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Weakfish Rock
By: Paul Melnyk
Surfrats.com Weekly Editorial #5
Nov 05, 2007

Let’s get one thing straight. This is MY ROCK. If I find you on it and I am in the mood, you will have to share. Not to worry, there is room for three…four if Billy Jacob or Attila are on it….

Who was the first to fish my rock? I have heard that “The Professor” was one of the first to don a wetsuit and make the plunge. Jack Yee and Joe Bregan showed me where it was (I was real far away when they gave up the location; I used my spy glass…). I am quite sure that some native was up on this perch centuries ago. Of course this rock was much closer to the beach back then. I’ll bet that when Jack was goin’ out there, it was only ten yards off the beach!

One thing is for sure, this is the most productive rock on the north side, followed by Evans’, Shark, Fang, Blackfish, the Three Sisters and the Double Flat[split rock]. Stay off Double Flat, this is mine too! The only rock at the Point that I have had better fishin’ at is the “Real” Weakfish Rock” (the one on all the charts).

The bonafied original is set about seventy five yards directly off the west corner of the lighthouse jetty. I have been there twice in my life. I could reach this rock only during a VERY LOW tide. It is directly in the center of the Point Rip, situated in about twenty feet of water. The platform is only two feet square, and it must be calm-calm to fish… You can’t see it. Even at full moon low tide, this rock is knee deep. You gotta know where it is…..

OK. Don’t think I am gonna give you a bearing or nothin’ to get to my favorite stand. You want it, you gotta work for it. Word to the wise… It is treacherous! Like many of the things we hardcore wetsuiters do, THIS SWIM CAN KILL YOU! Don’t think about goin’ there on your own. I will take you out there, if you got the eggs, (for a nominal fee of $400.00 and your gear… should you not make it back). Of course you will have to take the Vito Orlando test… and pass…. [Walk from the trailer park at Ditch to Turtle Cove and back in one tide, while makin’ five thousand casts!]

Let me tell you about my first trip to Weakfish Rock. I stood under the light one afternoon and watched this guy (Joe Bregan) walk out to a rock, seventy five yards from the beach, He stood up, clean and dry and pull bass from the drink at a phenomenal rate. Easy as that! I was hooked. I hadda havit!

The next afternoon, I got geared up at the Weed Bowl in my waders and Dricore top. Of course the Korkers were attached… Out I went on a bee line for the lip curl of what I could see was a not too far rock… Everything went swell until I discovered I would have to swim for the last thirty yards. Weakfish sits in a big hole. The tide had not begun to rip yet, and the sea was calm so this swim was uneventful. By the way, Korkers are not easy to swim with. It took about five minutes to swim the thirty yards while doing the elephant crawl…

Standing up, I made a cast and immediately hooked a striper of twenty pounds with a pencil popper. That was so easy! I made two more casts and took two more twenty pounders. (I later came to refer to these 38 inch fish as “Weakfish Rats” because they were so numerous.) During my forth cast, I gazed down and saw a line of lures drifting by. Some poor slob lost all his plugs! Wait a minute… The top of my bag was open… No Velcro in ’93….

So, stupid dives into the drink to collect his lost sheep. I got most of them and turned around to hop back on the rock…. Which was now ten yards away.

I swam, and I swam.. I kicked and crawled and clawed my way back to that rock, just managing to get a mitt on the backside of it. One big yank and a step and I was on… for about two seconds. Try as I might, I could not pull myself back onto the perch!

Time to think hard. I was exhausted, hot and scared. Rule one. When you get into a pinch, DON’T PANIC! Take a few deep breaths and THINK. Well I thunk and I thunk and then the panic set in. I started splashin’ around with a free hand, my rod digging with the other. I was flying through the rip, well on the way to Block Island. By luck or Devine providence, as I flailing away, my rod happened to strike the bottom of a shallow shoal. At this point I tried to use my rod as a poler on a flats boat would, to push myself along. It worked!

The first few pushes were a bust, until I figured out that I had to point my rod up tide to get a bite into the bottom. I preyed as my rod bent perilously for the first few strokes. The tactic was working! I began to gain ground, at which point, the swell pushed me toward the beach. Pure determination and brute strength got me back to the rocks of Clarks Cove. I staggered out of the surf.

“Hey pal! You OK?” a caster shouted to me.
“Sure! Piece o’ cake… I do this all the time” I said, trying hard to hold back a blush.

It took 3 days to recover from this little swim. My arms and legs ached for that long. You would think that this experience would deter me from a repeat performance. You would be mistaken. I am an adrenaline junkie. This was the tits! I would get really good at missing the rock and poleing my way back to the beach in the next few weeks, to the point where I began to enjoy the exercise! Hell, I even took my pal Pope out there with me! We became known as Pope-Paul that summer as we hooked one bass after the other while stickin’ them up the butts of the salties on the beach who just sit and watch.

My happiest recollection is the first time I heard Jack Yee holler to me.

“Hey you! GET OFF OF MY ROCK!”

(c)Paul Melnyk 2007, written exclusively for Surfrats.com

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