Anglers Iliad

Early October means Big Bass, Blues and more Albies (2011)

2011-12-08T14:25:00.001-08:00

Fall means Striped Bass in the Elizabeth Islands

2011-12-08T14:05:00.001-08:00

Fall means Albies in Buzzards Bay (september 2011)

2011-12-08T14:02:00.001-08:00

Fall Fishing in New England (september 2011)

2011-09-09T08:19:00.000-07:00

What a way to spend the Summer (august 2011)

2011-09-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

In Search of "Charlie the Tuna" (august 2011)

2011-09-09T08:02:00.001-07:00

August Madness !

2011-09-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

In search of "Walter" (August 2011)

2011-09-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

August Striped Bass (who knew ?)

2011-09-09T07:27:00.001-07:00

august blues

2011-09-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

August is Awesome ~

2011-09-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

flyfishing the islands !!!

2011-07-31T07:59:00.001-07:00

Woods Hole to Cuttyhunk Island

2011-07-31T07:55:00.001-07:00

Elizabeth Islands and Martha's Vineyard

2011-07-31T07:47:00.000-07:00

Gators and Bass

2011-07-22T15:48:00.001-07:00

July Bass fishing...

2011-07-22T15:44:00.001-07:00

SLOB !

2011-07-22T15:41:00.001-07:00

F.O.G.

2011-07-22T15:39:00.001-07:00

floating lines and pop, pop, pop...

2011-07-22T15:32:00.001-07:00

fishing families (july 2011)

2011-07-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

Baby Bluefin and Offshore Blues...

2011-07-22T15:23:00.001-07:00

Topwater fishin'

2011-07-22T15:21:00.001-07:00

July Bassin'

2011-07-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

Mucho Blues and Bass...

2011-06-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

Bass and Now BLUES ! (june 2011)

2011-06-30T06:08:00.000-07:00

Bass in the Bay !

2011-06-30T06:05:00.001-07:00

More flats fishing (june 2011)

2011-06-30T06:03:00.001-07:00

New Yorkers on the flats of Cape Cod !

2011-06-23T08:53:00.000-07:00

Strait out of Brokyln (june 2011)

2011-06-23T08:36:00.001-07:00

Left Coasters

2011-06-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

Hog Hunter !

2011-06-13T16:44:00.001-07:00

Hog Donkey (june 2011)

2011-06-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

Buzzards Bay and The Elizabeth Islands (june 2011)

2011-06-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

Cape Cod Striped Bass (june 2011)

2011-06-12T13:45:00.001-07:00

June 2011 (Good To Be Home) !

2011-06-12T13:34:00.001-07:00

Dear Mr. Blue Fin Tuna : Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !

2010-12-16T08:10:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Blue fin Tuna :

I do not know where you are now, perhaps you are swimming in the cool waters just south of New York and New Jersey during this holiday season, or perhaps you have returned to the rough waters off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Either way Mr. Blue fin the time for long warm summer days fishing for you here in New England are long gone. It was awesome to see so many of you this year between the ages of 7-10 years old, and when you return to our waters next summer you will probably be astronomically bigger. I hope that your travels this winter, weather it be into the Gulf of Mexico where modern man with all his wisdom has displaced so much oil from under the bottom of the sea into the waters where you swim, or over to the Mediterranean Sea rounding the Northern tip of Africa and swimming through the Straight of Gibraltar where many fisherman and pirates will hope to get rich from the sale of your hides. Perhaps you know of some warm water currents in the mid Atlantic Ocean where you are safe from man and man made pollution, and if you have found such a place I hope that you enjoy your time away this wintery season, because next year you will have to come back to Cape Cod and places where I fish. Next year I will be ready for you with larger tackle and heavier line and if you think that you can so easily crash our lures and take our baits only to get away again like you have already done so many times in the past, then know this you dirty little buggers, we will be waiting and we will be ready for you ! Seventy-eight inches, no problem ! Eighty inches, no problem ! We will be ready for you. We caught you this summer, and we will catch you again ! Catch and Release if you can not be taken and each time we catch you we are going to take a picture post it on the internet to embarrass you. Look at me the Giant Blue Fin Tuna who swims across the entire planet, probably has roots in another solar system because I can do things no other fish can do, my meat so precious that men are willing to go to any length on the open ocean to find me, and here I am caught with a spinning rod and a simple lure with one hook and a fluorocarbon leader. Haha !

shallow water bass fishing !

2010-10-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

Monstah Blues !

2010-10-11T16:56:00.001-07:00

:~

2010-10-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

Breezy Fall !

2010-10-11T16:27:00.001-07:00

Bass, Blues, and Albies :)

2010-09-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

New Mexico to Cuttyhunk and Back Again....

2010-09-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

Hardtail Hunter !

2010-09-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

The Colors of Fall...

2010-09-16T05:44:00.001-07:00

With everything in motion southward we find ourselves waking to a chill in the morning air. The colors of fall in New England are spectacular '

Fall Blitzing !

