Easing into the Season (first striper of the year report)

There’ve been reports of stripers on the Cape for three weeks now. At first schoolies, then small keepers, now fish in the low teens with rumors of bigger fish around. Despite the influx of information regarding the start of a new striper season, I was slow to hit the saltwater. “It’s early,” I kept telling myself, but eventually I had to pack away the freshwater gear and get my surf equipment in order.

The first trips of the season, especially if prepared for hastily, always expose some equipment flaws in need of tending. As I waded into the moving saltwaters for the first time in 2012, I discovered immediately that I’d taped my reel too high onto the grip on my surf rod. But in the dark, a ways from my truck, I had no choice but to awkwardly cast for the duration of the trip.

The weeds were brutal, clogging every cast before I could even get the plug to kick and swim enticingly in the current. Finally, a clean cast and a hit. I set the hook and a fish appeared on the surface. The drag on my big surfcasting reel sounded like a lion’s roar compared to the barely audible hum of the shot-glass-sized freshwater reels I’ve been using since last November.

When the first run continued, I began to consider that I may have hooked a seriously large striped bass. Against all reason, this made me a little sad. If my first fish of the year was a big one, well there’d be nowhere to go but down. I wanted to ease into the season with a few of the requisite schoolies, graduating to small keepers and then to the cows. That was the natural progression that every season should take.

I turned the fish and wrestled it into shore. The commotion it made in the shallow water cemented my suspicion that my first bass of the year was a 30-pounder. I flicked on my light and laughed. The bass, though twice the size of the biggest freshwater fish I’d caught yet in 2012, was still under 10 pounds. Fooled by the superior strength of saltwater fish and a light drag I hadn’t bothered to check in my haste to hit the water, I sighed in relief at the discovery that my first striper of 2012 left plenty of room for improvement.

I watched the fish swim off, picked a few stray weeds off my plug and wound up for the next cast. The season now broken in, I’m ready for a cow.