October 6, 2010
I have a good friend and business associate who has been trying to hook up with me for cocktails in NYC the last couple of weeks. I like dry vodka martinis and Johnny Walker Black as much as the next person. But I have respectfully declined the invitations. I don’t think he really understood why until I sent him this video clip. Now he gets it.
September 28, 2010
The action began late in the afternoon, Friday, 9/24—where else–at Turtle Cove! A few fish. Nothing to write home about. Saturday AM, more of the same. Sunday? You could have stayed in bed. Nada.
Matt King took his first keeper bass in the corner under the bluff at Montauk
But Monday was a whole different, ahem, kettle of fish. Insane action by many accounts. Wave after wave of bass moved through Turtle Cove, crossing west to east from Brown’s rock to the Lighthouse jetty. At one point, the bass were in so close to shore that a rogue wave threw up a bunch onto terra firma. Those on the scene—I was not—reported quality fish–35-inchers; 15-plus pounders–in abundance. The action lasted all day. ”Water was purple from bloody bait,” 4Runner Dan told me. “Rippling pods of fast moving schoolie bass were feeding on snapper blues and white bait.” They exploded on pencil and Polaris poppers.
The fish were back at TC at daybreak on Tuesday, September 28. Then, SE winds kicked up and turned off the southside spigot. Time for a scene change to Montauk’s kinder and gentler northside. Typical of my “shoulda been here yesterday” fishing fortunes, I showed up at the North Bar at first light on Tuesday. I love skipping the office for a weekday fishing foray on the beach. If there is an upside to growing old—please, please tell me there is—it may be license to do the things forbidden to us as kids. I was great a playing hookie from school in the 1960s. I haven’t lost my touch now that I am in my ‘60s.
A steady pick of bass kept surfcasters happy on the North Bar
There was plenty of action for me to share that Tuesday. Tons of bait around. And to hear the sharpies describe it, plenty of fish too. But the action was sporadic, requiring time, effort and luck to be in exactly the right spot when the fish decided to show. Otherwise, you’d surely have thought the water was dead. But it wasn’t.
There was fish all day from Clark’s Cove to the refreshment stand bluff, about one-quarter of which were keeper bass. A few blues mixed in. I raised a few fish with a white pencil popper in the mini-blitzes that I was barely able to reach on the North Bar and False Point between 10am and 1130am, just before the flood. I nailed one short striper in the same area when the action resumed in the afternoon on the outgoing. Blitzes were in and out and very fast moving. The afternoon settled into a slow pick for the longest casters. Then, at dusk, an up and down mini-pod worked between Clark’s Cove and the entrance. But I was never able to reach them. Still, I felt the satisfaction of knowing that the fall run was on. October suddenly looked very promising.
September 26, 2010
The only keeper bass I saw at TC was felled by a speargun.
It has been two weeks since I’ve had a fish on the line. The skunk is upon me but not for lack of effort. Men (and women) with sticks are everywhere in Montauk, just waiting for the fall run to hit the surf line. For now, the fish remain out of surfcasting reach, in the realm of the mosquito fleet of flyboats. There’s plenty of bait in the water, but the ocean temperature remains unseasonably warm. We need a season-signaling blow to sound the dinner bell for these fish. Where’s those nor’easters when we need one?
Sunset over Clark's Cove, Montauk
A major weekend tournament Saturday and Sunday morning, along with mild Indian Summer weather brought crowds of anglers and wannabes to every beach at or near the Point from Shagwong Beach to Caswell’s Cove. There were rumors of fish on the north side Friday night and in Turtles Saturday morning. I wasn’t alone picking up this buzz. I ran into a bona fide traffic jam of fishing buggies at TC on Saturday evening. And Sunday morning, fishermen at Turtles were as thick as the SROs at the Metropolitan Opera’s season opener of Das Rheingold.
Geezers and gadflys jamming traffic at Turtles
I kept the beaches honest with two round trips to all the usual suspect locations on Saturday. Billy Snee joined me for an early Sunday morning tour around Mecca. All we saw was a spearfishing diver walk off the Montauk jetty with a keeper bass and a gorilla bluefish. Otherwise, lots of lovely sunrises and sunsets. One certainty about this September skunk: It sure is pretty.
Turtle Cove Sunrise: Pretty but not a finny creature within range of the surfline.
September 16, 2010
Crabmeisters of Wainscott Beach: Frank and Greg.
Blue is my favorite color. Bluefin tuna, bluefish, blue claw crabs. Big brother Frank is a master at catching blue claws in a secret spot near Wainscott beach (he’s no slouch with a blueberry muffin pan either, but that’s another culinary story). I can’t tell you exactly where we get the blue claws, but if you make a left at the Wainscott pumpkin patch, follow that street until the end, and then hoof it east a quarter mile, you should be able to find it. If not, don’t despair: according to Harvey Bennett of The Tackle Shop, this has been a banner year for crabs. “They’re everywhere”.
