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I had the opportunity to attend this year's Casting for Recovery Tournament in Jamaica Bay Brooklyn, NY. It is probably the largest tournament in the mid-Atlantic/NE for kaykers and this year was no exception!
I arrived on Thursday after work right around 9pm. The area was not easy to get to for a first time visitor, fortunately I had a couple of friends arrive early enough to find it in the daylight. Set up camp on and rigged up my rods for the morning bite.
Friday Morning - Overcast skies and tons of kayakers there already, looking like it will be a great event. We get our parking passes and a few tips from George and Jerry and make our way off to the Pumpkin Patch. The wind wasn't that bad but it's a decent paddle. Most other kayaks we see are Hobies, feel like I'm back at the bridge! We troll, cast, plug, bottom bounch, jig, drown bait, etc. Nothing. All around us we are seeing guys pick up fish- all of them are catching them on a red tube and worm. We were trolling other colors, and apparently not the right type of tube and worm. I had one hit that almost ripped my rod out of my boat but that was it in the pumpkin patch. We fished from about 7-1pm and then made our way back to the launch.
Friday night- Captain's meeting, got our bags of free gear (not much in there, got a tube and worm though!) and a meal. Went to the point by the model airplane field to scope it out as a possible location for the morning as it was supposed to be very windy Saturday. Saw a lot of bird action and fish rising right off the beach. Tried top-water, nothing, switched to glup jigs and figured out what they were... Sea Robins. I've never caught one around here, but they are something like a horseshoe crab fish. That's all we caught, nice to have something on the line though after that long day. Headed back to camp and got ready for the morning launch.
Saturday - Ready to launch at 5:15, walk to captain's tent to get some coffee, event pushed till tomorrow. Small craft warning and wind gusts up to 30 mph. Great. We decide to launch anyway and hit the basin by the model airplane field. As soon as we get off the beach I start marking big balls of bait and seeing surface flipping. No blitz, but bait everywhere. The wind was insane, stop paddling long enough to flip a bait in the water and get blown back 100 yds to the beach. Very tough fishing. I didn't have a large enough bunker snag, but one of the guys did. He started livelining and I started chunking... nothing. Trolled up to the bridge, chunked some more, nothing... Trolled up into the marina... nothing but wind. Tried chunking above the brige... FISH ON... Nope sea robin. Caught one other sea robin and that was it! Headed back to camp around 1 pm.
Saturday Afternoon- headed out to the radio tower around 4pm. Trolling on the way there I had two hits on the red tube and worm I got in my captains bag. Both fish got off, I blame my front scotty mount, not very stable plus I don't think I paddled enough to set the hook, too excited and tried to grab rod and set hook the hook on my own. I moved the rod back to a flush mount after that. Didn't matter, because I didn't have any other hits! I decide to try for fluke and throw in a teaser/spinner bottom rig with a strip of bunker. A few minutes later, rod dips and bam, a decent size blue on the line. I got it right next to the boat annnnd off she went. Stupid bogas, having them makes me feel like I need them. That was our only action of the night. Two of the other guys we were with went around the ruffle bar and picked up about 5 blues. They got them in... and all on the tube. I think the largest was about 27 inches at the fork.
Sunday morning- I am beat. It was incredibly hard to get up and out of the tent this morning. Lots of paddling really made me jealous of the hobies. Oh and of wheels. I wished I had both of those things. Headed out across the big fish kill channel and turned right to head towards the intersection of the runway channel. Had one hit on the drop off right before the end of the ruffle bar... had the fish on the line for a bit but it got off as it thrashed the surface. I vow to paddle more next time. Continued south, then my partner decides to make a run to the other side of the ruffle bar. I go along with it, but after about 20 mins of paddling against the current on a large 4 ft shallow flat I ask him if it might be better to just head for the intersection of the channels. So we loop back and go with the current, much easier, and we get back into about 10 ft of water. I see a green can and decide to head for it, right as I got to the can... boom... fish on... I paddle two or three more hard strokes and then pick the rod up and throw in some heavy hooksets while cranking... not this time I said. Not too long after that I got the blue to the boat, measured about 19'' at the fork. Pretty hard to measure something in a kayak, glad my paddle has a ruler too. This was the first fish in the new Trident worth talking about.
After that, confidence was restored and we paddled up the ruffle bar towards the pumpkin patch. We ended up trolling back and forth through the ruffle bar and the other island. We started hooking up consistently, all blues, in hindsight, I think we were going pretty fast for rock. I got my biggest blue booking it to help a friend take a picture of a rock, 25" at the fork. That one put on a heck of a fight! So in the end I only caught blues, but the other guys with us caught several rock and a few fluke, all on the tube!
We didn't win the tournament, or come close, but we finally caught some fish and had a great time at the event. Jerry of Captain Kayak and Dee of Casting for Recovery really did a great job organizing the event and I definitely plan on attending again next year!!! I also won a brand new drytop in the raffle, valued at over $200 they said... Not sure if I'll keep it.
