The Detective Is on the Case
Stephen Lobosco of Sag Harbor, whom many of you will know as the man with an impressive antique fishing lure collection, was coaxed out into the rain by a friend on Saturday morning, a morning that turned into an all-day, arm-wearying, catch-and-release marathon in one of Montauk’s easternmost, south-facing coves.
Lobosco went into great detail about there being such a huge school of striped bass in the cove, that while wading out to a rock perch, “I could feel them brushing past my legs.” The bass were in the 20-pound class. “We were throwing small bucktails, and it was every cast.”
Fishermen have varying relationships with the fish they catch. Some seem to take out their frustrations on them, yanking rather than playing them when they’re hooked, violently retrieving their hooks and throwing them back, as compared to never failing to meet their eyes before letting them go, as Lobosco said he did.
Early Tuesday morning, Bob Howard, a retired New York City police detective, cast a Super Strike needlefish lure into the dark on an undisclosed “sand beach” and came up with a striped bass weighing 39 pounds, and measuring 46 inches. The fish put him in first place in the Montauk SurfMasters tournament’s wader division. “I seldom weigh in my fish,” he said, meaning he releases them. “If I wasn’t in the contest I would have released her.”
Word of the catch circulated quickly via veteran casters’ truck radio communication. Fellow casters congratulated the angler in turns as they pulled up at Paulie’s Tackle shop in Montauk to get a look at Howard’s beautiful cow bass. Howard is affectionately known as Bob Lockbox Howard for the strongbox he keeps in the back of his pickup in which he stores his fishing gear. It’s reinforced with stainless steel cable.
Why? “Because some people can’t help themselves. They have to steal. I once watched two guys cut a perfect circle through wood and steel to get into a place. I waited until they got in. If you stop them before they get in, it’s attempted burglary. If they’re in, it’s a felony.”
A sweep of the Shinnecock area by Southampton Town Bay Constables found that theft of a public resource is getting out of control. The constables engaged over 150 fishermen over two days, Oct. 5 and 12. They issued 40 summonses for possessing more than the legal limit, taking undersize fish, illegally dumping or discarding catch, and spear-fishing in a marked channel. A good number were ticketed for failure to possess the required New York State Saltwater Fishing Registration.
Gary Aprea stands in second place in the Montauk SurfMasters tournament with a 19.24-pound bass. Mary Ellen Kane holds first place in the women’s division with a 13.04 pounder. Joan Federman is in second place with an 8.62-pound bass.
The Columbus Day crowd of casters fished pretty much shoulder-to-shoulder on both the north and south sides of Montauk Point over the weekend with mixed schools of bass and bluefish moving between the flotilla of small boats and the line of surfcasters on the tide.
On Monday, a swell that increased through the day kept boaters torn between a shoreward advance after fish and the possibility of getting capsized by a set of waves. There’ve been a fair number of such capsizings around the Point in recent years caused by boaters with their blood up looking toward the beach instead of the waves.
Speaking of boating safety, the Coast Guard Auxiliary is offering a boating education course on two consecutive Saturdays, Oct. 25 and Nov. 1, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.
Harvey Bennett at the Tackle Shop in Amagansett reports a number of weakfish being taken at Georgica Beach in East Hampton in recent days. The aforementioned Lobosco caught what he thought might be a new state record weakfish on Oct. 5. The standing record was held by Dennis Rooney of Seaford who caught a 19.2-pound weak in 1984.
Bennett reminds hunters that the sea duck season begins tomorrow and runs through Jan. 31. The woodcock season started on Oct. 1 and ends on Nov. 14.