Articles

Article about Captain John in The Fisherman

2006-05-01

They're mean, they're hungry and they're at the top of their game. They are a breed of barrel-chested striped bass looking to bend rods and strip drags. Known to hang in wolfpacks, they step over each other to suck in anything that will feed their insatiable appetite to get bigger, badder and brawnier. I wanted to catch a bass real bad. Standing at the stern and peering into the dark depths of the mysterious waters from the deck of Caveman Sportfishing's Hooked Up , I took one glance back at Captain John Sowerby , and got the go-ahead sign to "drop 'em." I free-spooled the eel into the depths. I knew this was going to be my day to pit my pride against one of those linesided brutes from the from the famous Cape May Rips. I just needed to know how to bounce an eel.


GEARING UP The 25-minute ride out to the white-capped shoal waters of the Cape May Rips was a failed experiment in self-control. With visions of brute bass in my mind, trying to maintain a reasonable sense of calm was not happening. I was excited and my pent-up energy needed an outlet. To keep myself occupied, and to get ready, I asked Captain Mike Macrae how he was rigging up the rods. He had a couple of 40-pound class rods with some Penn 4/0 Senators for the charter fares to use for the upcoming battles. I had brought along my 7-foot graphite rod a Shimano TLD 15 to scale down a bit lower with lighter tackle. The boat reels were spooled with 50-pound mono, connected to a 75-pound barrel swivel, a 2-ounce drail weight and a 36 to 48-inch length of 40-pound fluorocarbon leader. The hook was a 5/0 octopus-style snelled to the end of the leader.









MAKING THE DRIFT After reading thick streaks that glowed on the bottom of the fishfinder, the word was out that the drifts were about to begin. Marking the spots that read bass in thick patterns, Captain John would circle around and motor uptide, passing the marked hotspot by about 50 yards. He would then let the outgoing tide drift us back over the marks and would continue to repeat the same process, provided there was action - and there was.

DROP 'EM NOW! Each lively eel, hooked through the bottom and upper lips, was sent down immediately after Captain John gave us the word at the top of the drift. I found out from trial and error that it is crucial to drop the line instantaneously, and not wait a few seconds after his word. This is because, if done correctly, and timed right, when the eel is dropped, the speed of the drift and the weight of the eel make it sink down to a level where the lead hits the first of the sandy humps on the bottom. The eel floats enticingly past the packs of bass that lay in waiting down current of the next lumps. The rod tip is worked in an up and down motion so the sinker and eel bounce along the bottom. Drifts are short and sweet, and if you wait too long to drop, your eel drifts too high past the humps, and floats too high for such a short drift, passing over the stripers. It is essential that the sinker bounce the bottom. It's your only way of knowing that you are at the right depth. In an environment where all sorts of bait gets swashed around in the rip and food is plentiful, inches make a huge difference to a lazy cow bass. They are not about to go after anything that puts too much strain on them, that's why they sit below the crest of the hump and engulf the bait that flows over it. Put that eel in their face. Now it was showtime.

BOUNCE, BOUNCE, WHAM! To finally get one of the cows to bite, I had to learn how to feel the bottom. The technique of working the rolling sandy underwater dunes of the Rips requires a little bit of patience. Once your weight hits the bottom, you will feel a heavy tap signaling that the weight is hitting ground, where it then pulls across the hump a bit like a dead pull with little taps, then goes over the crest of the hump and free floats, (you'll feel a little slack time in your line) to where it hits solid again on the backside of the next successive hump, repeating the process. It is immediately after you feel the tap of the heavy weight bounce the ground and feel it about to pick up to float over the hill that you should brace yourself for a jarring strike. TACKLE BUSTERS I had only fished a short time when, BAM!, I felt something slam the eel with the ferocity of a juiced up linebacker. The rod almost flew out of my hands! With the bail on free spool, I looked down to see tens of yards of line peeling off my spool like quickfire, so I gave a two count, set to strike, and wheeled back on the rod. The fight of an eel-hooked striper is truly intense, and my rod was shaking with pressure as he peeled line off. Then there was a loud crack and the reputation of Cape May bass came true. My precious rod snapped in two from the furious battle, with a confused angler on one end and a crazed linesider on the other. After 15 minutes and with barely enough strength left fighting with my new stand up rod, I managed to bring the striper into the net, where he was then scooped on board, unhooked, and weighed in at 33 pounds. FISH OH! I wasn't the only skilled (lucky?) angler that day. The charter group was tying into at least two bass of generous proportions practically each drift, and the action was non- stop with the bouncing eels. Some people who were not having much luck at first had to be instructed on how to be quick to let the eels sink to hit the right spot on the beginning of the drift, others had to be taught how to understand the bounces and to let the eel bump freely among the humps of the rips and stay down in the strike zone. Whatever the problem was to begin with, everyone got the hang of bumpin' and bouncin' the bottom, and eventually it was a mad free-for-all. The Cape May Rips really produced a good catch of stripers that day including my 33 pounder and another that pulled the scale down to 40 pounds. It was a matter of just knowing how to work the humps and utlilize the technique of bouncing over them. We headed in on the Hooked Up that night happy and content battling with the Cape May stripers, remembering two important things for next time - how to bounce and eel and to always bring two rods!