BRUTES ON THE BEACH

I’ll go with blues as the toughest all day long [Who’s the Toughest?” Summer]. What blues do best is attack. No nibbling, no guesswork, and when hooked they cop an attitude like no other. ey will go aerial and ask only that you let them destroy a reasonable amount of terminal tackle, along with a few of your favorite plugs. A few years ago on our local beaches, where big blues run around 10 to 15 pounds, we had a fall run of these choppers with sh 15 pounds and up. Some approached and probably exceeded 22 pounds. I owe my largest surf-caught striper to the invading blues. I had planned to quit at ve of these brutes, which I did, then drove about a mile east to get away from them. A few casts later I was again cursing my luck, thinking the sh on my line was another blue. Lo and behold, about halfway in, the dorsal told a di erent tale. I will always remember that a ernoon.

Joe Ganun