One summer about a hundred years ago—I was twelve or so—I remember that acid rain was everywhere, all over the newspapers, on the news, in the magazines. Acid rain was polluting lakes and streams, cutting swaths through forests, killing birds and fish and god knows what else, and generally wreaking havoc on our environment. I was livid about it—livid the way people get about sinister forces they don’t understand.
That summer on our family vacation, two glorious August weeks in the unspoiled Adirondack wilderness, my brothers, Dad and I were fishing ourselves almost catatonic (at least I was) but we weren’t catching squat—no smallmouths, no pike, largemouths, even bullheads. My brothers, T and Fe, who were much older than I, and I imagine fishing for different reasons, took the repeated skunkings in stride. I knew better. Acid rain. Acid rain killed ‘em all.
It was in the second week, one evening as the light began to drain out of the westward sky that my brothers and I decided to take a quick shot across the lake before dinner, fish one cove and its long lanes of open water flanked by dense mats of lilypads. Where we seldom fished out of anything but the canoe or guideboat—I was raised on the virtues of stealth in fishing—a narrow window of fishable time and the need for three-man space dictated the use of the dreaded AlumaTub, an outboard-powered tin skiff with all the grace and aesthetic appeal of the oldest garbage truck in the Bronx.
As we clanged, winced, and cast our way around this prime cove, my brothers exchanged unpleasantries about the horrible racket each was causing, and we all bemoaned what the craft underfoot was probably doing to what were already long odds of catching so much as one stunted perch. Despite repeated admonitions that it was too dark for the spinner I was flinging, I maintained that the particular cove we were fishing was pike territory, and that I would be using my “pike spinner” until it was full-dark or we moved. I knew it didn’t matter anyway. In the Acid Rain Era, I still enjoyed the challenge of dropping long casts within inches of the weeds—a game that had already forced at least one mission into the lilypads to retrieve the aforementioned Mepps.
I was reasonably certain my spinner had once again dropped into the salad when, momentarily speechless, I watched my line start to angle away from the cover. Cranking for all I was worth, I soon gathered the slack and hollered out something about a fish. A moment later, my fish, a pike well over two feet long presented its flank and one of my brothers slipped a net under her. Honestly, I’d caught bullheads that fought harder, but I was so intensely relieved to see a fish that I just about hugged the bewildered critter. As I recall, over the days that followed, we all caught additional fish—both smallies and pike—and I doubt I said another word, then or ever thereafter, about acid rain.
I mention this because through the month of May, there have been so many fishermen wringing their hands about wild changes in this season’s fisheries—most notably squid—and also some major sighs of relief at the sudden appearance of “doomed” fish like school stripers and even some weakfish. It’s easy, especially in a season of persistent cold water and late-running fish, to lose sight of the normal fluctuations in fish stocks or migratory timing, to attribute a lack of fish to some catastrophic event, some dramatic but unseen change. It’s equally easy to interpret an event we’ve seen for a season or three as the new “normal.”
I have entertained grave concerns about the lack of a significant showing of squid in Block Island and Rhode Island Sounds, especially in light of the intense pressure those critters have faced in recent seasons when the endless snarl of regulations has given fishermen little choice but to pound the beach with fine twine. Then again, I’ve considered that for a few years now, and the squid have piled up in ever-denser concentrations each consecutive spring. Accordingly, my gut tells me that things are just running a bit behind the schedule of the last couple warm springs—that the squid will show up like gangbusters any minute, all the accumulated worry burning off over the course of a few days.
Consider also all the knitted brows in recent seasons over what many have been calling a total lack of schoolie-sized bass in the overall striper stock: Somehow, amid all this genuine concern, the south shore, the Bay, and Block Island have all been just about rotten with nursery-schoolies this spring. I wouldn’t want to make any grand declarations based on any of this, but it does speak to the volumes we do not know about what’s unfolding beneath the water’s surface from here well past the horizon. Mother Nature abhors an expert.
What makes it all so tricky is that we are all witnessing change on a global climatic scale. We also live and fish in the long shadow of stocks that have buckled under a some fishing pressure. It’s a delicate balancing act to move ahead with some measure of caution—to prove through our attitudes and behavior that we can learn from past mistakes—without becoming serial overthinkers and over-reactors to every normal fluctuation in the wildly complex ecosystems we spend lifetimes trying to fathom.
Either way, it’s June. And squid or no squid, fishing is now officially in high gear. One pattern I do feel comfortable committing to is that, absent the “fall run” fishing your fathers and grandfathers were forever fishing in anticipation of, there is no more reliable time in striper fishing than this month. Yes, the July moons, August, early September will bear witness to most of the biggest bass Block Island waters will turn out this year, but in terms of angling opportunity in every corner of Rhode Island waters all at once, the time is right now. Look alive. This is not a dress rehearsal. There are no do-overs. Get out there now and give it hell. There will be plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead.
Build roadblocks between prospective new anglers and our state’s outstanding fisheries. It has never been more important to weigh out the huge long-term cost of saving a couple bucks on that plug or reel by making your purchase at Bigboxorama.
When you see your local tackle shop or a reputable charter or party boat advertising in these pages, know that they’re supporting this mini-community built on a common love for local salt waters. If you believe in our cause, show that by supporting them—and while you’re at it, tell them you saw their ad in these pages. If, in the meantime, you have an “Oh s@#$!” or an “Attaboy!” or better yet, some candid thoughts about stories we should run, spots or tactics we should spotlight, you can get me at zhfished@gmail.com.
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