He hit hard.
Yep.
There's so much easier.
Great faster.
You get him. He's on it. He's on it. He's on it.
Faster, faster, faster. He's on it. He's on it. He's on it.
Oh shit. This fish got on the rail. Jesus.
Journeys. They are what make life interesting.
Nothing else feels quite like leaving the old behind and striking out in search of something completely new.
Many people enjoy the luxury of knowing exactly where their journey will take them, but those who seek out the uncharted and improbable come away with the greatest rewards.
They are the ones who end up learning that a good journey's impact extends far beyond its end point.
For us, our journey began in New York City, where a high school project evolved into something much greater.
A quest to prove that a certain fish is definitely worth saving.
As I started fishing for it when I was five, so it's sort of like a lifelong pursuit for me, improving every year.
Why do I fish for striped bass? Because I like a challenge, and I find striped bass to be one of the most challenging game fish for me to target, especially on fly.
We've spent a lot of time working on our craft. It's just like a chess game. Every step you get closer, you figure out what tide is best at this spot, what type of day you need to be there, and you just get closer and closer to catching that great fish.
It's sort of like in my blood now. It was such a romantic fish to catch when I started out, and a difficult fish to catch. I really got into it, it got under my skin.
So I just simply fished for a lot, day after day, twice a day, for months at a time, and then going in on years. What can I tell you? It's hopeless.
Your typical high school senior spends their last summer before college, sleeping late, partying it up at night, maybe working a part-time job to make some cash for the coming school year.
Well, I guess we're kind of atypical. After beginning a film project on striped bass conservation during our senior spring, we wanted to see it through.
For months we planned, tied, and prepped, balancing homework, sports, and applying to college.
When summer finally came knocking, we decided it was time to hit the water, and hit it hard. And we immediately encountered a problem.
Well, you know, starting with, in my lifetime, there were a lot of striped bass when I was very young, the late 60s, or the mid 60s. So up to that time there were a lot of bass in the system, all over. And there were a lot of big bass too.
And then there was a crash in the population in the mid to late 70s. And then they put a moratorium on them, whatever, fishermen stopped fishing for them because they weren't there. In the 90s and the early 2000s, we had a lot of striped bass in the system, but not quite as many big bass as you had before.
And once again, we have another crash. I think that during this crash, there were fewer striped bass, especially in the Long Island Sound, far fewer and a lot smaller than they were then. This is a really dangerous crash. I don't think we're at the end of it.
The fact that it's this hard to catch them on fly, we're out there every day and we're happy to catch one fish. Like that's ridiculous.
Oh God! Did you see that?
Am I off? Am I off? Am I off? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No!
That was a huge fish. That was a huge fish.
Like a 30 pounder. Yes, they had my lure in their mouth. I know, I saw.
I was like... What time we get here this morning, Thomas?
8.30 in the morning. What time is it now?
I don't even know. What time is it?
8.30. Very sharp.
We'll talk in a minute.
You should um...
That physically hurts my body. It feels like death.
I should quit.
But in all seriousness, none of us were about to quit.
We decided to channel our frustration into working as hard as we could to locate whatever populations of big fly-catchable fish were left.
And what did we find? Some of the baddest, hardest hitting fish that swim.
Never be a passive fisherman. I'm always trying to be an active fisherman.
I'm trying to visualize my fly and if I'm not catching fish, what can I do to change that?
What the fish is thinking, what the fish is seeing.
And I'm thinking about how I can be more efficient in my search for these larger fish.
Because it is in the end, it's kind of a game of odds with these really big bass.
You need to put in time, you need to put in casts.
The more you do that, the more you stick with it, the greater your chances are of actually succeeding and landing a really nice striped bass on fly.
The striped bass take is either comes when you most expect it or when you least expect it.
It's explosive. It's always explosive. As soon as you hook into that fish, you know.
Yeah, that's how you do it.
Oh my God.
We got this old b**ch.
What I feel is ecstasy. It's awesome. It's a big accomplishment.
It's the thrill of being a fisherman, the thrill of success.
It's the thrill of being a fisherman.
It's kind of cheesy. Yeah, hard work pays off.
The greatest fish in my life.
We really needed a big fish for this film. We really want to show the fly fishing community a really big fish on fly.
It's a real nice fish. It's a roust.
I was born for this.
Obviously, another goal of the film was the conservation aspect. We really feel incredibly strongly about getting the striped bass reclassified as game fish.
I think it has to come from the recreational fishing community.
The fly fishing community is full of a lot of really passionate people. I know if that passion is geared in the right way, we can definitely make a difference.
It's not a food value fish. It's a game fish. The amount of fun we've had fishing for them, it's an amazing experience to fish for a striped bass.
We have a responsibility to change the regulations so that striped bass can start coming back. It may not ever be like it was, but we can definitely make it better if we stop killing so many of our big striped bass.
Even though we'll do our best, it can't just be us. It's got to be a community effort. We need help in addressing this issue.
I wish that more fishermen would see more of a thrill in releasing the striped bass. It's necessary. Just so that we have a resource.
So there you have it. Hard work does pay off. Now let's keep on working.
Thank you for watching.