In the absence of finny creatures to hook in the surf during his recent visit from the Left Coast, Frank led a pair of mid-afternoon crab-catching safaris, demonstrating his locavore prowess. The first foray with brother-in-law Avuncular Phil resulted in a crab-sauce pasta dinner. And with help from Denver friends Greg and Barbara a few days later, we scored enough to share our bounty with the local Chinese restaurant. In return, Chin’s of Amagansett cooked up our half in a finger-licking black bean sauce. Who’s ready for an alfresco Indian Summer lunch of succulent, spicy crabs washed down with cold HB Oktoberfest beer? Repeat after me: “Yum”!
Thanks to Chin's Chinese Restaurant, these became.......
.............these: blue claw crabs in black bean sauce.
Secret blue claw hunting grounds: Left at Wainscott's pumpkin patch.
September 15, 2010
When the fish don't bite--go fly a kite. And attach your camera for an aerial view.
In the late-afternoon shadow of the Montauk Lighthouse is Turtle Cove, a legendary surf-fishing beach. On its gravelly shore, I caught my first bluefish a million years ago. And there I’ve nailed dozens of keeper bass over the years. At this time of the fall season, it’s common for hardened surfcasters to be slinging lures in between the wave-riding surfers and the encroaching mosquito fleet of flyboats, shoulder-to-shoulder with day tripping touristas, whose Walmart gear invariably fails in the midst of a blitz for the ages, tangling lines left and right. But typically Turtles is pescoso: teeming with fish. So all is usually forgiven.
Not so much pescoso thus far this season, however. Mostly, all we’ve seen in TC is a lot of hot air. On a recent afternoon, the otherwise deserted TC was host to this intrepid photographer, floating his camera above it all by means of a kite. Turns out, this type of aerial photography has been around for a century or more. A kite-borne camera was used to photograph San Francisco in ruins after the 1906 earthquake. Nowadays, you can get some really high tech kite camera rigs if this is your thing. As an alternative to fish that aren’t there to be caught, it just might become mine.
San Francisco in ruins after the 1906 quake, as captured by a kite-borne camera.
There’s fishing, and there’s boating; But there’s also exceptions.
September 11, 2010
My good friend and stalwart fishing buddy Big Bob W. filed this report from the weekend, which is worthy of a special “Boater’s Edition” of FishTales.
A report from the waters at Shagwong Reef.
Big Bob battles a brawny bluefish on Shagwong Reef.
Within five minutes, we had 6 blues landed and in the fish box. We also had one broken reel and one snapped line from my new light tackle rod. The deck was covered with blood, fish guts and semi-digested bait fish. Some of the blood was mine as I sliced my finger on fire wire line trying to help my charges pull their fish into the boat. With two rods down we switched to boat poles that had been set up with leaders and quickly added small diamond jigs. We dropped lines to the bottom and just reeled straight up and caught a fish on every retrieval.
With 8 fish already in the box, we just shook the new catches off the line and went back down. I kept thinking of one of your basic rules: never leave the fish. But by this time a reel on one the new boat poles had also jammed. I was also running low on fuel and day, so we headed into Star Island Marina for gas and filleted our fish. And then into the setting sun.
Fish Magnet: The reef and point at Shagwong, Montauk
Thank God I had two young guys with me to scrub down the boat when we arrived back at Hogs Creek marina. I was exhausted. Karen agreed to include bluefish on our evening menu. We grilled the fish with a spicy rub that proved very tasty. These small bluefish were indeed some of the very best I have eaten. All of our guests enjoyed it and I must say that even Karen ate an entire fillet.
It was one of the largest concentrations of fish I have ever seen. If this is a foreshadowing of the season to come it will be one for the ages. I can ony hope that the bass will be as plentiful.
Talk to you soon.
Bob
One fish, two fish, Rosh Hoshanah bluefish. Oh the dinner we ate.
September 10, 2010
On Friday, the second of the oh-so-fishable High Holy Days, big brother Frank and I returned to the scene of the crime: Turtle Cove, steps to the west of the Montauk Lighthouse jetty. “You can never dis the Cove,” is our mantra. We were joined by brother-in-law “Avuncular” Phil Cecchini who turned out to be our good luck charm. We held our ground on the gravelly shore of Turtle Cove for the better part of an hour, watching keeper bass churn the waters left and right of us in the rocks. Our patience paid off when a school of fish came within our casting range. And they did not get away. The Rosh Hoshanah Blitz of 2010 gave up our dinner. That night we dined royally on grilled bluefish in a light olive oil, soy sauce and garlic marinade, lobster bisque, calamari salad, tiella de patate e pomodori (Apulian potato-tomato casserole), Napa cabbage and tomato salad, and peach crostata for dessert.
