The Call of Cuttyhunk
The first thing I always notice about Cuttyhunk is the silence, or more accurately, the lack of human-generated ambient noise we must accept in our everyday lives. When we tie up to the wharf in the early morning, kill the motor and step up onto that worn wooden platform, lined with the connected “offices” of various charter captains, the silence envelops us, you can almost feel it, but in a good way. The silence presses against your eardrums. Or perhaps it’s just the slightest hint of a breeze. You speak softly and don’t say much right away. Human habitation, some kind of sound: Your mind expects this connection even if you’re not conscious of it and it takes a few moments to realize what’s missing.
Next comes an overwhelming feeling of well-being, like letting go and breathing again after holding your breath. Call it relaxation but it’s more than that. It’s knowing I’ve returned to a very special place, a place that has remained special because it is not easy to reach. Special both in spite and because of its well-deserved reputation as the epicenter of striped bass fishing in New England and maybe in the whole world. The invisible presence of the legendary captains and anglers who have walked that dock and the catches of huge stripers that have lain on the weathered boards guarantee it.
There is usually no one around the docks because we plan our Cuttyhunk fishing trips for early June or after Labor Day. In the summer when all of the nearby slips are filled with sailboats and other cruising craft the pace quickens around the tiny village. Depending on your point of view, this is not necessarily unpleasant and I know families who have owned houses on the island for generations and would only consider spending time there in July and August. I’m sure they have precious memories of the island but their Cuttyhunk experience is quite different than mine. I wonder if they get “the feeling” I have when I stand on that dock?
The Cuttyhunk Fishing Club
We walk down the dock, glancing into the water below the fish-cleaning station to see racks of big stripers recently caught lining the bottom, a feast for crabs and small baitfish. All the doors are shut on the captains’ shacks; they’re either out fishing or already done until the evening tide at the Pigs. Then there is a sound, a familiar one – one of a handful of vehicles on the island, making its way down the steep, narrow road to the dock. It is a beat-up Mitsubishi SUV of unknown age sporting a license plate from Aruba, a sure indication it will live out the last of its days making the short run between the Cuttyhunk Fishing Club Bed and Breakfast, the dock, and Fishing Club manager Bonnie Veeder’s house nearby. Of course everything is nearby on Cuttyhunk, and there is zero chance of an ambitious state policeman taking notice of the interesting plate, so why bother paying for a Massachusetts registration? Welcome to Cuttyhunk.
Bonnie always greets her guests with grin and helps throw the gear in the truck. Her roots on the island go back many generations, and she knows just about everyone who’s stepped ashore in the last 50 or so years. She is quick with a story, knows that spending winter after winter and year after year on a tiny piece of rock with only a few dozen year-round residents requires strength, patience, forgiveness and a sense of humor. She also knows what makes fishermen tick. It’s hard to imagine the Fishing Club without her.
A quick fishing report always comes next during the slow drive to the Club. It’s been good, she says, really good. Duane and Jimmy have been slaying ‘em at the Pigs and some guests fished all night last night and caught something like 30 fish, lots of ‘em right below the Club. Topwater plugs I think but I see they have a cooler of eels out on the porch so who knows? You can ask them when they get up. Just you guys and them at the club. You know the drill, use the kitchen but you’d better clean up!
Then we’re turning into the driveway of the long white building that squats on the bluff as it has for a century and a half, the repository of endless fishing tales fantastic and mostly true. The door is wide open as it always is, day or night. Three rods lean against the building, plug bags and waders on the ground nearby.
Mike, Jim and I get our keys to the simple but comfortable bedrooms and stash our bags. We luck out with rooms facing the lawn and ocean. The sound of the waves on the rocks below are the best sleeping aide on God’s earth, but one night on a previous visit I was awakened by coyotes that seemed to be just outside my window having their way with a hapless rabbit. On another visit I arose before dawn and looked out the window to see a massive buck and a doe silhouetted on the edge of the bluff. Deer are less numerous on the island than they were a decade or so ago, probably due to the arrival of the coyotes. Except for the Cuttyhunkers who hunt and counted on venison to help get through the long winter when the Alert II only makes its run once a week, most think the coyotes are doing a service. Deer ticks and Lyme disease are an ongoing problem, which is why we always pack insect repellent and spray our boots before heading for our fishing spots.
