Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly,

Marvin: and we're back with another On the Water with Captain David Blinken. How are you, David?

David: Good, Marvin. How are you?

Marvin: As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble, and we were kind of lamenting

Marvin: before we started recording that you had a bad weather day on Long Island,

Marvin: and you canceled your charter, and then it didn't really get bad until about

Marvin: four o'clock in the afternoon.

David: Noon oh god you know it happens to all of us on occasion looked at the weather

David: this morning looked like it was going to be windy and rainy and called up the

David: client and said let's bail,

David: and then of course we could have fished until noon or one so oh well yeah.

Marvin: It happens but you know to just kind of refresh folks you're probably what three

Marvin: weeks into your guide season right now.

David: Yeah. I mean, I pretty much started around May 9th or 10th this year.

David: Climate change has made it really nice in some ways.

David: I mean, it's a horrible thing, but I've been able to start each year over the

David: past seven, eight years, earlier and earlier.

David: And this year I started very early, around May 8th or 9th. So, yeah.

Marvin: Yeah, and so, you know, you've got, I would imagine, Rich, you've got stripers

Marvin: and you've got bluefish, right?

David: Absolutely. You know, we started out looking for stripers and,

David: you know, honestly, not as many as I thought I would see between the forks out here.

David: I know other people have been finding some decent fishing, but for us,

David: it's, unless you're fishing, you know, migrators out in the ocean,

David: it has not been super great.

David: Um, and we've had a pretty good bluefish run there with, uh,

David: it was probably averaging, get this averaging 33 inches, which is a pretty serious bluefish.

Marvin: Yeah. I would imagine that'll put a bend in your rod, right?

David: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I mean, we're, we're using 10 weights for these guys.

David: I mean, you can probably catch them on a nine that, uh, it's,

David: it's nice to have a little extra stick for sure. Also, sometimes you're throwing

David: bigger stuff than poppers.

David: So it's nice to have a little more stick.

Marvin: Got it. And so as the season progresses, I mean, I assume the stripers will

Marvin: start to move a little bit more into shore because there'll be more bait fish

Marvin: and more activity like that?

David: I mean, surprisingly, we don't have a huge amount of bait that's in the bays right now.

David: Normally, we've got fearing and sand eels and stuff like that.

David: There seems to be quite a bit in the ocean, but they're not in the bays as of yet.

David: And I'm hoping once the bait goes in at the bay, we're going to start seeing more strikeouts.

David: The bluefish will come and go and stuff like that all season long.

David: But as far as strikers go, we really need something to keep them happy and stay close to us.

David: So I'm really looking forward to seeing some sand eels and spearing a few in.

Marvin: Yeah. And in terms of maybe kind of tactics and tackle for the stripers,

Marvin: how are you approaching that right now?

David: Well, it depends. Most of the fishing we've been doing this season,

David: at least I've been doing, I have friends who have been fishing deeper water.

David: I've been fishing, probably the average water depth has been about two feet.

David: So we're using floating lines, primarily eight-weight rods and longish leaders,

David: about anywhere from nine to 11 feet, terminating at 15, 16-pound test.

David: And most of the flies or we just came off a phenomenal cinderworm hatch so that's

David: a whole different kind of fishing but most of the flies we've been using are

David: like small mantis shrimp patterns,

David: deceivers that match,

David: the normal quarry they're going on in the first couple of weeks we were basically

David: using pink deceivers, kind of a washed out pink topped with a little peacock roll.

David: And that was kind of the flight of the year for the striped bass the first two

David: weeks of the season. And that was a lot of fun.

Marvin: Got it. And got a question for you from Brenner. And this is kind of a great

Marvin: as we're kind of kicking off at the beginning of your season.

Marvin: He wanted to kind of get your preferred line and rod combos for inshore fishing for stripers and blues.

David: Ensure if you're fishing them on a flat we kind of talked about it a bit um

David: certainly for stroke bass um uh my my primary rod uh is an eight weight certainly

David: a nine weight is is very good too,

David: with floating line leaders terminating between 15 and 20.

