If you fish for striped bass with a fly rod, you’re operating under an unimpeachable assumption: whatever you hook must be within close range. Fly casting range. Not practice casting on a lawn with just a fly line. I’m talking standing thigh-deep in the ocean with a line and leader and fly and waves and wind and if it’s the dark of the moon, limited vision. You might get 100 feet if you’re a tournament-level caster, or have a two-handed surf rod. For most folks in standard conditions, it’s probably 75 feet or less. If the wind is honking in your face, you might be talking well under 50.

Sometimes, distance just doesn’t matter. (The last striper I caught took the fly under a rod’s length away from me.) And sometimes, like Wednesday night, distance is everything.

I fished with surfcaster extraordinaire Toby Lapinski, and it was a tale of the tape. Toby got into a half-dozen-plus fish ranging from 5 to 15+ pounds, and I blanked. Oh, I had a few pulls from squid, a solo sharp rap, and then later, a momentary hookup. But the spelling of the word of the number of bass I landed begins with a Z. Toby was launching his wares way over 100 feet, and that’s where all the action was. I had my two-handed surf cannon with me, but I was well short of where the fish were holding and feeding. I saw one of Toby’s hookups, and it was a good 50 feet beyond what I was making. (And I was having a very good casting night, bottoming out on just about every cast.)

You might think I was discouraged, but that wasn’t the case. I was delighted that Toby was getting into fish. Most of all, it served as proof that I wasn’t fishing poorly. I just couldn’t get the fly out far enough. Nobody could have. Thank goodness those nights are the exception.

Out thinking as we trudged back along the beach was to try a different, earlier stage of the tide, when the fish might be in closer. It’s all one huge science experiment, with your lab report being graded by the fish. So I’ll be looking to bump that C up to an A.