Block Island Blues

Last fall, stripers pulled a no-show for the weeklong trip to Block Island, Rhode Island, my friends and I have been taking since the early 2000s. By day three, it became apparent that bass were not in their usual nighttime lies in any numbers (part of a troubling coastwide trend). So we faced two choices: cry in our beer, or pull on our big-boy waders and enter the scrum known as daytime surfcasting for bluefish.

We chose wisely.

Thirty-five years ago, when striper populations were crashing up and down the East Coast,