Registration FF2001 The Fall Fling is coming fast! October 20th will be here before you know it! If you have any questions or problems, contact me at tims@stripersonline.com

We'll be meeting at 3pm on Saturday October 20th in the Oak Beach Inn parking lot!

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Question: Hey, just what the heck is "Da' Fall Fling"?

Answer: Funny you should ask! The "Fling" is a concept that many of us on-line cyber fishermen have visualized for over a year and we made it happen for the first time this past spring. We've all gotten to know one another through reading many posts of each other's and have long since seen the need for an official "meeting"....preferably in a fishing environment.  This Fall Fling is expected to be a gathering of between 30-70 surf fishermen who many of us have gotten to know in the past year or so. We will meet on a Saturday afternoon in October, shake some hands, burn some grub, shoot the breeze and then split up in "teams" to temp the fateful waters of the fabled west end of Long Island! 
**UPDATE: One of the West End Warriors supplied me recently with a list of what he called 18 (legal) areas that will be covered by the Fall Fling.  Here's the list as he sent it to me, unedited!

Question: Ok...but when and where is it going to be?

Answer: Alrighty...a lil slow are ya? ;^) It will be held on October 20th, starting at 2pm....there will likely be people showing up at all sorts of times prior to the official beginning of the Fling...so we'll be meeting at whichever area Alberto and Ditch choose! The precise location has yet to be exactly determined. Regardless of the location chosen, it will be very close to where we're to park.

Question: Hmmm...October 20th...west end of Long Island...what kinda stuff should I bring?

Answer: Excellent question!  This area is new to me but in my whopping four trips, I've found that you can pretty much make use of anything from a fly rod to an 11 foot heaver. The fishing areas will vary from inlets to jetties to open beaches where distance can be important to rivers and backwaters where you'll have to be careful not to step on the fish! I'd say try to limit your self to two outfits, a big one and a small/medium one...and of course, fly gear if that's your chosen method of assault. With two outfits you'll be able to throw the 2 oz and 3 oz stuff you might need for the South Shore open beaches....and with the other outfit, you'll be armed to throw the smaller under 2oz stuff that's often important when the fish are close or on small bait. For plugs...geesh, I can only give you suggestions! 6" and 7" Bombers, 6" and 7" MegaBaits, 1oz to 3oz swimmers and poppers, lots of bucktails and MegaBait jigs....from 1oz to as big as you can toss! Rigged rubber eels will be on my person, I love them when sand eels are around in the dark...deadly I tell ya! 'Specially the little green Felmlee eels. It's very tough to try and guess what they're gonna be on...I'd say try to be prepared for long range and/or short range fishing. Needlefish can be extremely important should the sand eels be dominant...and needlefish will cast 3 times as far as a rigged eel. Ball jigs with Fin-S-Fish...teasers...plenty of teasers to imitate small baits that are far out. That's to say that you might need 3 ounces of something to reach fish that are eating 3" long bait....the perfect job for a teaser rigged above a 3oz jig, pencil, or needlefish. I guess you should just bring everything! ;-) Actually, I'd recommend watching SurfTalk as the Fall Fling approaches, we'll prod the locals up there for some more up to date info as the time draws near. The chosen date for this Fling happens to be the exact same date for which one of our members log shows the most 40# stripers taken from Long Island...and the log dates back to around 1970!  Basically, bring whatever ya want! **If you own Korkers and are comfortable on the rocks, bring 'em along!**

Question: Sounds pretty simple so far....but what about bait?

Answer: Here you are on your own! This area can hold spearing, sand eels, bunker, mullet, squid and just about any other living thing. Most likely, there will be sand eels and spearing to dominate the baits in the area. If luck is on our side, there will be vast schools of peanut bunker...possibly packs of adult bunker as well. There should be some straggler mullet around. If you want to use bait to fish, gotta make those arrangements on yer own! There are shops in this area, one real close...a bit pricey if I'm not mistaken. **Live eels - if you don't mind playing with 'em, bring some with ya :-)

Question: Alright....sounds pretty good so far, but where am I gonna sleep? I'm driving a long way and I don't think a nap in the truck is gonna cut it!

