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S6, Ep 55: On the Salt: David Blinken on Striper Tactics and Bluefish Battles · The Articulate Fly

• 0:03
  Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly,
• 0:06
  Marvin: and we're back with another On the Water with Captain David Blinken. How are you, David?
• 0:12
  David: Good, Marvin. How are you?
• 0:13
  Marvin: As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble, and we were kind of lamenting
• 0:17
  Marvin: before we started recording that you had a bad weather day on Long Island,
• 0:21
  Marvin: and you canceled your charter, and then it didn't really get bad until about
• 0:24
  Marvin: four o'clock in the afternoon.
• 0:25
  David: Noon oh god you know it happens to all of us on occasion looked at the weather
• 0:30
  David: this morning looked like it was going to be windy and rainy and called up the
• 0:34
  David: client and said let's bail,
• 0:37
  David: and then of course we could have fished until noon or one so oh well yeah.
• 0:43
  Marvin: It happens but you know to just kind of refresh folks you're probably what three
• 0:47
  Marvin: weeks into your guide season right now.
• 0:50
  David: Yeah. I mean, I pretty much started around May 9th or 10th this year.
• 0:57
  David: Climate change has made it really nice in some ways.
• 1:01
  David: I mean, it's a horrible thing, but I've been able to start each year over the
• 1:06
  David: past seven, eight years, earlier and earlier.
• 1:08
  David: And this year I started very early, around May 8th or 9th. So, yeah.
• 1:13
  Marvin: Yeah, and so, you know, you've got, I would imagine, Rich, you've got stripers
• 1:17
  Marvin: and you've got bluefish, right?
• 1:20
  David: Absolutely. You know, we started out looking for stripers and,
• 1:25
  David: you know, honestly, not as many as I thought I would see between the forks out here.
• 1:31
  David: I know other people have been finding some decent fishing, but for us,
• 1:36
  David: it's, unless you're fishing, you know, migrators out in the ocean,
• 1:40
  David: it has not been super great.
• 1:43
  David: Um, and we've had a pretty good bluefish run there with, uh,
• 1:48
  David: it was probably averaging, get this averaging 33 inches, which is a pretty serious bluefish.
• 1:55
  Marvin: Yeah. I would imagine that'll put a bend in your rod, right?
• 1:58
  David: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I mean, we're, we're using 10 weights for these guys.
• 2:03
  David: I mean, you can probably catch them on a nine that, uh, it's,
• 2:07
  David: it's nice to have a little extra stick for sure. Also, sometimes you're throwing
• 2:11
  David: bigger stuff than poppers.
• 2:12
  David: So it's nice to have a little more stick.
• 2:17
  Marvin: Got it. And so as the season progresses, I mean, I assume the stripers will
• 2:20
  Marvin: start to move a little bit more into shore because there'll be more bait fish
• 2:25
  Marvin: and more activity like that?
• 2:27
  David: I mean, surprisingly, we don't have a huge amount of bait that's in the bays right now.
• 2:34
  David: Normally, we've got fearing and sand eels and stuff like that.
• 2:38
  David: There seems to be quite a bit in the ocean, but they're not in the bays as of yet.
• 2:43
  David: And I'm hoping once the bait goes in at the bay, we're going to start seeing more strikeouts.
• 2:49
  David: The bluefish will come and go and stuff like that all season long.
• 2:54
  David: But as far as strikers go, we really need something to keep them happy and stay close to us.
• 3:02
  David: So I'm really looking forward to seeing some sand eels and spearing a few in.
• 3:08
  Marvin: Yeah. And in terms of maybe kind of tactics and tackle for the stripers,
• 3:13
  Marvin: how are you approaching that right now?
• 3:16
  David: Well, it depends. Most of the fishing we've been doing this season,
• 3:21
  David: at least I've been doing, I have friends who have been fishing deeper water.
• 3:25
  David: I've been fishing, probably the average water depth has been about two feet.
• 3:30
  David: So we're using floating lines, primarily eight-weight rods and longish leaders,
• 3:38
  David: about anywhere from nine to 11 feet, terminating at 15, 16-pound test.
• 3:45
  David: And most of the flies or we just came off a phenomenal cinderworm hatch so that's
• 3:53
  David: a whole different kind of fishing but most of the flies we've been using are
• 3:57
  David: like small mantis shrimp patterns,
• 4:01
  David: deceivers that match,
• 4:04
  David: the normal quarry they're going on in the first couple of weeks we were basically
• 4:10
  David: using pink deceivers, kind of a washed out pink topped with a little peacock roll.
• 4:15
  David: And that was kind of the flight of the year for the striped bass the first two
• 4:19
  David: weeks of the season. And that was a lot of fun.
• 4:23
  Marvin: Got it. And got a question for you from Brenner. And this is kind of a great
• 4:27
  Marvin: as we're kind of kicking off at the beginning of your season.
• 4:29
  Marvin: He wanted to kind of get your preferred line and rod combos for inshore fishing for stripers and blues.
• 4:39
  David: Ensure if you're fishing them on a flat we kind of talked about it a bit um
• 4:44
  David: certainly for stroke bass um uh my my primary rod uh is an eight weight certainly
• 4:51
  David: a nine weight is is very good too,
• 4:54
  David: with floating line leaders terminating between 15 and 20.
