it was september,late september 1981,tide was ebbing just 1 hour.
1-am,cool temps,perhaps nearbout 55 degrees.
a southeast wind was raging about 20 knots steady,gusting up to 40 at times.
Dark cloud[me],Malibu Kenny,Big Steve Franco,his brother mike and perhaps 2 others were ther as well.
there we stood on the west shore of New Haven Harbor[wyatt oil company],the rocks are sort of large there,several oil storage tanks are behind us.the water level is right at our feet.

we are facing dead east with waves entering the harbor at near dead south,tide is bucking the wind .
the waves are more like swells at near 5 feet,unheard of around here.

there we stand like warriors ready to attack,waiting for battle to begin.
we are all drooling,breathing heavy,aching to begin.

wedged in the rocks in front of me stands a custon 8 foot white lamiglass fiberglass rod[magnum series] built from a heavy,9 or 11 foot blank cut down.
on my line,a 3 foot wire leader 3 feet long with black nylon coating and big daddy mackeal goo-goo eyes swimmer.
most of the others have similar sticks but they are all honey lamis.

on my stick is taped a daiwa gold series GS-3 full of JT 25 pound mono[florescent blue/white].most others are using ande.
Malibu Kenny has an 8 footer with a daiwa Gold series GS-6 taped on,Big steve Franco has a 7 footer with a Gold series GS-20 on it,his brother Mike Franco has an 9 footer with a daiwa silver series 4000-C taped on.

we stand silent,then begin to chatter.
Big Steve decides to sling out his L.Cooper goo-goo eyes Hustler out into the swells.
after about 20 seconds he gets hammered by a chopper that looks like a submarine with teeth.
as you retrieve your plug,it would go up and waay down,crazy.

the chatter stops and that is replaced by screeching drags and big splashes.
I pick up my stick,sling out a mackeral big dady goo-goo eyes swimmer and get slammed hard,I lean back on it and it takes line.
as I handle my fish I look at the others we are all into a fish.
I grab my leader and slide the fish up,it has only the front hook in it's mouth.
I grab the tail and unhook it,then it's released.
this fish is around 16 pounds.

I tell you,it was true carnage and we all were bashing them.fish after fish was landed and we kept on going.
lines began to snap sounding like 32 slugs going of on a saturday night.

I stopped,cut off about 20 feet of line and retied.slung out a big daddy rudolph plug and BAM,I was into a very heavy fish,it dove,thrashed,took line and I finally land it.
this chopper was HUGE,nearly 44 inches,light green top with very silver sides,maybe it was an albino or something.Big Steve gave them the nic"Cape Cod Runners"

more than several of these odd looking choppers were caught and all were big.
Steves brother mike got 2 of them like that.

as I stated before,there were 2 other guys there but I don't remember who they were.
one of them got one too,it was 46 inches and later found to be 25 pounds.
at the same time I find that mine was 22-1/2 pounds.

3 hours of action that was never duplicated,bad weather,crappy wind and no bunkers around that we could see and the choppers moved in and stacked up there.
that spot was and still holds fish at times but access is now tough unless you want to get dirty.

an interesting discovery was when I dressed my fish[I only kept that one] it had several tommy cod inside along with 2 front halfs of nice sized flounder.
I must tell you,that night was one to remember,noting like it has happened since.
SO,between all of us the total caught was 63 fish.
my take was 14 in that 3 hours.
what a grand time we had,so many fish and extreme action,,,I doubt I could do that today,,,,,

It is great sharing,remembering and I am happy to have a place to do so.
stay well and remember,,keep your drag tight!

Hooks Up,,
R-P