Albies are tought targets than stripers this time of year.

Amanda handles a boat and a fly rod as well as she handles herself. Three hundred yards off the lighthouse lurks an anvil-shaped reef. It seems to collect swells like a magnet, but in reality, offshore canyons focus wave energy onto the shallow slab. We watch the emerald peaks explode on the outside reef, but back off through a shallow channel before grinding across the inside shelf. Between sets, Amanda zips the bay boat into the channel. These incursions, into the bowels of one of the East Coast’s most famous surf breaks, allow us to lob suspending plugs and sinking fly lines (see sidebar for tackle tips) over the backs of the racing waves, where small pods of striped bass feed.

The swell is waning, and the time between sets lengthens. But, like a huffing bull about to charge, the reef snorts boils. Down the beach we can see a capsized boat wrecked on the rocks. No one was hurt, but since everyone’s talking about it through rueful grins you get the feeling that the guide wishes he’d gone down with his ship. I want nothing to do with the frigid water, or their derision, and so keep a wary eye on the horizon.

Every third cast or so yields a striper, each between 20 and 30 inches long. And after catching a half-dozen carbon copies, Mike Neil asks over his shoulder if Amanda would like to fish. He doesn’t see the 6-foot set she’s regarding with nonchalance.

“No, thanks,” she says, spinning the wheel. “I’m a voyeur.”

We crest the waves, and looking back Amanda spots the black outlines of bigger fish through the translucent swells. She runs us right back in there without hesitation, and Mike’s still laughing at what just came out that pretty mouth, but he’s obviously glad she stayed at the wheel. Moments later, he hooks the biggest striper of the trip. We dodge another set while he fights it. The 37-inch fish seems to know when waves will buffet the boat; it runs when Mike’s off balance.

Come morning, the swell has diminished. Amanda, Steve Brechard and I sit watching the sunrise gild Montauk’s tawny, aged cliffs. The ocean is flat, the engine is off, and I am transfixed. Furrowed and battered by wind and waves, each cliff seems inscribed with effigies of fishermen wearing obsessed looks. One headland seems to wear a headdress and sport the flat nose of an Indian; another looks remarkably like the stony face of a whaler staring into a storm, doused again and again with spray. Maybe they are figments of my imagination, but there’s an energy here that makes people turn their backs on the land, permanently.

Suddenly, a commotion on the beach. Spotters scurrying atop the cliffs have found a pod of bass, and anglers are bounding over the rocks and down the beach. A few boats converge on the school, only to be repelled by huge plugs hurled like rocks. A couple surf casters hook up, but more arrive on their heals and throw over their lines without breaking stride. Amanda just shakes her head.

“Everything’s a rivalry out here and nobody cares anything about social bubbles. They cast over and at each other cursing, but forget about it as soon they hook up.

Shortly, we see the two fastest anglers drag keepers up the beach then elbow their way back into the brawl. One angler’s plug goes whizzing right past the other angler’s ear. Most folks would call this play dangerous, its participants psychos, but I understand the absence of caution, the madness. I’ve been fortunate enough to get caught up in it many times. In high school, for example, a bluefish blitz got me so fired up that I smacked a close friend in the head with a 4-ounce Gator spoon. It concussed him and the hook stuck into his skull, but I was so drunk with fish lust I asked him if it was okay if I kept fishing. He said, “sure,” picked up his rod, then fainted at the sight of his own blood.