TIGHT LINES
HIGH FIVE
with Andrew Spencer
There are, according to all the scientific people "in the know," five senses. Those senses are, in

no particular order: sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste. We all learned them when we were kids. I, for one, never really thought I'd ever use that knowledge after the third grade.

Well, friends and neighbors, the third grade was a while back for yours truly. But, surprisingly enough, I'm still using all five of my senses on a more-or-less daily basis. There are occasions when my allergies kick in and the smell and taste elements aren't working so great, but you get the basic idea here.

Case in point, a few days ago, I had the opportunity to use several of my senses while out at the Cord of the Bay. Yeah, friends and neighbors, chasing bluefish is a five-sense job.

Did anybody see, smell, hear, feel or taste that segue coming on?

The Cord of the Bay - the area south of Great Point on the Sound side of Coatue (see fellow Nantucket Independent writer Peter Brace's column last week on kayaking through the cut at Coatue for more information) - has been ridiculously hot fishing recently. From the surf, from a boat, for stripers or blues, it's been crazy.

It took him a few tries, but Andrew managed to count all the way to five in this week's column. He won this bluefish as a prize.

Last week, Dad and I headed out there. I'd given Dad the benefit of a few days' rest to recover from jet lag and to get his watch on the right time zone, and he was chompin' at the bit to get out on the water. After the 20-minute pilgrimage to Bill Fisher Tackle to stock up on "things I never knew I needed because I didn't know they existed" (a direct quote from my father, to be exact), we were away.

After a quick boat ride through the cut and out towards the lighthouse, I smelled something. And in case you're keeping score at home, that's one sense down, four to go. It was kind of like watermelon, but also reminiscent of cucumber, with an overtone of fishiness. Kind of a sommelier's wildest nightmare come true. Bingo, kids. That's the smell of bluefish.

Dad was oblivious, but I killed the throttle. He looked up in that confused way that only fathers can truly pull off and asked if I saw birds. Did somebody reference sight? That's two. Three more to go. Diving terns are often a key sign of the presence of bluefish. The little birds aren't going after bluefish - that would be suicidal. Rather, they're trying to scavenge the remains of baitfish left behind by packs of feeding bluefish, but there weren't any birds in sight. Just the smell.

First cast, five fish are chasing the plug, making it jump a few feet above the water. But I remember last year's column about the first-cast-fish curse, so I managed to lose them. But soon it was apparent that we were in the middle of an armada of bluefish, because every cast was met with strike after strike and fish after fish.

The sound of the strikes, no matter how often they come, never ceases to energize. Sound. That's three, kids. Bluefish don't nibble. They don't graze. They don't do anything halfway. Nope, bluefish go the whole way every time. You'll know you've got one chasing your plug by the splashes trailing behind it through the water. And suffice it to say that it's quite a sight when you've got three, four, even five chasing your plug at the same time.

And then there's that magical moment when you hook a fish. The rod lurches in your hand and the tip bends as the fish pulls for all he's worth in the opposite direction. Do I feel a fourth sense being mentioned? Make sure your drag isn't so tight that the pull will snap your line. Keep it loose enough to allow the line to run when the fish pulls, but still tight enough that you can make some progress in the other direction when you're reeling.

And speaking of line, make sure you've got fresh line on your reels when you head out for the first time. Call it hindsight, but old line just doesn't stand up to the stress of catching fish. It'll break - mark my words - and a seven-dollar line change can save you that heartache and irritation pretty easily.

And finally, for all you striper purists/elitists out there, I'll grant you that striped bass is a fantastic food fish. But when you get right down to it, fresh bluefish is a pretty exceptional food fish in its own right. In other words, it tastes pretty good. And that's five.

So keep your senses tuned to your surroundings and thank your third grade teacher for introducing you to all five of them. Now go put 'em to work.

Tight lines.

Andrew Spencer is a freelance writer living on Nantucket and an avid fisherman. His first novel "Veneer" is available online and at island bookstores.

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