Our basic tenet when it comes to fishing Montauk is if it’s October, the winds are favorable and the surf benign we go. For me it’s just under a 3 hour drive. That makes a round trip of almost 6 hours and I have to go around New York City twice. It’s a lot of driving for a day’s fishing but every time I’ve gone except once it’s been well worth it. That time the swell was too big. We were able to launch but the boats couldn’t see us in the rip where the fish were. We erred on the side of safety to calmer waters but they didn’t have fish.

Wednesday, the winds were going to be light and the swell, while building was going to be nonexistent in the morning and still very friendly by the end of the day. My buddy John, who had only been kayak fishing in the ocean once, told me to give him a holler if I went. So he joined me.  Dave had only fished Montauk once and it was the above mentioned day with the huge swell. So I gave him a call and told him it was on. He asked what that meant.  A bunch of us had fished Columbus Day and had a good morning and off the charts fishing in the afternoon. I said at the minimum it would be good, probably very good and possibly fantastic. Regardless by Jersey standards it would be superb. So Danny, Steve, Chris, Dave, Joey, John and me met up and fished. It was a very slow morning with scattered groups of fast moving schools. John and I ended up heading west quite a ways. It was mostly medium sized blues with an occasional bass. We got a call on the radio that Danny got a bonito, which was cool. While deep jigging a slick I got a hit and the fish fought like and albie. When I got a good lookk, to my surprise it was a bonito. I kept it for a sashimi shore lunch and we worked our way back to the launch. The sashimi was outstanding.

We were hanging on the beach digesting and waiting for things to get going in the afternoon when a blitz set up right in front of us. None of us hooked up but it was a clear indication the afternoon activity was heating up. The word was it had continued to be a later bite. So we got on the water and the later the day got the better the fishing. The fish were moving fast to the west along the shore and it was tuff catching them. I’m real glad I had a motor and when combined with paddling I left the group in my wake. It was worth it. The schools were intense and the last couple hours of the day were off the charts fishing with bass banging into the kayaks. Most of the fish were just short of keeper size but then Dave and I found a school of fish that averaged 30”. We each got a fish to take home. As it started getting dark we headed in. It was another very satisfying day at Montauk and the drive back made that much easier because of it.