Marvin Cash welcomes Captain David Blinken back to the podcast for another enlightening episode of On the Salt, where they dive into the complexities of fishing conditions along Eastern Long Island. The conversation kicks off with a reflection on the recent challenging weather patterns, particularly the relentless northeast winds that have kept many anglers off the water. David shares his insights into how these winds are influenced not just by local weather but also by stagnant frontal systems and the impacts of hurricanes further south. As they navigate through these conditions, listeners gain an understanding of the challenges that arise in fishing during certain times of the year, particularly the transition from summer to fall, and the implications for anglers eager to catch species like striped bass and bluefish.

The discussion shifts to the current fishing landscape, highlighting the presence of false albacore and the mixed catches of striped bass and bluefin tuna that have been a delightful surprise for those who have braved the waters. David emphasizes the importance of adapting fishing strategies based on environmental conditions, such as the depth at which fish are located and the types of bait that are available. As winter approaches, the episode takes a deeper dive into a listener’s question about winter fly presentations, exploring the nuances of fishing techniques during colder months. David explains how fish behavior changes drastically with temperature variations, and he suggests practical approaches to increase success rates, emphasizing the significance of location, presentation and the adaptability required for winter fishing.

Listeners are treated to valuable tips on the forage that stripers rely on in winter, ranging from small crabs to various bait fish. David elaborates on the behavior of holdover fish and the strategies anglers can employ to locate and catch them, regardless of whether they are in deeper waters or warmer spots. The episode wraps up with a reminder of the joy of fishing, even in less-than-ideal conditions, and an invitation for listeners to join David on his upcoming tarpon trip in Mexico, where the camaraderie and the thrill of the catch promise to create lasting memories. This engaging discussion not only equips listeners with practical fishing knowledge but also fosters a sense of community among anglers eager to share their experiences and learn from each other.

To learn more about David, check out our full length interview.

All Things Social Media

Follow David on Facebook and Instagram.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Support the Show

Shop on Amazon

Become a Patreon Patron

Subscribe to the Podcast

Subscribe to the podcast in the podcatcher of your choice.

Advertise on the Podcast

Is our community a good fit for your brand? Advertise with us.

In the Industry and Need Help Getting Unstuck?

Check out our consulting options!

Marvin Cash: 00:00:04

Hey, folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the articulate fly.

Marvin Cash: 00:00:06

And we're back with another on the salt with Captain David Blinken.

Marvin Cash: 00:00:10

David, how are you?

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:11

I'm great, Marvin.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:12

How are you doing today?

Marvin Cash: 00:00:13

As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble.

Marvin Cash: 00:00:16

And I know you're temporarily back in New Jersey, but you've been on the water quite a bit recently.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:21

Yeah.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:21

I mean, four days on, but, boy, we had a rough two weeks with northeast wind.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:27

It just has been relentless.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:30

Kept a majority of us off the water.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:33

Unless we got a chance to sneak in some quiet backwaters that's protected.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:38

Otherwise, it's.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:40

It's been, uh, been kind of a brutal September.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:42

I'm glad we're in October now.

Marvin Cash: 00:00:44

Yeah.

Marvin Cash: 00:00:44

And were those kind of like, you know, advanced winds of some of the hurricane activity we've had down here in the southeast?

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:50

You know, really what it is.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:52

It's.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:53

It's.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:53

It wasn't that, actually.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:55

We had, you know, we had a little bit of cloudiness and drizzling us from the hurricanes, but I.

Captain David Blinken: 00:00:59

What it really is is we had a stagnant frontal system and nothing coming out of the west to push it away.

Captain David Blinken: 00:01:06

So just these little lows were coming up the coast, and when they do that, they throw northeast wind back at us.

Captain David Blinken: 00:01:12

And unfortunately, the northeast winds were rather strong, in fact, too strong to go fishing in.

Marvin Cash: 00:01:21

Well, that's a bummer.

Marvin Cash: 00:01:21

But you've managed to get out.

Marvin Cash: 00:01:23

Have you found the false albacore?

Captain David Blinken: 00:01:26

Well, I know we have pulse albicorn, central Long island sound, which is a little out of my range.

Captain David Blinken: 00:01:32

And again, we have them eight to 10 miles offshore, and they're up in New England.

Captain David Blinken: 00:01:39

They're everywhere but Montauk and eastern Long island, surprisingly.

Captain David Blinken: 00:01:44

But hopefully that'll change and they'll show up.

Captain David Blinken: 00:01:48

But we've got some stripers around and some bluefish, and we had a nice little theme last week where we had striped bass and bluefin tuna mixed together, and that was kind of fun to watch.

