September 2025
"The purpose of this organization shall be to promote, protect and preserve the surfcasting tradition, in its many forms, along our coasts...
CSA Bylaws, Article II. Purposes
Really, it's time to Fish!
[intransitive] go fishing to spend time fishing for pleasure, Let's go fishing this weekend.
Contents:
President's Letter
Meeting Notes
CSA Cuttyhunk 2025
CSA Swag
Club Contests
Fishing Pictures
Treasure Table
Helmet Club
Stormy Night
Lucky Night
Weirdest Catch
September Skies
President’s Letter
Greetings Connecticut Surfcasters,
Ahhh, September. What a breath of fresh air these cooler nights have been. Today at work, an Osprey dropped an adult bunker into our customer's yard. Must be a sign. Time to get my gear back in order. For those who have burned the midnight oil during the season of short nights and sweaty wetsuits, I pray you have reaped the rewards. Hoping to see an update for August's top ten.
This month's meeting will be Dave Anderson. I'm not sure of the topic but I'm certain it won't disappoint. The meeting will begin at 7PM September 3rd, at the Madison Surf Club. Hope to see you there.
At the time of my writing this, September's Cuttyhunk trip is only 3 weeks away. There are still open spots, if you would like to go get a check to Jim Savage as soon as possible.
Also upcoming, Island Beach State Park will be November 14-16 this year. This is the week before Thanksgiving weekend. The other change this year, is that the Island Beach Motor Lodge will no longer be in business. They're closing the doors after this month. There are lots of options in the Seaside area for the same price range. Right now I'm looking at the Seagem Motel in Seaside Heights. They have double king rooms on booking.com for 62 a night. We will have a confirmed location by next SUDS. My hope is that going a week earlier will give more members the chance to go, whom otherwise have family plans during the holidays. Also driving through NY and NJ Thanksgiving weekend sucks. But the fall run down that way has been good for the last several years in a row. I have never seen as many striped bass, whales and tuna that close to shore as I did last year. Let's hope for a repeat.
Last year was also a phenomenal year for bonito. And so far this year's been alright. I'd like to do a club outing for tunoids in RI soon. I've been poking around but Erin made quite a mess of the shoreline. Let's shoot for Saturday, September 6th at sunrise. That may give us a shot at albies as well, provided they actually show up this year. I'd like to do Weekapaug Fire District Beach in Westerly. Conditions deppendant, maybe keep West Wall or Naragansett as a backup. The deeper water at FD makes the shore break hard to fish sometimes in a strong southerly wind. Either way let's go fishing that weekend. Keep your eyes on the forum, your email, or the Facebook group as we get closer.
If anyone else has any suggestions, or would like to lead an outing, let us know! I would like to do more as a club.
tight lines,
Steve
September CSA Meeting
CONNECTICUT SURFCASTERS ASSOCIATION PRESENTS: DAVE ANDERSON 9/3/25
On this coming Wednesday, September 3rd 2025, saltwater fishing author, plug builder and noted fisherman Dave Anderson will be presenting at the Connecticut Surfcasters’ Association monthly meeting.
Dave will dissect a handful of his favorite spots in diagrams drawn in the moment. They will offer a unique look into how Dave looks at and dissects structure and contour, and how he thinks about current and its influence on striped bass and the bait species they eat.
The meeting is open and free of charge to the public (you do not have to be a member to attend) and will be held at the Madison Surf Club at 87 Surf Club Road, Madison, CT promptly at 7:00pm and will end around 9:00pm (or shortly thereafter).
There will be a short business meeting and a raffle featuring surf fishing lures, equipment and maybe a rod or reel (hint: bring some money, the raffles always have some great items).
Dave has presented for us on a few occasions in the past, and gives a great talk.
See you there!
George
CSA goes to Cuttyhunk 2025
Cuttyhunkers, we need to talk…
Anyone who has signed up for the September Cuttyhunk trip should come to Wednesday’s membership meeting at least 15 minutes early so that we can figure out our meal plans for the weekend and discuss a few other things.
Things like why the hell are we paying so much to go to this wonderful fishing spot, if nobody else is staying there. Prices have gone up on everything for this trip, but the main thing is Pete’s Place is charging a high rental fee to stay at a place that we may find nearly empty. In the past, we did get a discount for going on the “Shoulder Season,” but not anymore. I suggest we should look around and see if we can find other more reasonably priced accommodations for next September.
