot I've never had luck, I think one to two to hand, but I did put the time in looking either at The Hook, on the groin tips in Deal, or at the Shark River and Manasquan Inlets. 

     Each June my crew would head up to the Vineyard. It was always good. Joe and Bob would return just about each year in the fall to try and catch bass, bluefish, bonito, or albies. It all depended, as is with the fall run and fly fishing, on what was around. As I always say, actually catching fish is the third reason I go, one, it's my friends, two, it's the setting, and three, the fishing.

Carey and Popovic's, Menemsha Inlet, 2014
Photo Mark Lovewell, Vineyard Gazette

They'd be there to fish "The Derby", which I will be able to enter for my first time this year. Bob's last trip to the Vineyard was in 2019 and Joe sent me the video where he caught his last

Photo Mark Lovewell, Vineyard Gazette

 fish on the island, an fine albie caught at Lake Tashmoo on September 17th. Although the video cuts off before we see the fish, I guess I'll take Joe's word it was an albie. If Bob was around I'd break his chops it was a sea robin. 

Bob summed up all things Martha's Vineyard in a 2014 Vineyard Gazette article about that's years Derby. He is quoted as saying, "One of the happiest moments I have is getting on the ferry to come over", he said, "And the saddest part of the trip is going home". 

It was in also 2014 when Joe and Bob went to Abe Pieciak's gallery show. I think it was one of his first shows shortly after he created his "Lure Fish" series, which remains very popular today. You can see his work and his swag, HERE. 

     So with a willing host in Abe I made my reservations. I contemplated just parking and walking on the ferry but it didn't seem like much sense. It would cost me $10.50 each way as a walker and $17 a 

day to park. That would come to $105. Plus I'd have to deal with the shuttles in Falmouth and depend on a ride around the island. So for the extra $178 I'll bring the Silverado up and over. 

     It's been a while since I fished exclusively with tiny flies that mimic white bait. I'm not talking about flies that mirror silversides, which can be quite large, but those tiny flies when the fish are on "snot bait". Large pods of penny sized bay anchovies that predator fish love to eat. 

     Those famous Jim Levison Montauk photos of striped bass swimming with their mouths open is a great example of raft feeding. Tightly packed predators find it easier to get a mouthful of small baits rather then target one little one at a time, although eagle eyed albies are to do that.

     I'll have to do a tiny fly recon in my fly tying room and will most likely depend on an arsenal of self-tied, bought, and borrowed flies for my trip. I have about 1,000 of Bob's Fleye Foils, still in the package, because I was convinced they are easy to tie. For as much as I called him and friend, and spent a lot of time with him, I pretty much sucked at tying any of his flies, at least respectably. My "Foils" turn out with too much epoxy and lumpy and dumb looking. One of my favorite flies for albies

are tied by Brad Buzzi called Albacore Candy. He used to sell them in tiny cigarette looking six packs that came in two different sizes. I thought it was brilliant. Brad if you're reading this and 

can put your hands on one more put it aside for me. Another stop in my search for the perfect albie fly might take me back into Jim Matson's laboratory were he tied up a bazillion flies, a lot of them tiny, for his trips to Harker's Island for false albacore. When I say a bazillion, I mean a bazillion. Of course most are led a Pulse Disc, which I am going to make sure I have a bunch with me when I travel north. 

     Thirty days goes quick. A week finishing up new employee orientation. A daughter's wedding. A run down to Florida to make sure my Mom is okay post cardiac procedure. And a bunch of work days in the lab and at clinical at Capital Health's Regional Medical Center (CHRMC). 

     I'm looking forward to clinical rotations at CHRMC. It's is a hospital based nursing school and it's a Level II trauma center where the helicopters routinely land on the roof dropping off patients. I'm sure the learning opportunities are abound there. We'll see. 

     When I return there will still be time to get ready for the each-year-it's-later fall run, which seems to start with a run of the big girls, some times in mid-October, followed by the slot-sized invasion around Thanksgiving. I'm hoping my schedule will allow me to get down to the salt more than the last four years. I can say this so far, having a less than 10 minute commute to work is very weird, but good. Good on the mental and physical health, and good on the wallet as there's no gas or toll money needed to get to and from work. Let the countdown begin.