Marvin Cash: 00:02:02

Oh, well, neat.

Marvin Cash: 00:02:03

I've got an interesting question for you, as we kind of, you know, Brenner's eager.

Marvin Cash: 00:02:07

He wants to get to wintertime, right.

Marvin Cash: 00:02:09

I'm just happy to get to fall and have the humidity drop out and maybe get out and get on the water.

Marvin Cash: 00:02:13

But he was curious.

Marvin Cash: 00:02:15

If you say traditionally, are fishing a floating line in the wintertime kind of like you would for trout?

Marvin Cash: 00:02:21

Do you need to think about fishing deeper in the water column?

Marvin Cash: 00:02:24

Because the fish are going to basically go deeper, and the floaters not going to get to them.

Captain David Blinken: 00:02:29

Well, you know, first of all, depends on where you're fishing, when you're fishing, the species you're fishing for.

Captain David Blinken: 00:02:36

So why don't I just use striped bass, an example.

Captain David Blinken: 00:02:41

Very often they're migratory, but some striped bass do stick around.

Captain David Blinken: 00:02:45

And of course, on those warmer winter days, they're going to be more active than they are in the colder winter days.

Captain David Blinken: 00:02:51

Um, and on those warmer winter days, they may travel closer to the edges where you don't have to fish quite as deep.

Captain David Blinken: 00:02:58

But, um, if you do want to fish them in the water's cold, you probably have to start thinking about sinking lines, identifying the fish with sonar.

Captain David Blinken: 00:03:08

And if you're walking, um, if you're walking a waterway and you're walking the deep water edge, you know, you just have to kind of blind cast and slowly retrieve, you know, with the sinking line.

Captain David Blinken: 00:03:20

But if you're lucky enough to be walking an edge in the winter where the water is warmed up a bit, you know, those fish might, those fish might come up along the edges.

Captain David Blinken: 00:03:29

And in that case, you actually, you know, if it's water that's under 3ft deep, you can actually use a floating one.

Captain David Blinken: 00:03:37

So you have to think situationally.

Captain David Blinken: 00:03:39

Now, if, for example, you're fishing, let's say, let's go tropical in the winter, you might be fishing for bonefish.

Captain David Blinken: 00:03:47

It could be a cold day in January.

Captain David Blinken: 00:03:49

You know, the bonefish may leave the flats for deeper water, but then they're hard to locate.

Captain David Blinken: 00:03:54

But when they do come back up on the flats, they're, they're generally going to be in shallow water.

Captain David Blinken: 00:03:59

So those kind of wood, your conditions, you know, give you certainly an advantage using floating line.

Captain David Blinken: 00:04:09

You know, it's different.

Captain David Blinken: 00:04:10

Like, you know, um, my freshwater friends who, who fish trout in the winter, very often, you know, trout gather big pods in the winter and you've got to locate where those pods are and then you fish to them, you know, nymphing, you know, either, you know, not very often dry fly, but, you know, you're fishing in close to the bottom and just bumping it along.

Captain David Blinken: 00:04:29

But in, in saltwater, you know, we don't get that advantage.

Captain David Blinken: 00:04:33

The fish are always on the move.

Captain David Blinken: 00:04:34

They don't gather in one or two particular places.

Captain David Blinken: 00:04:37

They're, they're moving around and I, and many, many times they're trying to follow what bait there may be available to them.

Captain David Blinken: 00:04:45

So, um.

Captain David Blinken: 00:04:46

No, I hope that's a help.

Marvin Cash: 00:04:48

Yeah.

Marvin Cash: 00:04:48

And so just to kind of help educate me on the saltwater side.

Marvin Cash: 00:04:51

So you know, like, say, trout in the wintertime, they're generally going to be in deep, slow water, maybe like where that are spring fed.

Marvin Cash: 00:04:57

Um, but like, if you have stripers that are, you know, overwintering where you are, they basically trying to find kind of slow, deep spots that are not super affected by the tide of they.

Captain David Blinken: 00:05:10

May be finding those slow, deep spots very often.

Captain David Blinken: 00:05:13

What they do is theyll swim up a creek into an impoundment where the water virtually isnt moving at all.

Captain David Blinken: 00:05:21

It may go up and down lightly with the tide, but they can be in very still water.

Captain David Blinken: 00:05:27

And its those warmer days in the winter where you can take advantage of those fish and theyll move around it, you know, overcast or maybe partly sunny days.

Captain David Blinken: 00:05:38

On the really, really cold days, they're going to be almost in hibernation type state where they're going to be very, very sluggish and barely moving.