I want to propose that we have a 24 hour Cuttyhunk Fishing Tournament starting Friday at noon and ending with a hotdog roast at noon Saturday. Not long ago, when we had more involvement, we had given a nice pewter beer mug to the winner of this contest. This year I suggest we give a nice Cuttyhunk T-shirt to the winner. And that brings up who is bringing the hotdogs, etc to the roast? I volunteer to bring hotdogs and rolls. Let’s talk about who’s bringing anything else on Wednesday. OK?
Mike Mullen
Renew Your Fishing License - portal.ct.gov › ctoutdoorlicenses
COMING SOON, NEW CSA Tee SHIRTS
I have placed an order for Black long sleeve w/ neon green logo tee shirts and short sleeve, dark graphite gray w/neon green logo tee shirts. They both feature our club's logo on the chest pocket and large CSA logo on back. I added a tag line to the logo on the back highlighting our club's mission statement. Sizes will be available Medium to XXXL. Availability should be around the latter part of the summer. Billy D
Club Contests
Striper a Month 2025
Each year CSA runs a year long contest to see who can catch a striped bass in the 12 month period between December of the previous year and November of the current year. The following members have managed to catch at least one bass a month from December 2024 through August 2025.
Jim Munson
Liam Rosati
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High Hooks and Top 10
High Hook Rules are as follows:
1. Fish must be caught from shore or surf, with both feet planted on Terra Firma.
2. The High Hook club tournament generally runs from the first Sunday following Thanksgiving for a period of one year.
3. Overall length, measured from the tip of the lip, to the end of the tail, is used to determine the winner. Weight is optional and not used to determine a winner.
4. Entries must be reported by the first membership meeting following the catch.
5. Entries can be sent to Mike Mullen at mike@highhooklures.com or the current Club President via email or submitted in writing at the next club meeting.
Monthly Fish Contest
Fine print rules
Contest is for the longest striped bass, all members in good standing are eligible
Contest runs for the period between each meeting
Entrants must present in person a slip with their name, date caught and lenght to the club secretary or the secretaries staff before the break
Measure to the nearest 1/4".
Winner will be announced just before the break and will receive a cool fish pin as a prize.
Fishing Pictures
This is Mike Benzinger with a nice 44" bass
Devon LaCroix caught a good 41" bass
The Treasure Table is Back
At the September meeting we are going to be restarting the Treasure Table. It's a great way to recycle your unloved but useful fishing related gear. We all have fishing or other surfcasting related gear that's not seen the water in a while and isn't on our favorites list any longer. You know the plugs that sit on the bench for years and never get in the game. This stuff just clutters up the tackle corner in our dwellings and deserves a new home. Free yourself of this burden and give a new life to your forgotten tackle and gear.
A few ground rules:
- Items should be fishing or surfcasting related
- They should be in usable condition, clothing should be clean.
- They should be free and not taken to be resold, You may take them back if they haven't found a home
- Items left on the table at the end of the meeting will be donated to the Sound School
"To some it's a treasure to others it's trash"
Join the Helmet Club
CSA fisherman, Peter Gleason is the newest member of one of the smartest groups of fishermen, who are trying to avoid smashing their skulls along our slippery, rocky, New England shores. This man has a brain and he wants to protect it. And he catches fish too! Way to go, Peter!
A Stormy Autumn Night
By Pat Vogt
The storm was rolling in faster than predicted. I had planned on fishing this tide all week, and weather be damned, I was going to the beach. Before walking out the door, I took one last look at the forecast to see just how miserable I would be. Sure enough, the nor ’easterly wind was turning to a dead east – not exactly the type of news that conjures visions of surfcasting success. Nevertheless, I racked my rod on the roof of the jeep, and headed out of the driveway a few minutes before midnight.
Another blow to my confidence on this particular night was the fact that I was out of live eels. A week of hard fishing and a busy daytime schedule had left my stash depleted with no chance to resupply before the local shops closed. Thankfully, I had the next best thing – riggies. Rigged eels, or “riggies’’ as they have been nicknamed, are simply dead eels that are “rigged”, usually with a set of tandem hooks. Along the striper coast, local traditions and conditional demands dictate slight variances in the way they are rigged, with one consistent quality being their effectiveness. I had gotten in the habit of always keeping a few rigged eels of various sizes on freezer stand-by. I fished them religiously in certain spots, and kept them as a solid Plan-B when live eels weren’t in the cards.