And now for some pictures:
I arrived on Thursday after work right around 9pm. The area was not easy to get to for a first time visitor, fortunately I had a couple of friends arrive early enough to find it in the daylight. Set up camp on and rigged up my rods for the morning bite.
Friday Morning - Overcast skies and tons of kayakers there already, looking like it will be a great event. We get our parking passes and a few tips from George and Jerry and make our way off to the Pumpkin Patch. The wind wasn't that bad but it's a decent paddle. Most other kayaks we see are Hobies, feel like I'm back at the bridge! We troll, cast, plug, bottom bounch, jig, drown bait, etc. Nothing. All around us we are seeing guys pick up fish- all of them are catching them on a red tube and worm. We were trolling other colors, and apparently not the right type of tube and worm. I had one hit that almost ripped my rod out of my boat but that was it in the pumpkin patch. We fished from about 7-1pm and then made our way back to the launch.
Friday night- Captain's meeting, got our bags of free gear (not much in there, got a tube and worm though!) and a meal. Went to the point by the model airplane field to scope it out as a possible location for the morning as it was supposed to be very windy Saturday. Saw a lot of bird action and fish rising right off the beach. Tried top-water, nothing, switched to glup jigs and figured out what they were... Sea Robins. I've never caught one around here, but they are something like a horseshoe crab fish. That's all we caught, nice to have something on the line though after that long day. Headed back to camp and got ready for the morning launch.
Saturday - Ready to launch at 5:15, walk to captain's tent to get some coffee, event pushed till tomorrow. Small craft warning and wind gusts up to 30 mph. Great. We decide to launch anyway and hit the basin by the model airplane field. As soon as we get off the beach I start marking big balls of bait and seeing surface flipping. No blitz, but bait everywhere. The wind was insane, stop paddling long enough to flip a bait in the water and get blown back 100 yds to the beach. Very tough fishing. I didn't have a large enough bunker snag, but one of the guys did. He started livelining and I started chunking... nothing. Trolled up to the bridge, chunked some more, nothing... Trolled up into the marina... nothing but wind. Tried chunking above the brige... FISH ON... Nope sea robin. Caught one other sea robin and that was it! Headed back to camp around 1 pm.
Saturday Afternoon- headed out to the radio tower around 4pm. Trolling on the way there I had two hits on the red tube and worm I got in my captains bag. Both fish got off, I blame my front scotty mount, not very stable plus I don't think I paddled enough to set the hook, too excited and tried to grab rod and set hook the hook on my own. I moved the rod back to a flush mount after that. Didn't matter, because I didn't have any other hits! I decide to try for fluke and throw in a teaser/spinner bottom rig with a strip of bunker. A few minutes later, rod dips and bam, a decent size blue on the line. I got it right next to the boat annnnd off she went. Stupid bogas, having them makes me feel like I need them. That was our only action of the night. Two of the other guys we were with went around the ruffle bar and picked up about 5 blues. They got them in... and all on the tube. I think the largest was about 27 inches at the fork.
Sunday morning- I am beat. It was incredibly hard to get up and out of the tent this morning. Lots of paddling really made me jealous of the hobies. Oh and of wheels. I wished I had both of those things. Headed out across the big fish kill channel and turned right to head towards the intersection of the runway channel. Had one hit on the drop off right before the end of the ruffle bar... had the fish on the line for a bit but it got off as it thrashed the surface. I vow to paddle more next time. Continued south, then my partner decides to make a run to the other side of the ruffle bar. I go along with it, but after about 20 mins of paddling against the current on a large 4 ft shallow flat I ask him if it might be better to just head for the intersection of the channels. So we loop back and go with the current, much easier, and we get back into about 10 ft of water. I see a green can and decide to head for it, right as I got to the can... boom... fish on... I paddle two or three more hard strokes and then pick the rod up and throw in some heavy hooksets while cranking... not this time I said. Not too long after that I got the blue to the boat, measured about 19'' at the fork. Pretty hard to measure something in a kayak, glad my paddle has a ruler too. This was the first fish in the new Trident worth talking about.
After that, confidence was restored and we paddled up the ruffle bar towards the pumpkin patch. We ended up trolling back and forth through the ruffle bar and the other island. We started hooking up consistently, all blues, in hindsight, I think we were going pretty fast for rock. I got my biggest blue booking it to help a friend take a picture of a rock, 25" at the fork. That one put on a heck of a fight! So in the end I only caught blues, but the other guys with us caught several rock and a few fluke, all on the tube!
We didn't win the tournament, or come close, but we finally caught some fish and had a great time at the event. Jerry of Captain Kayak and Dee of Casting for Recovery really did a great job organizing the event and I definitely plan on attending again next year!!! I also won a brand new drytop in the raffle, valued at over $200 they said... Not sure if I'll keep it.
And now for some pictures:
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