The sun has cut through the morning haze. Time to make some coffee and sit on the bench at the edge of the bluff. There it is again, the feeling. Waves sweep by below, bending into the curve of the cobblestone beach and toward the wrecked barge farther up toward Canapitsit Channel. That rocky beach is a prime fishing area if the weed isn’t too thick, especially after dark with eels or big surface-swimming plugs. Far away across Vineyard Sound, Gay Head Light blinks. In spite of the coffee, it’s easy to let the feeling carry you away as you close your eyes, turning off consciousness to everything but the rhythm of the waves and the smell of salt air and wildflowers.
After a walk to the tiny store, which is open if the owner isn’t busy with something else (“Leave money for soda in box”) it’s time for a nap and an early dinner, cooked on the huge, ancient stove in the club. The other three fishermen are soon to head out too and relate stories of 20-pound stripers on pencil poppers at Southwest Bluff, the far end of the island and our intended destination after cleaning up.
Sunset Casts
I always bring along way too many plugs to Cuttyhunk and the decision about which ones will make it into my bag is serious indeed. The last time I was on the island I made a point to time the walk back from the southern end of the island to the club. Amazingly, it was only a half-hour or so but it felt much, much longer. The dirt road that runs along the bluff on the south side of the island is rutted with the occasional large rock sticking up, not an easy stroll by any means and certainly nowhere you’d want to turn an ankle and be unable to walk. Planning what to carry is vital to enjoying the experience. After a few of these treks I began using a backpack to hold my waders, a couple bottles of water or a Red Bull or two, spare flashlight and a change of socks in case my waders sprang a leak. No matter which ones actually end up in my bag, lure selection is limited to topwater offerings of various types: pencils, Danny’s, Spook-type swimmers, regular poppers. Huge boulders covered with bubble weed line the shore, the ever-present southwest breeze pushes in kelp and other floating weeds, and using subsurface lures is an expensive exercise in frustration. Live eels work very well but I’m never inclined to take them along on the long walks, although I’ll toss them off the rocks below the club. A spare spool for the reel, Leatherman multi-tool, insect spray, a digital scale, spare mono leaders and snaps, a mini Mag Light on a string around my neck and I’m ready for the walk. Backpack is loaded, hiking boots and a sweatshirt pulled on over a light shirt and jeans and off we go.
There are still about two hours of daylight left, which is fine; no need to rush. The paved portion of the road ends almost immediately and before long we come to a wire crossing the dirt road with a “no trespassing” sign hung on it. Bonnie had explained that this is an iffy situation and one that reflects one of the biggest changes that Cuttyhunk is grappling with. Just about the entire southern end of the island is owned by a family who will not allow access down that road. In the last year, walkers have been directed down a side road toward the north side of the island and the beach at West End Pond. This makes it essential to bring along waders to negotiate the narrow but relatively shallow entrance to West End Pond if you intend to continue out to the southern tip of the island to fish – and you should. But in years past we’d use that restricted road along the south side. You haven’t progressed far along it before the bluffs rise, the road follows the edge and in places you can peer down a hundred feet to the boulders below, waves crashing onto a shoreline that appears to be striped bass heaven. But unless you are willing to make a long, arduous journey along the shore from below the club or on the way back from Southwest Bluff there is no way to access this prime water except by boat.
