S6, Ep 55: On the Salt: David Blinken on Striper Tactics and Bluefish Battles
Join host Marvin Cash on The Articulate Fly as he reconnects with Captain David Blinken for another insightful "On the Salt" segment. In this episode, David shares his recent experiences navigating the unpredictable weather on Long Island, which led to a canceled charter that could have gone ahead until the afternoon. Despite the hiccup, David dives into the early weeks of his guide season, which kicked off in early May, and discusses the impact of climate change on his fishing schedule.
David provides an update on the current fishing conditions, noting a decent bluefish run with impressive sizes averaging 33 inches. He emphasizes the importance of using ten-weight rods to handle these powerful fish. As for stripers, the fishing has been less fruitful unless targeting migrators in the ocean. David explains the need for more bait fish in the bays to attract and hold the stripers inshore.
The episode offers valuable tips on tactics and tackle for both stripers and bluefish. David details his approach using floating lines, long leaders and specific fly patterns like small mantis shrimp and pink deceivers. He also answers a listener's question about his preferred rod and line combos for inshore fishing, highlighting the importance of having the right gear to handle different fishing scenarios.
Whether you're navigating the bays for stripers or chasing bluefish on the flats, this episode is packed with actionable advice to enhance your fishing experience. Tight lines, everyone!
To learn more about David, check out our full length interview.
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Speaker:
Marvin: Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly,
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Marvin: and we're back with another On the Water with Captain David Blinken. How are you, David?
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David: Good, Marvin. How are you?
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Marvin: As always, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble, and we were kind of lamenting
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Marvin: before we started recording that you had a bad weather day on Long Island,
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Marvin: and you canceled your charter, and then it didn't really get bad until about
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Marvin: four o'clock in the afternoon.
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David: Noon oh god you know it happens to all of us on occasion looked at the weather
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David: this morning looked like it was going to be windy and rainy and called up the
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David: client and said let's bail,
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David: and then of course we could have fished until noon or one so oh well yeah.
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Marvin: It happens but you know to just kind of refresh folks you're probably what three
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Marvin: weeks into your guide season right now.
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David: Yeah. I mean, I pretty much started around May 9th or 10th this year.
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David: Climate change has made it really nice in some ways.
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David: I mean, it's a horrible thing, but I've been able to start each year over the
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David: past seven, eight years, earlier and earlier.
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David: And this year I started very early, around May 8th or 9th. So, yeah.
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Marvin: Yeah, and so, you know, you've got, I would imagine, Rich, you've got stripers
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Marvin: and you've got bluefish, right?
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David: Absolutely. You know, we started out looking for stripers and,
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David: you know, honestly, not as many as I thought I would see between the forks out here.
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David: I know other people have been finding some decent fishing, but for us,
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David: it's, unless you're fishing, you know, migrators out in the ocean,
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David: it has not been super great.
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David: Um, and we've had a pretty good bluefish run there with, uh,
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David: it was probably averaging, get this averaging 33 inches, which is a pretty serious bluefish.
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Marvin: Yeah. I would imagine that'll put a bend in your rod, right?
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David: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I mean, we're, we're using 10 weights for these guys.
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David: I mean, you can probably catch them on a nine that, uh, it's,
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David: it's nice to have a little extra stick for sure. Also, sometimes you're throwing
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David: bigger stuff than poppers.
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David: So it's nice to have a little more stick.
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Marvin: Got it. And so as the season progresses, I mean, I assume the stripers will
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Marvin: start to move a little bit more into shore because there'll be more bait fish
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Marvin: and more activity like that?
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David: I mean, surprisingly, we don't have a huge amount of bait that's in the bays right now.
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David: Normally, we've got fearing and sand eels and stuff like that.
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David: There seems to be quite a bit in the ocean, but they're not in the bays as of yet.
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David: And I'm hoping once the bait goes in at the bay, we're going to start seeing more strikeouts.
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David: The bluefish will come and go and stuff like that all season long.
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David: But as far as strikers go, we really need something to keep them happy and stay close to us.
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David: So I'm really looking forward to seeing some sand eels and spearing a few in.
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Marvin: Yeah. And in terms of maybe kind of tactics and tackle for the stripers,
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Marvin: how are you approaching that right now?
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David: Well, it depends. Most of the fishing we've been doing this season,
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David: at least I've been doing, I have friends who have been fishing deeper water.
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David: I've been fishing, probably the average water depth has been about two feet.
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David: So we're using floating lines, primarily eight-weight rods and longish leaders,
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David: about anywhere from nine to 11 feet, terminating at 15, 16-pound test.
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David: And most of the flies or we just came off a phenomenal cinderworm hatch so that's
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David: a whole different kind of fishing but most of the flies we've been using are
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David: like small mantis shrimp patterns,
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David: deceivers that match,
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David: the normal quarry they're going on in the first couple of weeks we were basically
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David: using pink deceivers, kind of a washed out pink topped with a little peacock roll.
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David: And that was kind of the flight of the year for the striped bass the first two
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David: weeks of the season. And that was a lot of fun.
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Marvin: Got it. And got a question for you from Brenner. And this is kind of a great
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Marvin: as we're kind of kicking off at the beginning of your season.
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Marvin: He wanted to kind of get your preferred line and rod combos for inshore fishing for stripers and blues.
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David: Ensure if you're fishing them on a flat we kind of talked about it a bit um
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David: certainly for stroke bass um uh my my primary rod uh is an eight weight certainly
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David: a nine weight is is very good too,
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David: with floating line leaders terminating between 15 and 20.