David: Uh and for bluefish uh especially you know the ones that are kind of daisy chaining

David: and up on the flats and shallow water i'm i'm a

David: big fan of uh all of 10 weights and

David: even though nine weights are are very usable to

David: them uh occasionally you'll get a bluefish over

David: 34 35 inches and you're really happy to have a rod that's got a little extra

David: pulling power and as far as the bluefish rods go um i usually have my My leader's

David: tapering from either 40 or 50 pound down to about 25.

David: And when I tie on about a foot and a half section of 60, just using a simple

David: Albright special or an Albright knot.

David: And the reason why I'm tying on 60 pound, either 4,000 or mono,

David: is one, if there's a striped bass in the neighborhood, you have a better chance of catching them.

David: Uh, and, uh, and the clearness of it, I just think makes you a little more invisible

David: and, and people think bluefish will strike at anything, but bluefish can be rather picky.

David: They, they, especially in shallow water, they can, they can get very picky.

David: So I like to have my leader, uh, as invisible as possible.

David: So that's kind of my, uh, my philosophy. if I was fishing bluefish in deeper

David: water that are kind of whack in anything,

David: maybe some piano wire and tie that on to the end and that would work got it.

Marvin: And so if you use 60 do you not need to use any kind of like bite tippet.

David: Well, the 60 pound test is the bite ticket.

Marvin: Yeah, that was what I thought. I just wanted to make sure.

David: Yes. And I'll usually retie after each fish.

David: So that's why I said like the foot and a half or so long so that I'll get to

David: retie, you know, four or five, six times before I have to, you know, tie in a new hunk of 60.

David: So that, you know, just makes it a little more manageable.

David: And, you know, I'm not going for any IGFA records with my clients or anything.

David: If I was, I think the required length is about 12 inches for a shotgun.

David: So, but, you know, and it's got to be 20 pounds or less, which we're not doing any of that stuff.

Marvin: Fair enough. And, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.

Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media. DM me. We're going to continue

Marvin: like we did before to make David's life easier.

Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.

Marvin: And David and I are still kind of working out what the drawing is going to be for this series.

Marvin: But David, before I let you go, I guess a couple of things. I know you've got

Marvin: some trips coming up kind of towards the end of the summer and end of the fall.

Marvin: And then also, you know, if you can kind of share folks, you know,

Marvin: your contact info. So if they want to go to the boat with you, they can do that too.

David: Yeah, if they want to, they can contact me at davidblinken at gmail.com.

David: That'll be the easiest way to get me. And my last name is spelled B-L-I-N-K-E-N,

David: first name David. No dot, no underscore.

David: And they can certainly get me that way. And yeah, I'll just tell you about a couple of trips we have.

David: We've got an August trip to Tarpon down in Campeche, Mexico,

David: which is always very exciting.

David: August is one of the prime months for tarpon in Mexico.

David: And we're fishing for juvenile tarpon. And they go anywhere from five pounds

David: to 50 pounds, depending on how lucky you are that day.

David: And that's an awful lot of fun. So, you know, if anyone out there wants to join

David: us, we might have a rod or two available.

David: And then we go back two more times in November and December.

David: And that's what we have planned. planned

David: and i'll also be a guest guide martha's vineyard uh starting around uh the 15th

David: of august so if no one's ever fished the vineyard uh you know it's a it's a

David: really interesting time and there's still plenty of stripers around and all

David: this on the vineyard very.

Marvin: Very neat yeah and your august trip you've even uh you know an interesting thing

Marvin: too is your buddy steve ramirez or actually i should say our buddy steve ramirez

Marvin: is going to be on that trip.

David: Yeah, Steve is going to be on that trip and hoping somebody else I'm speaking

David: to right now might be able to join us. And that would be an awful lot of fun.

Marvin: It would be a lot of fun.

David: I'm working on it. Yeah, yeah.

David: And all I can say is eight waits at dawn, Morgan.

Marvin: Yeah, I looked at the website and they said they serve breakfast promptly at 5 a.m.

David: Oh yeah and if you're not out of bed at 5 a.m believe me you're gonna have uh

David: captain david blinken shaking you out saying it's it's too late for breakfast we're going to the boat.

Marvin: Hey so you better better put some neutrograin bars in your luggage then right

Marvin: always there you go well listen folks show it to yourself to get out there and

Marvin: catch a few tight lines everybody tight lines david take.

David: Care marvin bye.