Geared Up Publications

This freebie section is just a small sampling of the in-depth, detailed fishing information author Kevin Falvey brings to anglers in and around the Long Island, New York area. Here's an excerpt from Falvey’s Guide’s section on choosing a spot when fluking:

“Moving current brings up a point central to the theme of this book: as important as where to fish, is why you should fish a certain spot at a certain time. In fact, I believe that “why-to” is more important than “where-to.” For instance, many hot spots can produce lukewarm action unless you happen to be there during the right stage of the current. To successfully fish for fluke, or any species, an understanding of current, and its potential effect on the bite, is imperative. This starts with distinguishing between tide and current. They are not the same thing.

Tide is the vertical rise and fall of water as it sloshes from one side of the Atlantic Basin to the other. Tidal Current is the horizontal motion of water induced by the tide being higher at one location and lower at another: Every schoolboy knows that water flows downhill. It’s more complicated than that—tides rise and fall in waves and topography affects the strength and timing of current. This book isn’t a treatise in oceanography, so we won’t get in over our heads. What I will do is give you the pared-down, as-I-see-it explanation to illustrate how knowledge of tide and current can help you catch more fish. Any further study is up to you.

The first concept is that current strength and duration follows the tide at any given spot. It’s behind it. For instance, at high tide, the current continues to flow in even after the tide has risen to its maximum height. When the current stops flowing—which can be anywhere from five minutes to over an hour later, depending on the location—a condition known as slack water occurs. Therefore, during a trip, don’t ignore a potentially productive fluking spot based upon the time of high tide (or low tide); plan your itinerary around the time of slack water. Even if the difference between high, or low, slack and high, or low tide, is but five minutes, the spot may be worth a shot so long as the water’s moving.

Secondly, learn how to follow moving water around the body of water you are fishing. As the current slows and stops...

Check out this segment, on fishing with live snapper bluefish baits for doormats:

"Let’s start with that live snapper swimming at the end of your drail-weighted leader over, say, the cobbled bottom in front of Gurney’s Inn at Montauk, along the myriad jetty fronts at Long Beach, or just outside the beach at Bayville. The weight touches down and you develop a feel for it caroming off of rocks and scraping over shells. You also feel the staccato pulse of the hooked snapper, his every tail swipe transmitted through the leader, damped somewhat by the sinker, and finally thrumming its way up your taut line and into the subtle flex of the rod tip and varying pressure on the foregrip. Pay attention. This is your bait, swimming merrily along. When the rhythm alters, something’s going on. If you stop feeling this, the bait either got off or died. What you are hoping for is the change that gets my heart pumping and my pulse racing. That change is your bait suddenly, and frantically, pulling like a fish twice his weight. You are witness to a death dance, as ultimately a snapper bluefish, hamstrung by a weighted drail, has little chance outrunning a highly developed predator like a fluke. It’s up to you now, so don’t blow it. Let the fluke catch your bait. Wait for a solid whack, then wait some more. You’ll feel a few sharp tugs in succession after the fluke grabs the bait and moves it deep into its maw. Strike, you angler! Cross his eyes! Lift the rod over your head while reeling in any slack. Big fluke will try to bury themselves into the bottom once they know they’re in trouble. They are difficult to extricate if they do. If it happens, keep the pressure on. Carefully. You are fishing from a drifting boat. An eight pound fluke firmly embedded in sand can exert more pressure than eight pounds as the boat moves away and he stays put. It’s now when you question everything. Did I tie my knots right? Was that leader new or was it used last trip? Did I nick the line on the trim tab, boating the last fish? All of your skill and experience comes into play at a time like this, as you gauge the strain on the line against the reel’s brake setting and the additional, oh-so-gingerly-applied extra pressure of your thumb. Ha-ha, you’ve got him now. The pressure eases momentarily and you’re right on top of him, reeling in the slack. He dives for the bottom in a rod bending surge. Denied! You pump, reel, pump, reel. I see color! Get the net! Thump, thump, thump on the deck. Well done.

Do you like the detail level? The depth of Falvey’s explanations as to how and why specific methods of fishing are used? This free sample represents about one percent of the info you’ll find packed onto the pages of Falvey’s Guide to Fishing Long Island!