• 4:59
  David: Uh and for bluefish uh especially you know the ones that are kind of daisy chaining
• 5:05
  David: and up on the flats and shallow water i'm i'm a
• 5:08
  David: big fan of uh all of 10 weights and
• 5:11
  David: even though nine weights are are very usable to
• 5:15
  David: them uh occasionally you'll get a bluefish over
• 5:18
  David: 34 35 inches and you're really happy to have a rod that's got a little extra
• 5:24
  David: pulling power and as far as the bluefish rods go um i usually have my My leader's
• 5:30
  David: tapering from either 40 or 50 pound down to about 25.
• 5:36
  David: And when I tie on about a foot and a half section of 60, just using a simple
• 5:44
  David: Albright special or an Albright knot.
• 5:49
  David: And the reason why I'm tying on 60 pound, either 4,000 or mono,
• 5:55
  David: is one, if there's a striped bass in the neighborhood, you have a better chance of catching them.
• 5:59
  David: Uh, and, uh, and the clearness of it, I just think makes you a little more invisible
• 6:06
  David: and, and people think bluefish will strike at anything, but bluefish can be rather picky.
• 6:11
  David: They, they, especially in shallow water, they can, they can get very picky.
• 6:15
  David: So I like to have my leader, uh, as invisible as possible.
• 6:23
  David: So that's kind of my, uh, my philosophy. if I was fishing bluefish in deeper
• 6:28
  David: water that are kind of whack in anything,
• 6:32
  David: maybe some piano wire and tie that on to the end and that would work got it.
• 6:38
  Marvin: And so if you use 60 do you not need to use any kind of like bite tippet.
• 6:43
  David: Well, the 60 pound test is the bite ticket.
• 6:46
  Marvin: Yeah, that was what I thought. I just wanted to make sure.
• 6:49
  David: Yes. And I'll usually retie after each fish.
• 6:53
  David: So that's why I said like the foot and a half or so long so that I'll get to
• 6:57
  David: retie, you know, four or five, six times before I have to, you know, tie in a new hunk of 60.
• 7:04
  David: So that, you know, just makes it a little more manageable.
• 7:08
  David: And, you know, I'm not going for any IGFA records with my clients or anything.
• 7:12
  David: If I was, I think the required length is about 12 inches for a shotgun.
• 7:18
  David: So, but, you know, and it's got to be 20 pounds or less, which we're not doing any of that stuff.
• 7:26
  Marvin: Fair enough. And, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
• 7:29
  Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media. DM me. We're going to continue
• 7:33
  Marvin: like we did before to make David's life easier.
• 7:36
  Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
• 7:39
  Marvin: And David and I are still kind of working out what the drawing is going to be for this series.
• 7:45
  Marvin: But David, before I let you go, I guess a couple of things. I know you've got
• 7:48
  Marvin: some trips coming up kind of towards the end of the summer and end of the fall.
• 7:51
  Marvin: And then also, you know, if you can kind of share folks, you know,
• 7:55
  Marvin: your contact info. So if they want to go to the boat with you, they can do that too.
• 7:59
  David: Yeah, if they want to, they can contact me at davidblinken at gmail.com.
• 8:05
  David: That'll be the easiest way to get me. And my last name is spelled B-L-I-N-K-E-N,
• 8:13
  David: first name David. No dot, no underscore.
• 8:17
  David: And they can certainly get me that way. And yeah, I'll just tell you about a couple of trips we have.
• 8:23
  David: We've got an August trip to Tarpon down in Campeche, Mexico,
• 8:27
  David: which is always very exciting.
• 8:29
  David: August is one of the prime months for tarpon in Mexico.
• 8:33
  David: And we're fishing for juvenile tarpon. And they go anywhere from five pounds
• 8:38
  David: to 50 pounds, depending on how lucky you are that day.
• 8:42
  David: And that's an awful lot of fun. So, you know, if anyone out there wants to join
• 8:45
  David: us, we might have a rod or two available.
• 8:48
  David: And then we go back two more times in November and December.
• 8:53
  David: And that's what we have planned. planned
• 8:56
  David: and i'll also be a guest guide martha's vineyard uh starting around uh the 15th
• 9:04
  David: of august so if no one's ever fished the vineyard uh you know it's a it's a
• 9:09
  David: really interesting time and there's still plenty of stripers around and all
• 9:13
  David: this on the vineyard very.
• 9:15
  Marvin: Very neat yeah and your august trip you've even uh you know an interesting thing
• 9:19
  Marvin: too is your buddy steve ramirez or actually i should say our buddy steve ramirez
• 9:22
  Marvin: is going to be on that trip.
• 9:24
  David: Yeah, Steve is going to be on that trip and hoping somebody else I'm speaking
• 9:29
  David: to right now might be able to join us. And that would be an awful lot of fun.
• 9:32
  Marvin: It would be a lot of fun.
• 9:33
  David: I'm working on it. Yeah, yeah.
• 9:36
  David: And all I can say is eight waits at dawn, Morgan.
• 9:42
  Marvin: Yeah, I looked at the website and they said they serve breakfast promptly at 5 a.m.
• 9:48
  David: Oh yeah and if you're not out of bed at 5 a.m believe me you're gonna have uh
• 9:53
  David: captain david blinken shaking you out saying it's it's too late for breakfast we're going to the boat.
• 10:00
  Marvin: Hey so you better better put some neutrograin bars in your luggage then right
• 10:03
  Marvin: always there you go well listen folks show it to yourself to get out there and
• 10:09
  Marvin: catch a few tight lines everybody tight lines david take.
• 10:13
  David: Care marvin bye.