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.