Answer: Another excellent question!  I am working on some arrangements with some local fellas more familiar with the area we'll be fishing...but I'm sure there are tons of places to stay, we'll get them listed ASAP. As for camping, I believe there's load of that, right where we are meeting...how convenient is that? ;-)

Question:  So....I'm gettin' the picture now! I heard this was going to be some kind of competition or something...what's that all about?

Answer: Hang on, are you sure you got all the other stuff down now? ;^)  OK...let's move on then. It's not really a tournament, it's not really a competition....it's a friendly, team oriented fishing situation! (pretty good, huh?) Teams will be chosen from the folks registered for the Fling. Each team will be led or captained by a "local"...not just someone who lives locally, but someone who fishes these same areas and has passed the in depth scrutiny of our StripersOnline Local finding testing! So...we'll have "teams"...the number will be decided by the total number of folks who make the Fling...I'd like to have teams of 5, including the captain. 

Question: Yea, that's how the teams will be made....but if this is a "team oriented fishing situation", how will the winners be decided? Don't tell me we gotta kill all these fish?!?!

Answer: Valid point. If I'm not mistaken, JohnB gets the credit for at least the concept of the scoring...if it wasn't JohnB, my apologies to whomever it was! We'll keep score...and since we are all buds anyway, we'll do it strictly on the honor system, so long as you have at least one witness and a handful of photographs ;^) Scoring will be 1 point for a short striper (under 28"), 3 points for a legal sized fish (28" and over) with an additional point for each inch over 28". Bluefish, deduct 5 points and throw your rod in the water....wait...scratch that, wrong rules. We've tried this in past flings, but what happens is teams change constantly, people coming and going at all times...we'd rather leave the coming and going flexible than to really dwell on the points and such. Some teams start out with 5 guys and end up with 2...and some teams start out with 5 guys and end up with 11. You can imagine the scoring would be quite unfair in those situations...so we just do it for giggles :-) Maybe we'll do individual scoring this year...that way no matter what team ya end up on, yer points go with you :-) Bottom line, this is 'spose to be fun, dwelling on scoring might put a damper on the fun part.

Question:  Cool...fame, glory.... I heard something about food...what about the food?

Answer: Food...good topic I'm sure many will agree! Since this will be an outdoors, rain or shine, wind, snow or hail type event. If we can get a couple volunteers to bring grills, pick up grub, and burn stuff, I'll gladly reimburse them for the cost of the grub. Anyone? If you wanna help out, gathering grub, grills, and burning stuff is your chance :-) Shoot me an email at tims@stripersonline.com and we'll work out the finances. I'll foot the bill, but won't be able to help gathering or burning the stuff :-)

Question: Good...I like food!  Now all I need is directions and I'm good to go!

Answer: Ah, this one's easy! Go to any one of the many mapping websites.....kidding. Check the Directions page...or drive around the Robert Moses area and when you see a bunch of other guys that you don't recognize all looking around like they don't know anyone, all armed with rods and dressed to fish...you, my friend, are at the Fling!

**If there are any issues that my (imaginary) interview did not cover, please let me know and I'll hunt this guy down again and get him to ask me!***

South Shore Classic

**The 2000 South Shore Classic winning 40# striper was taken on a live eel, fished with a 3oz pyramid sinker...exactly in the spot I parked my crew for our first shot at the fish...only 10 hours after the winner was taken! Hey, at least I figgered the spot right! We didn't do anything there...but we were in the right spot, wrong time!

It's recently been bought to my attention that the 2001 South Shore Classic surf fishing tournament will be going on in the same area as the Fall Fling! So, Arby was nice enough to email me an application for this tournament and I made it into a page so that if you want, you can join that tournament as you'll be fishing the same area anyway. Also, if you join the South Shore Classic, you'll get an overnight parking permit for the Fling area sent to you in the mail. This is not a drive-on-the-beach permit, it's a park and don't get a ticket permit. So, if you're interested, check out the details and print out an application. The deadline for their application is October 15th. 

**StripersOnline has no affiliation with this South Shore Classic. Any questions concerning the Classic can be answered by calling (631) 669-1000 ext. 247. Just figured you might wanna know there will be a separate event going on at the same time and through this second event, you can get a $10 overnight parking permit mailed to you for the Fling Area!