Lighthouse Blues: One fish, two fish, Rosh Hoshanah bluefish; Oh the dinner we ate
Don’t know how; Don’t know why. But there’s no better fishing than on the Jewish High Holy Days
September 9, 2010
“Because they just do,” was the best answer I could come up with.
A colleague in my office asked why the fish consistently show up on the Jewish New Year, in what we call the Rosh Hoshanah Blitz. “Is it the time of year, the weather, something Biblical or what?”
“Beats me,” I replied. All I know is that historically no other time of the fall season is as productive for surfcasting as Rosh Hoshanah (or the lesser known, but up-and-coming and nearly as satisfiying Yom Kippur Blitz, 1o days hence).
The Rosh Hoshanah Blitz: Schoolie bass and gangster blues churn the water near Brown's Rock at Fort Hero, Montauk
This year was no exception. On the first day of Rosh Hoshanah, Thursday, September 9, with the tide ready to turn in the late afternoon, Big Brother Frank and I found pods of schoolie bass and gangster bluefish busting water below the bluff at Fort Hero in Montauk. They were right where Captain Harvey Bennett of The Tackle Shop said they’d be. “You’ve got to work for them,” said Harvey, “but there are tons of fish around”.
Frank and I weren’t actually there to fish. Rather it was a scouting day; An afternoon drill to get Frank’s head on straight. He arrived from California 36 hours earlier. Absent from the East End for some 5 months, Frank was in a clamaniac coma, practically hallucinating about 4-inch Cherrystones that he yearned to turn into baked clams oreganato and linguine with white clam sauce. Frank needed a dry run along the surfline to snap his bivalve bemusement.
A stiff northwest wind had blown for the better part of two days, making the water weedy and muddy on the southside. But the bluffs of Montauk provided suitable cover between Turtle Cove and the Sewer Pipe. There were the fish; a bona fide seeing-is-believing Rosh Hoshanah Blitz. Our wives Natalie and Toni were along for the ride, but we had nary a rod or a lure between us.
These fish would fall tomorrow, we vowed. But for the moment, we opted for a triple-header errand run to Balsam Farms for fresh corn, Stuart’s Seafood for chick lobsters, Franey’s wine shop for a magnum Trebbiano D’Abbruzo. Then it was back to Frank’s house where his daughter Gina rounded out our dinner with a fresh from the farm mixed green salad.
To be continued…….
Beach erosion from Earl will eat into what little shoreline we have left
NOAA's Predicted Hurricane Path; 3pm, 9/2/2010
At best, Hurricane Earl will stay offshore as it passes Montauk some time late Friday, and will be significantly weakened from its south of Hatteras Category 4 intensity. But even without a direct hit, the likelihood is that eastern Long Island will experience hurricane-force wind gusts and a significant tidal surge. Forecasters are calling for Hurricane Earl to bring sustained winds of 40 mph (with gusts of up to 60 mph), heavy rains and possible flooding between 1pm Friday to the early overnight hours of Saturday.
The east end beaches are already in bad shape at Montauk State Park, Montauk Village, Gin Beach, Hither Hills and elsewhere thanks to last fall’s NorIda storm and the parade of nor’easters that have slammed long Island monthly, right through March, 2010.
Hurricane Gusts of up to 60mph forecast for Montauk on Friday
And the dire prediction is that right behind Earl, tropical storms Fiona and Gaston are gaining muscle in the Atlantic.
Let’s hope that Earl and its followers are fast movers and–for the sake of our beaches and those in New England–executes some dramatic right hand turns out to sea. And no matter that the sun will come out on Saturday and Sunday. Don’t go near the water! Rip tides should be ferocious in Earl’s wake.
July 26, 2010
First of all, don’t believe anything you read in this surf fishing article from the Wall Street Journal. There are NO FISH in Montauk. Not now; Not ever. They’re all in Jersey. I swear. Please tell ALL your friends.
Freddie "The Eel": He only comes out at night. (Photo by Jack Yee)
Furthermore, the author took some liberties with Fred Kalkstein’s nickname. It is “Freddie The Eel”. That’s a shame, too. Because while Melnyk gets all the press, Freddie gets all the fish. The BIG fish. He used to live on my street in Amagansett and, back in the day, we’d chase schools of bluefish together on the sandy beaches. But then the quest for big bass became a jihad for Freddie and he went native. For years now, Freddie ONLY fishes at night and ALONE. He actually had a live-eel tank installed into a new beach house he had constructed some years back. Freddie never tells anyone exactly where he fishes. We all know the general vicinity: The rocky southside beaches that stretch from Ditch Plains east of the village of Montauk to the moors approaching the old Air Force radar station and the lighthouse. But the precise rock where Freddie perches and casts and catches is a well kept secret. Pound for pound, cast for cast, Freddie outfishes everyone.