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David: Uh and for bluefish uh especially you know the ones that are kind of daisy chaining
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David: and up on the flats and shallow water i'm i'm a
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David: big fan of uh all of 10 weights and
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David: even though nine weights are are very usable to
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David: them uh occasionally you'll get a bluefish over
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David: 34 35 inches and you're really happy to have a rod that's got a little extra
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David: pulling power and as far as the bluefish rods go um i usually have my My leader's
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David: tapering from either 40 or 50 pound down to about 25.
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David: And when I tie on about a foot and a half section of 60, just using a simple
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David: Albright special or an Albright knot.
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David: And the reason why I'm tying on 60 pound, either 4,000 or mono,
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David: is one, if there's a striped bass in the neighborhood, you have a better chance of catching them.
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David: Uh, and, uh, and the clearness of it, I just think makes you a little more invisible
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David: and, and people think bluefish will strike at anything, but bluefish can be rather picky.
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David: They, they, especially in shallow water, they can, they can get very picky.
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David: So I like to have my leader, uh, as invisible as possible.
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David: So that's kind of my, uh, my philosophy. if I was fishing bluefish in deeper
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David: water that are kind of whack in anything,
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David: maybe some piano wire and tie that on to the end and that would work got it.
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Marvin: And so if you use 60 do you not need to use any kind of like bite tippet.
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David: Well, the 60 pound test is the bite ticket.
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Marvin: Yeah, that was what I thought. I just wanted to make sure.
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David: Yes. And I'll usually retie after each fish.
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David: So that's why I said like the foot and a half or so long so that I'll get to
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David: retie, you know, four or five, six times before I have to, you know, tie in a new hunk of 60.
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David: So that, you know, just makes it a little more manageable.
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David: And, you know, I'm not going for any IGFA records with my clients or anything.
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David: If I was, I think the required length is about 12 inches for a shotgun.
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David: So, but, you know, and it's got to be 20 pounds or less, which we're not doing any of that stuff.
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Marvin: Fair enough. And, you know, folks, we love questions on the Articulate Fly.
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Marvin: You can email them to us or DM us on social media. DM me. We're going to continue
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Marvin: like we did before to make David's life easier.
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Marvin: And if we use your question, I will send you some Articulate Fly swag.
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Marvin: And David and I are still kind of working out what the drawing is going to be for this series.
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Marvin: But David, before I let you go, I guess a couple of things. I know you've got
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Marvin: some trips coming up kind of towards the end of the summer and end of the fall.
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Marvin: And then also, you know, if you can kind of share folks, you know,
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Marvin: your contact info. So if they want to go to the boat with you, they can do that too.
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David: Yeah, if they want to, they can contact me at davidblinken at gmail.com.
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David: That'll be the easiest way to get me. And my last name is spelled B-L-I-N-K-E-N,
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David: first name David. No dot, no underscore.
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David: And they can certainly get me that way. And yeah, I'll just tell you about a couple of trips we have.
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David: We've got an August trip to Tarpon down in Campeche, Mexico,
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David: which is always very exciting.
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David: August is one of the prime months for tarpon in Mexico.
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David: And we're fishing for juvenile tarpon. And they go anywhere from five pounds
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David: to 50 pounds, depending on how lucky you are that day.
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David: And that's an awful lot of fun. So, you know, if anyone out there wants to join
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David: us, we might have a rod or two available.
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David: And then we go back two more times in November and December.
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David: And that's what we have planned. planned
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David: and i'll also be a guest guide martha's vineyard uh starting around uh the 15th
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David: of august so if no one's ever fished the vineyard uh you know it's a it's a
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David: really interesting time and there's still plenty of stripers around and all
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David: this on the vineyard very.
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Marvin: Very neat yeah and your august trip you've even uh you know an interesting thing
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Marvin: too is your buddy steve ramirez or actually i should say our buddy steve ramirez
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Marvin: is going to be on that trip.
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David: Yeah, Steve is going to be on that trip and hoping somebody else I'm speaking
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David: to right now might be able to join us. And that would be an awful lot of fun.
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Marvin: It would be a lot of fun.
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David: I'm working on it. Yeah, yeah.
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David: And all I can say is eight waits at dawn, Morgan.
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Marvin: Yeah, I looked at the website and they said they serve breakfast promptly at 5 a.m.
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David: Oh yeah and if you're not out of bed at 5 a.m believe me you're gonna have uh
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David: captain david blinken shaking you out saying it's it's too late for breakfast we're going to the boat.
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Marvin: Hey so you better better put some neutrograin bars in your luggage then right
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Marvin: always there you go well listen folks show it to yourself to get out there and
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Marvin: catch a few tight lines everybody tight lines david take.
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David: Care marvin bye.
David Blinken
Guide
David Blinken owner and guide has taken the time to observe the environment in which he guides, and he sees things that others might not, this ability is what separates him from the pack. His clients benefit from this, which allows David to provide them with an experience that they can take home and remember until their next trip.
North flats began as an idea in David’s discussions with friends, “why get trapped in an office” they used to tell him, you need to explore and make your passion your business.
Davids’s passion and desire are what allows him to give people a lasting and fun experience that not only connects them with fish but to the environment in which they live. This not only gives his clients a better understanding of where to find the fish but also a better appreciation of their environment and how to preserve the very thing they love, flyfishing
There is not just great fishing to experience but a passion that brings people together, which is why people keep coming back year after year.
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