2010-09-13T16:34:00.001-07:00

The Fall Run has started !!!

2010-09-01T18:53:00.001-07:00

End of August Bluefish Madness !

2010-09-01T18:51:00.001-07:00

Bonito Kid !

2010-08-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

Linesiders

2010-08-21T10:51:00.001-07:00

Even Philly Phans can catch fish !

2010-08-19T10:58:00.001-07:00

Murder on Martha's Vineyard !

2010-08-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

Light tackle and Vodka

2010-08-11T17:02:00.000-07:00

Stripers in the Elizabeth Islands

2010-08-09T07:06:00.001-07:00

Bass and Blues on super light rods !

2010-08-05T17:02:00.001-07:00

15 lb. boga grip pinned on a bluefish :)

2010-07-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

2010-07-25T19:46:00.000-07:00

Releasing Giant Bluefin Boatside

2010-07-14T15:29:00.000-07:00

The Colors of Summertime

2010-07-12T19:06:00.000-07:00

whooosh

2010-07-07T14:01:00.001-07:00

1972 Aquasport 22'2" in action

2010-07-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

Bluefin Tuna "Catch & Release"

2010-07-04T08:11:00.001-07:00

Stripers and Bluefin Tuna in Junah'

2010-06-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

Warm, Long days...

2010-06-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

Mooooo Bass-a-low

2010-06-15T14:43:00.001-07:00

Home again, home again, jigidy, jig

2010-06-09T17:49:00.000-07:00

Happy to be home and fishing in buzzards bay and vineyard sound again. The bass fishing has been off the hook and we have also been catching tuna 130 - 250 lbs.

September 2k9 Slob Stripers (on the buggy whip)

2010-02-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

When the water starts to cool around Buzzards Bay and the Islands it usually means that the bass are coming back in, and coming in good numbers. For around 6 weeks this fall they have taken up shop in a few places along the South Coast shoreline. It has been fun trying to get the really big ones on the surface with the fly rod, but this is not easy (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME) and just about everything that can go wrong does go wrong. In the rare event that nothing goes wrong and the fishing gods shine on us we have landed some amazing and beautiful Striped Bass (toads) with the buggy whipp...

September 2k9 half beak feeds

2010-02-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

September means cool mornings and for me the beautiful drive through Rochester and Carver across old country cranberry bogs full of water and floating red berries. It also means it is time for the Tuna to turn it on. This year we started to see the schools of Blue fin Tuna feeding on the surface on half beaks early in September. What a sight, and some days you could set your watch to it. Unfortunately it did not last for more than a few hours each day, so as the feeds got later and later the rest of the day was a dud. But unlike many other species of fish in the worlds oceans you can not change tactics and do something else because as soon as you do the Tuna will throw you a curve ball and feed all day long.

Monster Bluefin (ooops) August 2k9

2010-02-17T17:40:00.000-08:00

A couple years ago (2005) if you had told me we were going to be catching these simple, easy 20-30 lb. baby Blue fin Tuna on the heaviest tackle known to man and it would most likely hurt you really bad, possibly throw your back out for weeks, I would have said Naaahhh.... But here we are, not only are the cute little Tuna that were approximately 30-33" and jumping around in front of my Glacier Bay Catamaran outside of Westport Harbor, now putting truck size holes in the water off Gloucester, Massachusetts, they are mean (grrrr). I watched as Ryan and Rob worked hard (I had to run the camera) on a Tuna that was around 75 inches today. It was totally nuts. We all saw it eat a Tattoo Sea Dog (white) like it was a small piece of candy left in front of a hungry French guy who has not eaten in three weeks and then the battle was on. Ryan did his part. He whined, got really sweaty, and looked like he was going to black out before Rob stepped in and brought the fish to the boat, where we gaffed it and brought it along side the boat (which suddenly looked small). I called Ryan a sissy, I did, but this fish was HUGE and I am glad he hooked it instead of me.

Aug 2k9 Bluefin (who is killing who ?)

2010-02-17T17:22:00.000-08:00

The size and power of these Blue fin Tuna is just astounding. I have fished with several different groups of anglers in the last few weeks who have all but thrown in the towel. In some cases these are anglers who have caught large Tuna before and just had their asses handed to them. Gotta love it if all you have to do is drive the boat, but come on this is mean business people. I watched as we hooked into a Blue fin that was approximately 75 inches and full of piss and vinegar. All I wanted to do was unhook that fish, and now. I sometimes try to explain to the anglers what they are in for so they can pace themselves. It doesn't work. One needs to do this type of fishing on a regular basis to know exactly how hard you can pull and when. So when someone who has been hoping to hook into a large Blue fin for years finally gets hooked up on spinning gear or fly gear, look out excitement, anxiety, adrenaline, and then 30 minutes later tears. What a great deal for them huh ? Seriously though as these fish are getting larger there is more and more heartache. It is a wonder that we can catch these fish at all.

July/ Aug 2k9 The sights sounds and smells of New England

2010-02-17T17:17:00.001-08:00

You can almost smell the salt air.

