BIG STRIPER STORIES
One Lucky Fisherman   ---   By David Silver
GROVE POINT, BLOCK ISLAND, RI., September 24, 2007, 10:00 p.m. ---    This is a classic fishing story. A good friend, Dick Bosworth, who lives in California, was on the east coast for some business and I took him to Block Island for a couple nights of serious surf casting. Dick is an experienced fisherman but had never been surf casting on the north Atlantic and the only Stripers he'd caught were schoolies on Lake Powell. I picked him up at Logan Airport and the ferry got us to Block Island at about 8:00 at night. After a quick bite to eat, we pulled into the small parking lot at Grove Point, on the northeast part of the island, at about 9:30. It was a clear night with a bright moon. As we walked to a nearby spot, Dick reminded me for about the sixth time that he'd always been a very lucky fisherman. I've never believed much in that kind of luck. We both put on black Stezko needlefish with teasers and waded in. We were casting for about fifteen minutes when Dick got a nice fish on for a short time and then dropped it. I knew that would keep him throwing that needlefish. Only ten minutes later Dick yelled out "fish on" and I could see his rod doubled over and his reel was singing - zzzzzzz. I worked my way over to where he was so I could coach him (to make me feel useful). He fought the big fish like a pro. When it was about 50 yards in front of us, it flopped on the surface and I offered "that's a pretty nice fish" - I thought it was about 25 lbs. With great form, letting the rod do the work, Dick kept working that big striper in. When it was in the suds, I could see it was a lot bigger than 25 lbs - I remember saying "holy shit" more than once. He dragged it up on the beach and it was a monster. Turned out to be the only fish we caught that night. When we got to the fillet station, we measured and weighed the cow and it was over 46" and a little over 40 lbs. I've fished on Block Island for more than 10 weeks the past five seasons, caught my share of fish over 30 lbs, but never even caught one over 35. It took Dick less than an hour.