Montauk’s Money Tide

My son-in-law stood over the stove Monday evening stirring diced vegetables that would go into bass cakes along with a medley of spices, an egg as binder, and crackers crumbled by hand. The 40-pound striped bass providing the substance of the cakes was speared on Saturday by the same man stirring the veggies.

He talked about the Elbow, a place just about due east of the Montauk Lighthouse where a seamount rises to a depth of just 24 feet. The spot gathers fish, and the awe of surfers watching from shore as waves break on it during giant storm swells.

The chef said he saw a flotilla of porgies there on Saturday to match the flotilla of sport boats plying the rips off the Point — there was an unusually large number of boats working an unusually large body of fish — and he spoke of the danger posed by boaters who did not respect the red-with-white-stripe “diver-down” flags that indicate the presence of people underwater who might surface at any time.

We talked about the strong currents that rip and swirl around Montauk and Block Island Sound in general, how they can play navigational havoc while providing some of the best fishing found anywhere on the East Coast. The hunting strategies used by the various species in concert with currents would make for a fascinating film capturing tactics like how larger predators are able to hold their ground, so to speak, in the lee of rocks, waiting for the tide to sweep smaller fish within range.

The bass cakes, topped with the rich conversation about their source, went down just fine with a side of steamed green beans and papaya salad with goat cheese.

Currents, tides, and salad came to mind earlier in the day. I’ve written about the money tide before; I mean its existence and source, but the metaphor of it escaped me until Monday, I think because of the ongoing harangue over this summer’s surge of visitors and related frustrations.

For those unaware, July and August are the months when Gulf Stream eddies and meanders bring warm water and tropical species (there was a striped clownfish seeking the shade of my boat’s mooring buoy the other day).

It’s the warm water that draws visitors into the briny for a dip, often without remembering to remove the cash from their suits. The ocean floats it out of open pockets and mixes it with seaweed, usually the sweet-smelling red weed that’s combed from the bottom by strong currents this time of year.

The sea picks the pockets of swimmers, adding the lettuce of folded money to the salad of red weed and small flotsam driven by the prevailing southwest winds that move west-to-east close to shore. By the time it reaches Ditch Plain Beach, where the shoreline bends north and the bottom turns from sand to cobblestone, the salad gathers in heaps.

They are like shorebirds, the locals, who stalk the salad, wading knee-deep into it, eyes downcast watching the flowery kaleidoscope of undulating vegetation, as waves gently toss it, searching for fives, tens, and twenties.

The shorebirds have been known to pluck more than $100 from the money tide in a single day. Local people morphing into shorebirds and colluding with a warm sea to pick the pockets of summer visitors is a metaphor, right? Or, is it just me?

Glenn Grothmann, down at Paulie’s Tackle shop in Montauk, informed me Tuesday morning that Jack Yee has died. Jack was a surfcaster-turned-photographer, a constant presence on the beach. He was a dedicated surfcaster who tusseled with local inshore net fishermen back in the day. No love lost there. More recently, he documented annual fishing tournaments. Many an angler owes to Jack Yee his or her glory shot, the one of them holding the big one.

He would have appreciated that big porgies are being taken by surfcasters right in downtown Montauk using worms and clams as bait, and he would have been down there on the docks when fishermen brought back the big bass they’ve been catching while drifting live eels around the aforementioned Elbow.

Harvey Bennett, owner of the Tackle Shop on Montauk Highway in Amagansett, reminded me that Tuesday was “bass-teel” day with stripers being taken by surfcasters “upfront” around the Montauk Lighthouse, along the south-facing beaches from Montauk west. Grothmann agreed, saying that the larger bass were being taken on Darter lures at night.

A rumor is circulating that a caster at Georgica Beach in East Hampton had a 10-pound bluefish he was fighting bitten in half by . . . who knows, but sharks are fond of bluefish. In fact, a three-foot-long mako was caught from the beach the other day by a surfcaster lobbing bunker chunks. A few big rays were also caught along East Hampton beaches.

Bennett reported “snappers big time in Accabonac Harbor,” referring to the baby bluefish whose schooling not only adds prey to the area’s current glut of bait, but also serve as the traditional introductory catch for young anglers. Porgies are found all over Gardiner’s Bay, Bennett said, as well as fluke off Napeague.

’Tis the fishing tournament season, of course. On Saturday and Sunday, the annual Shark’s Eye no-kill shark tournament will be held from the Montauk Marine Basin. When caught, sharks are photographed and videoed by observers rather than gaffed, and this year, five will be outfitted with satellite tags. The tags allow the sharks to be followed on their migrations.

Speaking of a greener appreciation of the toothy neighbors we love to fear, Glenn Grothmann spun a yarn about a shark trip he took over the weekend. A big blue shark was hanging around in the slick. Lodged in its jaw, it had a long, heavy-duty, monofilament leader of the kind longline boats use attached to a hook. Grothmann said the shark ate bunker chunks thrown to it until it was practically eating out of the crew’s hands, but it would not take a baited hook. Finally, the shark came close enough for the crew to cut the leader off. The shark disappeared.

“It was like it wanted us to help,” Grothmann said.

I believe it.

Also this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, the annual Grand-Slam tournament will be held from Uihlein’s Marina in Montauk. The tourney benefits the Montauk Friends of Erin and the East Hampton Kiwanis Club.

Each year, a veteran charter or party boat fishing captain is honored. This year, it’s Capt. Mike Vegessi, skipper of the popular Lazy Bones party boat. Anglers angle for striped bass, bluefish, fluke, and black sea bass. The state season for sea bass opened yesterday.