Eventually we reach the end of the island, past a small rise where a lighthouse and small house once stood. All that remains now are the stone walls of a small building off to the north, originally built as a storage area for the whale oil that was once used to illuminate the lighthouse. A few years ago through an improbable circumstance involving a purchase from an online auction I began an e-mail correspondence with an elderly lady from New Orleans, daughter of the last lighthouse keeper on Cuttyhunk. The lighthouse and keeper’s quarters on Southwest Bluff were torn down in 1946 and replaced by an automated light tower, but for more than a hundred years the Cuttyhunk Light warned mariners away from treacherous Sow and Pigs Reef just offshore. The keeper’s daughter sent me tales of her youth, relating lonely but tranquil days of playing among the blueberry bushes and along the shore. Her father knew Charles Church, who in 1913 caught a 73-pound striper that would hold the world record for 56 years. She wrote that Church intimated to her father that in spite of the official story of the great fish being caught in Canapitsit Channel, it really came from somewhere else. Church never told the lighthouse keeper where he really caught the fish, but his daughter wrote that her father was convinced Church caught it right below the lighthouse a few hundred yards from shore. Of course, no one will ever know but I always take a moment to stare at the small windswept rise where the lighthouse once stood and pay my respects to the lighthouse keepers who manned their lonely outposts.
The keeper’s daughter wrote that she had returned to Cuttyhunk just a few times, the last in the 1980s. The only evidence she could find of her old home was a series of flat rocks her father had carefully placed along the ground so she would have somewhere to ride her tricycle. She also visited her father’s grave in the tiny cemetery in the village but between her advancing years and melancholy memories she knew she would never return. I’ve thought many times of trying to find the flat stones but the fishing beckons.
The breeze is from the southwest, maybe 15 knots, the prevailing direction and speed for most of the fishing season. A couple of boats are already out at the Pigs and we can see it’s set up pretty good out there, plenty of white water. The low drone of an inboard engine signals the approach of Captain Jim Nunes in the Rudy J down the south side of the island. The black squatty hull rounds the corner, Nunes holding the tiller, dressed in his yellow foul-weather gear as he seems to be whatever the conditions, his sports sitting patiently as the classic open-hull Cuttyhunk bass boat pushes aside the 3-foot chop. His goal is the Pigs, and few know the water better.
We spread out along the cobblestones, facing the wind, and clip on pencil poppers. Lining the shore are a confused jumble of dozens, probably hundreds of twisted metal lobster pots, line and buoys, natural and man-made detritus and stacks of blue-black mussel shells thrown there by sea. This is a wild, desolate, beautiful place, and when the sun hits the horizon and the skies begin to darken you feel like you’re standing at the very edge of the world. There is nowhere I’d rather be.
As I’m pulling on my waders Mike gets the first fish, a striper of about 28 inches that slams his pencil almost before he has a chance to crank the reel. We’re hoping for bigger bass but hitting that far out the fish gives a good account of itself. Jim is to the north, almost around the corner and I see his rod is bent too. Another striper of about the same size is landed and released. It’s going to be a good night.
I prefer the water around the corner closer to the end of the cove outside West End Pond. I know from a fishing trip I took by boat some years ago that there’s a short reef about hundred feet off that corner and stripers cruise the slightly deeper water between the reef and shore. I stumble my way down there, past Jim who looks back with a grin as he fights another fish.
The light is fading fast and I arrive on my corner to find the water is a little dirtier, more weed along the shore, but the waves here are more like swells, more orderly than the wind chop that hits the south-facing bluff. This means I can time my casts so my plug lands just behind the swell and get a good long retrieve before it is pushed into the weedy water closer to shore. I snap on a 2-ounce yellow pencil popper, tuck the line under the tip of my index finger and open the bail, waiting for the right moment. It comes and my cast is away but it’s almost impossible to see exactly where the plug lands. It feels right though, no slack from being pushed by the wave and no extra weight that tells me it’s fouled. Is there anything like the anticipation we feel on the first cast? But with me it’s mixed with a slight hope nobody will be home – I firmly believe in the Curse of the First-Cast Fish, especially if I’m looking forward to a long night of fishing. Catch a fish on the first cast, have lousy action for the rest of the session. It’s happened more times than I can count. Well, no danger of that this time. The pencil popper is soon at my feet, unmolested.
