You have to be on the water when the fish are ready to eat. For writer James Wu, that means doing it in the dark. Decamped near Rhode Island’s Block Island Sound, Wu is forced to flip his sleep schedule to allow for an entire week of all-night striper fishing and early-morning false albacore hunting. Every Third Tide follows Wu as he battles the early-Autumn darkness as well as the East Coast’s two headline game fish—bait-busting false albacore and gear-smoking stripers.

“It’s 1 a.m. There’s a knock on my door at the Gables Inn. The quiet voice is hoarse. “Are you up? It’s time to go.” Marcus is in his 60s with a lifetime of salt and freshwater flyfishing in him. He’s ready to go.
I’m lying down on the bed in the old Victorian house with rickety floors, dark halls. The ancient technology of a grandfather clock, tall and dark, sounds on the hour. Owners—concerned with reservation ledgers, heating bills and taxes—neglect creaky steps, loose doorknobs, rusty pins and hinges. The inn is empty except for us and one young, good-looking couple on a lovers’ retreat. It’s Rhode Island after Labor Day. We’re after false albacore and stripers.”

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