Clipping on a darter as I waded out towards the rip, I figured that I would plug for a bit while the ebb tide was still at its peak. I had found that in this location, the darter was often a good mid-tide barometer for the general presence of active fish. The first swing through the current resulted in a quick tap that I swung on and missed, followed by two hitless casts. My starter proving ineffective, it was time to bring in the middle-relief, the reliable Sluggo. Sluggos are an eel-like soft-plastic lure that will always have a place in my bag. Popularized by well-known surf fisherman Steve McKenna in the mid-2000’s, Sluggos, particularly the nine-inch variety, can be rigged and fished in a variety of ways. Falling out of favor in recent years for more cutting-edge soft baits, the Sluggo still has the same effectiveness it did 20 years ago.
The first cast with the Sluggo yielded nothing. Changing my casting angle to hit a different part of the rip, I let the lure drift and then hang down tide for as long as I could keep it off the bottom. It was during this “hang” that I had the first take of the night, a solid fish in the mid-teen pound class. These 34–38-inch stripers had dominated the bite at this spot for the last month or so. While a respectable catch on any night, I held out hope that standing in the driving east wind and stinging rain would yield something a bit bigger for my efforts.
As the tide gradually dropped, I picked another cookie-cutter 15-pound bass on my rubber offering, but I had gone hitless for the past several casts. With the sweep starting to slow, it was time again to go to the bullpen, this time for the closer. As I unclipped my Sluggo, I surveyed the contents of the eel pouch at the front of my surf bag. The front pouch contained only 3 riggies on this night, two freshly made-up the day before and one that was beaten, chewed, and ready for the trash pail. In a departure from many of the old-guard casters of decades past, I prefer not to use giant specimens for my riggies, but rather the standard issue 12–15-inch models that one might fish as live baits. Rigged on a pair of 6/0 hooks, these baits are much lighter, and in my opinion, more versatile than the 9/0 adorned anacondas of yesteryear.
Selecting one of the freshly rigged eels, I checked the hone of the hook points, fastened it to my leader, and heaved a cast toward the dying rip line. Furthered by the freshening breeze pushing over my right shoulder, the riggie hit the outside edge of the current seam and began to sweep downtide. Turning the handle of my reel just fast enough to remain in contact with the bait, I kept my rod tip high, imparting almost imperceivably small twitches into the retrieve. I prefer the action of a rigged eel to be subtle and natural, saving more erratic presentations for artificial lures. As the eel completed its trip through the rip, I let it hang in the current just as I had the Sluggo an hour before. Now, as my eel sat nearly stationary, fluttering in the current, I felt a sharp take that did not pause but rather continued seaward unabated by the stout drag of my reel. Jolted to a state of adrenaline fueled alertness, I leaned back on my rod, driving the hooks hard and fast into the mouth of the fish. Immediately apparent was the fact that this was not one of the midsized bass that had taken up station earlier in the tide. This was a cow, a fish well over 30 pounds that had taken advantage of the calming tide to do some late-night feeding in the shallows. Knowing that I had to slow her down before she made it to an obstruction, I gradually increased the pressure on the fish to the extent that my gear would allow. Rigged eels, with their sturdy single hooks, afford one the luxury of a very secure hookset, something that I would need to rely on as I adjusted my drag knob ever-so-slightly clockwise. After what seemed like an eternity of gain and loss, the fish simply stopped and turned her flank into the current, the onus now on me to bring her to hand. I pumped her in while gradually backing toward the beach behind me. Usually a strict adherent to the philosophy of minimal light when fishing, I switched on my head lamp as the fish neared, knowing that this was an occasion that I was willing to indulge in.