A dozen or so casts later I see a splash of white water, feel the weight and hit the fish firmly. It’s a decent one, for sure, and for an instant I flash on the prospect it could be one of the huge bluefish that also patrol this shore. But no, it bulldogs out toward the reef, no herky-jerky moves that give away a chopper. Has to be a pretty big bass. I glance to my left and Jim and Mike are approaching. Don’t screw up, Jim yells and I know he’s grinning even though it’s almost dark and I can’t see his face. Well, I don’t plan to – watch and learn, my friend. I’m the one who’s grinning now.
A few minutes pass and the fish is coming in, although I know it probably will make one more good run. Just behind the shore break it does but I know I have a solid hook set so I put on more pressure. Now it’s time to use the waves to surf it over the rocks. A minute or so later I have four fingers inside and my thumb outside the jaw of a striper that registers 24 pounds on the scale. Not bad at all, Mike says. I’m thinking that if I don’t catch another fish all night, this is enough. But, of course, I’m not ready to stop casting.
Mike moves away to one side and Jim to the other and we begin working the slough in front of the reef. We all catch respectable stripers in the 30- to 34-inch range but nothing quite as big as that first one.
Farther into the cove is one of my favorite spots to fish on the entire island, the shallow outflow of West End Pond. Time to head down there and try the calmer, protected water. I’ve never caught big numbers of fish in there but the few I have caught have been respectable. The pencil is put away and a medium-size black Danny plug will be put to the test.
Jim and Mike continue to work the corner. I make my way down the cobblestone beach, the hulking presence of the Gosnold Monument over my right shoulder on the tiny island in the pond. The thing always kind of gives me the willies, to be honest, and I can’t tell you why. Maybe because on the side of it is a place that looks like it was once door but is sealed up with stones – who knows what’s in that thing? Take your mind off that, I tell myself. But then I’m at the outflow and begin casting.
Dannys in the Dark
Working a Danny plug, especially after dark in calm water is about as relaxing a style of fishing as I know. Slow is the way to go and if the Danny is swimming correctly it will put out a V-wake as it waddles along on the surface. My black Danny swims back to me time and time again with no interest from anything below.
The stars illuminate the water well, much better than you would expect. They give me just enough light to detect a swirl behind the plug when it’s about 50 feet away. The water is only about six feet deep out there but there is no way to tell how big the fish might be, and after a few more turns of the reel handle I give up on the fish. This is a mistake. As I’m lifting the Danny out of the water to make another cast there is a huge bulge and a swirl and I think I see a dorsal and tail as the striper turns away. It is a huge fish.
No more gazing up at the Milky Way, no more being lulled by the swishing sound of waves rolling up the rocks at the point. Time to focus. I cast again in what I hope was the general direction the fish swam after it turned away. I can barely make out the plug plopping down in the darkness but I let it sit for long seconds before starting to reel, and then slow my retrieve just a bit. This time the fish comes to the plug almost immediately and takes a huge swipe at it.
Is it possible to be too locked in, too ready? I make the classic mistake and react, hitting back before I feel any weight, only aware in that fleeting second of the sound and the splash. A swing and a miss. My own fault. The fish does not follow the plug in this time. I’m screwed and I know it.
A dozen or so more casts but I know the opportunity has passed. If the big striper is still out there, it is a little wiser, and it was certainly wise to begin with. Time to head back to my buddies who are catching a few smaller fish at the point. I will not tell them about the big bass and my mistake until the next day.
The hours pass, a few more 30- or so inch bass are caught and everyone is beat but happy. Time to make the long walk back to the club and crash. Maybe we’ll be able to rally in a few short hours and catch the morning bite but probably not. It’s just too easy to let Cuttyhunk slow you down.
(from the December 2006 Issue of On The Water Magazine)
Source: https://onthewater.com/the-call-of-cuttyhunk
$post[‘post_content’] .= ‘Source‘;
