I remember the first time I caught a big(ger) fish on a popper. It was about 8 or 9 years ago and came at the end of a long September afternoon. It was a late summer high pressure day, with the wind blowing from the NW with a touch of fall in the air. I had spent my afternoon fishing the pocket and the point at watch hill catching schoolies and blues on rubber baits and redfins. There were peanut bunker everywhere and bluefish blasting out on the Watch Hill rips during the incoming. Wind over my shoulder and smooth short swells coming in nicely over the reef into the pocket. The fish were very agreeable that afternoon but they were small.
About two or three hours before sunset I decided pick up and relocate. As I walked up the hill on Lighthouse Rd back to my car on Larkin I looked over at Napatree. I never made the hike before that and figured today was as good as any to try. With two rods in hand and a bag of plugs I started to make the walk.
I started hiking the beach side but decided to cross over to the back at some point. The water was low enough to cross the gut on the north side. As I rounded the first bend to the point I could see fish breaking about 1/4 to 1/2 mile from the point. Black little footballs shooting over the surface. Looked like falsies and I remember it got me pretty excited at the time. When I got to the point I was kind of taken back by the sight of piling remnants from a Hurricane of '38 victim exposed a couple of hundred yards from the rubble covered point. The only one left and it was standing in water. I'll never build a house on the beach :).
The wind was blowing hard from my right. Combined with the solid swell riding in on the flood and the 2-3 foot tall wind driven chop meeting it in the middle, the area looked like a giant round sink full of bubble bath white foam laying unbroken at my feet. "Perfect!" I thought to myself.
There were people hiking around the point and only one other fisherman on a rock inside the point fishing over this whitewash filled hole. I didn't pay any attention to him at this point as I was too concerned with getting my gear together and locating a suitable perch. I got out and started tossing the redfin but the crosswind combined with my fast rod proved to be incapable of reaching water more than a few yards from my feet. I tied on a shad and lost it pretty quick in the bubble weed that was covering the bottom.
Now I decided to look to my left at the fisherman less than 50 yards from my location. His rod bent over was the first thing I remember seeing so I watched. He was an older guy, 60 maybe 70 and he was making short work of the fish he had recently tied into. He knelt down and in one smooth motion plucked the fish from the surf by its jaw. The fish had to go 35 to 40 inches and he pulled the plug from it's mouth and gave it a toss back into the surf. My heart rate started to climb.
I collected myself a bit and tried to manage a visual on what he was using. Looked like a bottleneck popper. "I got one of those!" So I went running back to my bag and tied my redheaded Gibbs bottle neck on. I went back to my rock and saw that my neighbor was into another fish. My first cast slapped the water no more than 15 feet from my rock. Forgot to open the bail since I was now quivering with excitement. Next cast I shot out a bomb. I started working back the popper like I always did and then it happened. A splash. I stopped... Nothing... Started moving again and nothing happened. Cast to the same spot, but this time it wasn't my plug that got struck. I noticed something else that had been invisible to me at first. There were bass rising and splashing on the white choppy water. Their movements were camoflauged by the seas if you didn't know what to look for. But after I did, I would see large, reddish tails slashing the surf. I never thought a bass tail looked at all red until that day when I saw them against the white foamy background. They were everywhere and they weren't small. This was full daylight too!
After a couple more unsuccessful casts I remembered that I had a neighbor that was doing pretty well to my left, so I stopped and watched. He was still casting the popper, near the fish I was after and he would hook up within seconds. Just about every cast. His motions and rod actions really began to intrigue me. He was fishing with a motion unlike any I had seen before. It wasn't a dramatic change from what I knew but it was disciplined and steady and apparently very productive. With the rod tip high and a steady retrieve he gave the plug a double twitch and a slow reel. Twitch, twitch, reel...... Twitch, twitch, reel..... BANG! He was on again. It wasn't a big splashing pull of the plug. It was more subtle, but still fast at the same time. Steady.
"I can do this." So I cast out and began my new retrieve. Twitch, twitch, reel.... Splash! I leaned back on the plug and..... Nothing. Except almost falling off my rock. Continued the retrieve the same way and got splashed again but felt no pressure so I stopped. When I got the plug back I thought to myself "this is working but why aren't they taking the plug?" I decided to watch my neighbor one more time. He was doing the same thing except this time, I watched his plug. When he'd start working it the water behind the lure would come alive with a thrashing bass. But he didn't lean to set, he didn't even stop. He just kept working the lure uninterrupted. Eventually that following fish just couldn't take it anymore and found a hook. He didn't lean back on the set or change his actions. He just transferred directly from twitch, twitch, reel, to bent rod. He worked another good fish back to his feet.
On my next cast I copied him even further. I somehow managed to keep my rookie nerves under control when I'd experience the same kind of vicious follows the old man did. On the next cast I hooked a brute (by my standards at the time anyway). When I got the fish in I was amazed at the size. 15lbs or so and now my hands were really shaking. I heard a noise and it turned out to be my neighbor giving me a good old Yankee holler in order to congratulate me on the catch.
I don't know if he was watching me to this day to see if I'd figure it out, or if he knew that he was teaching a kid a new trick by just doing what he was doing. Either way, I learned a lot that day and I should have walked over and thanked him for the lesson. Of course, my young ego back then might have kept me from giving thanks to where thanks was due. I would have taken all the credit for myself. Not anymore though. Thanks old man!
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