Many years later, I can close my eyes and see the image of that bass as she entered the beam of my light, just as clearly as I saw it on that autumn night. The fish was magnificent. A well-proportioned fish of nearly 48 inches, that easily pulled my scale beyond the 40-pound mark. My time with this old striper was to be brief, forgoing pictures and extended celebration to get her resuscitated and back on her way to points south. If she would not revive, I would need to accept my duty as a sportsman and harvest the fish – the regulations of the day allowing such action. Thankfully, that was not to be the case, as I soon felt the power returning to this great striped bass. With a swift kick of her enormous caudal fin, she soaked my face with seawater and slipped into the darkness – a definitive last-word in an honorable fight. One that I was privileged to have had on such a stormy autumn night.
"A Lucky Fishless Night"
by Dave Nguyen
I know many of us fancy ourselves to be good fishermen due to things such as our perseverance, understanding of the tides, baitfish knowledge, or whatever it may be. But let's be real, luck plays a huge role in what we do. The odds of a fish being exactly where we are, at exactly the right moment, in an enormous ocean, is extraordinarily lucky. And this story is about a night where tides and wind played a major role, but luck was the most important thing.
I had a SSW wind blowing in my face and it was the start of an incoming tide. As I cycled through all my plugs in my bag, there were no signs of life. As the tide started coming in, the waves were getting bigger, and I was getting pushed off my rock perch with each rolling set. After one too many tumbles in the washing machine, I decided to head back to shore, another skunk to add to my log. When I got to shore, I reached for my phone and felt an empty pocket. My heart sank to my knees. Not only had I lost my phone, but also my truck keys. I use the NiteIze Waterproof Phone pouch to carry my phone and keys on me. It works great, 100% waterproof, and I normally wear it on the included lanyard around my neck, but sometimes I'm lazy and just throw it in the front pocket of my Guy Cotten surf top. Somehow it had slipped out, and now I was stranded.
Well my first bit of luck was that I was in a fancy neighborhood, and all the houses have huge windows. I spotted a woman in her living room watching TV and approached her home. I kind of signaled to her with my headlamp and she obviously had reservations about opening her door to a soaking wet stranger clad in all black (the next bit of luck being that she didn't shoot me). She was kind enough to crack her front door open and I explained my situation and she let me use her phone to call my wife. Thankfully, my wife answered and was kind enough to drive an hour down to where I was to rescue me. As I lay on the bed of my truck feeling like a complete idiot, it dawned on me that I would now have to explain to my boss why I needed the spare set of keys for my work truck, and how I would need the afternoon off to go to the AT&T store.
The hour goes by, my wife pulls into the parking lot and says "Hey, I've been tracking your phone's location with 'Find my Iphone' and it's showing your phone over on this beach.” Now the odds of finding a small black phone, in the dark, on a long sandy beach have got to be mega millions type odds. But we give it a shot, and low and behold, I walk onto the beach and find my phone pouch almost immediately. It was perfectly fine, there was no water damage. I am still in disbelief as I write this article. The incoming tide and onshore wind just happened to send my phone back to shore after being in there for over an hour. That's got to be the first time the tides worked out in my favor that wasn't fishing related. Now excuse me while I go buy a lotto ticket.
What's the Weirdest Thing you've ever caught?
For Ray Phillips, it was a 4ft. sturgeon snagged at the mouth of the Connecticut River.
September Skies by Mike Simko.
The longer nights of early autumn offer clearer and darker skies, ideal for stargazing. This month the Moon will be our guidepost to several noteworthy events.
Moon and Saturn: On September 8, a very bright, nearly full Moon will appear close to the planet Saturn in the night sky. The pair will be visible in the eastern sky after dark and remain visible for most of the night.
Moon and Jupiter: In the early morning of September 16, a waning crescent Moon will pass near the planet Jupiter. Look for them in the eastern sky before sunrise to see this bright due.
Moon, Venus and Regulus: Just before sunrise on September 19 (this is for you Cuttyhunk anglers!), a tiny crescent Moon will form a tight group with brilliant Venus and the star Regulus low in the eastern horizon. The nearly new moon, for Cuttyhunk viewers, rises at exactly 4:00 AM, Venus at 4:10 AM and Regulus at 5:10 AM, exactly one hour before a 6:30 sunrise.
On September 21, Saturn will be at "opposition," meaning Earth is directly between the sun and Saturn. this makes the planet appear at its brightest for the year. Also on the 21st is the new Moon meaning the night sky will be at its darkest. Now begins the ideal viewing months to catch the faint, cloudy band of the Milky Way stretching across the sky.
Dark skies and tight lines everyone.