July 2k9 Tuna (gotta love it when a plan comes together)

2010-02-17T17:07:00.000-08:00

So here we go, fishing for Blue fin Tuna, but this time we need to put a large Tuna in the boat in a very short time and deliver it to the dock so that preparations can begin. This Tuna, even though we had not caught it yet was scheduled to be on the menu for a wedding here in Southeastern Mass. Crazy Dave tells me after we put the beast in the boat, "Good work Joe, lets go home, my Daughter is going to be so happy". Can you imagine the look on my face ? What if I new this crazy family was counting on me to produce fresh Blue fin Tuna for a wedding. I mean this is the young lady's first marriage, not a second or dirty third, this is the first one, whoawah I am glad I didn't know the plan.

July 2k9 fishing with Kids

2010-02-17T16:26:00.000-08:00

Of course the biggest kid on the planet is Ned Taylor and I had the opportunity to fish with Captain Courageous himself again this July. We slayed the fish and he only broke a couple things. As well throughout the month of July and August I had the opportunity to fish with Kids from around the country while they are visiting Cape Cod for a little summer vacation. Sometimes we really get lucky and we can take kids out for Fluke, Scup, Black Sea Bass, and throw in a little Striped Bass and Bluefish to round out the day (or 1/2 day). This past month I have been fortunate to locate all these species of child pleasing and put them together in a fishing trip that begins and ends without disaster (see children in the dictionary).

July 2k9 Stripers Set the hook, Ya Hear !

2010-02-17T16:08:00.000-08:00

It is always fun fishing with good anglers. I enjoy teaching, and do it allot, but every now and then I fish with folks that have been doing this fly fishing thing longer than I have been alive (1971 for those who are counting). In many cases it is a chance for me to learn a little about the types of things that people bring with them from their angling adventures around the globe. I have enjoyed some great sight fishing for Striped Bass and has shots at some Stripers that were truly monsters. What is the case during this past month and has been the case for as long as I can remember is that we don't always catch those super slob monster bassalo we see, in fact we usually don't catch them at all, but that very rarely matters because if you are in a position where you are seeing the Walters of the Striped Bass world, you will probably be catching Striped Bass large enough to challenge 99% of the best anglers in the world (80% of the time). So having some of these great moments lately watching Walter slide off into the deep green waters where hence he came and attacked the fly, but hey, why worry, we will get him next year (as I like to say :)

June 2k9 Bluefin Tuna (already)

2010-02-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

O.K.

so who needs to wait until September for the Blue fin Tuna ? Not me, they started showing up in the waters around Cape Cod this year while I was still fishing for Tarpon in Southwest, Fl. and they filled up just about every square inch of water before Father's Day again this year. It was Fathers day 2008 when myself and a couple friends fished in the rain together. With the horrible weather forecast we all had to cancel our charters and then headed out on the water together. Nuts huh ? So there we were after hours of catching crazed schools of Blue fin Tuna feeding like wild dogs and then just when we thought it could not get any nuttier it did. One of the largest deep water schools of adult Menhaden swam right in front of the boat and into the same waters as they "Very Hungry" and now apparently "skitzophrantic" Blue fin Tuna. It was simply laughable what the surface feeds were like. I have never seen anything like it. 300 lb. Tuna were sliding through bait balls of adult Menhaden that were around 13 inches long. The bait was so scared that they were actually able to levitate themselves out of the water with a conscious group effort and very frenzied behavior which makes a normal school of Menhaden swimming in a circle look like they are asleep. None of these Tuna had any idea what was going on around them and I not only hooked up with and lost fish that were hooked up right next to the boat, but I actually felt like we could have poked them with the end of a fly rod. In the order of the Universe where we spend days looking for just one of these silly fish to jump out of the water, that was a little hard for me to swallow. So anyways here it is June again and they are up to these tricks again. Who knew ?

June 2k9 Striped Bass cranking up the coast

2010-02-17T15:21:00.000-08:00

Every year I drive myself, boat, family, and all of our crap up the east coast to our sleepy little town of Marion. Our town with a long fishing history nestled into the northern corner of Buzzards Bay is so perfectly suited for me and my family it is as if it was built just for us. The spring time is a wonderful time when all the trees are bursting into bloom and the flowers are radiating all the colors of the spectrum again and as we drive north you can feel the wheel of life turning. Somewhere around the Mid Atlantic states the LeClair family's migration begins to overlap with the northern migration of the Atlantic Striped Bass. Just knowing that they have gathered into Massive schools that will migrate together along the coast of the United States is one of the coolest things a human being can imagine or envision, and this is exactly what I am doing each spring as I make my drive home. I am often already on the phone with other fishing guides who have hit the waters in the Northeast before I have, and it is the anticipation and eagerness to be back out on the water again that drives us all. In many ways I have shaped my entire life around this simple movement and migration of these awesome creatures and looking forward to the days of summer when they arrive to the waters around New England again seems like such a simple ordinary occurrence, but it is so much more to many of us.