Captain David Blinken: 00:05:46

And in order to get them to eat a fly, you literally have to pull it right by their nose.

Captain David Blinken: 00:05:51

So it takes, it takes a lot of effort in that case, Evan.

Marvin Cash: 00:05:55

Yeah.

Marvin Cash: 00:05:55

And so what's the forage generally, in terms?

Marvin Cash: 00:05:59

Is it, you know, eels, crabs, bait fish?

Marvin Cash: 00:06:02

What is the kind of normal winter forage for stripers that overwinter?

Captain David Blinken: 00:06:06

It certainly could be little crabs.

Captain David Blinken: 00:06:08

It could be certain types of bait fish, winter over.

Captain David Blinken: 00:06:11

It could be, you know, it could be small herring, it could be spearing, you know, fish like that.

Captain David Blinken: 00:06:18

There are some species of shrimp that are around all winter long and other things that we don't even know exist.

Captain David Blinken: 00:06:25

But the cool thing about fish, stripers and all fish is they take advantage of what's in front of them.

Captain David Blinken: 00:06:31

They're opportunistic feeders, so in the winter, when there's less food, we can kind of go for that opportunistic feeding attitude that fish naturally carry with them.

Captain David Blinken: 00:06:44

So just getting something by them, maybe pulling a clouds or minnow across the bottom very slowly, or a deceiver type fly, it doesn't necessarily have to be big, but it needs to certainly attract their attention.

Captain David Blinken: 00:07:00

So maybe, you know, olive over white or chartreuse over white might work really well, you know, both in a clouds or a deceiver type pattern.

Captain David Blinken: 00:07:09

But I would definitely, for stripers, I try to fish as well in the water column as I could.

Captain David Blinken: 00:07:15

It doesn't mean they won't come up and even low in the water column when it's 3ft of water, you know, get it closer to the bottom.

Captain David Blinken: 00:07:24

So, so, you know, but take advantage of warm days in winter, uh, just like we do, you know, just like you might do trout fishing, those days are going to certainly, um, give you, uh, better opportunities than the coldest days where, frankly, I don't even want to be out there.

Captain David Blinken: 00:07:41

My guides are freezing up.

Captain David Blinken: 00:07:43

Uh, I feel like I should be skiing.

Marvin Cash: 00:07:46

Fair enough.

Marvin Cash: 00:07:47

And, you know, folks, we love questions on the articulate fly.

Marvin Cash: 00:07:50

You can email me or dm me on social media.

Marvin Cash: 00:07:52

As always, say, let's make David's life a little bit easier.

Marvin Cash: 00:07:55

And if we use your question, I will send you some articulate fly swag.

Marvin Cash: 00:07:58

And we enter in a drawing for a royal wolf line of your choice.

Marvin Cash: 00:08:01

And, you know, David, before I let you go, I think the last time we spoke, you were trying to fill one or two spots on maybe a November trip down to Mexico.

Marvin Cash: 00:08:09

And you want to let folks know how to get on the boat and all that kind of good stuff.

Captain David Blinken: 00:08:12

Yeah, yeah.

Captain David Blinken: 00:08:13

November 9 through 14, fishing the 10th through the 13th.

Captain David Blinken: 00:08:19

I have a tarpon trip going to campinche to fish, juvenile tarpon and some baby tarpon.

Captain David Blinken: 00:08:25

So these fish range in size from five to that time of year, 30, 40 pounds.

Captain David Blinken: 00:08:30

And, you know, it's a wonderful trip I'm hosting.

Captain David Blinken: 00:08:35

It would love to have anybody who wants to come along and join a very chill group of people to have some wonderful tarpon fishing and some of the best mexican food you can imagine in Campiche.

Marvin Cash: 00:08:46

Got it.

Marvin Cash: 00:08:46

And I know, I guess your guide season, you're getting ready to probably start waxing the skis here not too long in the future, right?

Captain David Blinken: 00:08:53

Well, I got.

Captain David Blinken: 00:08:54

I have about five weeks to go, and then.

Captain David Blinken: 00:08:58

And then I head to Mexico.

Captain David Blinken: 00:09:00

Then I'll be working with the ski school, and then I have another trip going to Mexico in December.

Captain David Blinken: 00:09:05

And then after that trip, it's going to be all skiing all the time until April.

Marvin Cash: 00:09:11

Well, there you go.

Marvin Cash: 00:09:12

Well, listen, folks, as I always say, you owe it to yourself to get out there and catch a few tight lines, everybody.

Marvin Cash: 00:09:17

Tight lines.

Marvin Cash: 00:09:17

David, tight lines.

Captain David Blinken: 00:09:19

Marvin.