A Name That Strikes Fear
One of our Ditch Plain regulars, while sitting on a bench in front of the former East Deck Motel, noted that David Schleifer, retired New York City firefighter, surfer, and the kind of fisherman whose name causes fish of all kinds to quiver in fear, looked like he was sitting on the toilet out toward the horizon.
He does in a way, but the toilet is actually a cooler fastened to an extra hefty, standup paddleboard. He sits on it while casting with his casting rod, or bottom fishing with his boat rod, and when he paddles ashore the cooler usually bears fruit, bluefish and striped bass recently, and on one occasion last week, a 40-pound ray.
“I saw maybe 15 or 20 different rays feeding just outside the break zone right at the jetty. I tried to catch them with a frozen killie. Got baits very close to them in six to eight feet of water. Could see them perfectly on the bottom. They would not eat what I had, so I went home and got a two-ounce bunker snagger. Paddled back out and hooked the second fish I saw. It was hooked close to the mouth.”
Schleifer said the ray fought hard, his 20-pound-test monofilament tested to its limit — “two runs where the reel screamed out line for 20 seconds. Then, it was just down and dirty. It was like it was attached to the bottom.” The fight lasted 20 minutes and took the paddleboard for one of the stranger looking sort of Nantucket sleigh rides (given the toilet-seated posture).
The ray was dispatched quickly, brought to shore, and butchered. “I just followed the cartilage in the center,” he said in explaining the course his knife took to remove the ray’s wings. “A great smoking fish, beautiful texture,” he said of the wing meat. Some of it was smoked, some grilled, and as usual, none wasted.
The Montauk SurfMasters fall tournament gets under way on Monday, and this time, after a hiatus, Gary Stephens, a k a Toad, will compete. This is not good news for the other contestants in the wader division of the popular surfcasting test for biggest striped bass.
Toad fishes hard, he knows the spots, and as he said on Monday outside Paulie’s Tackle Shop in Montauk, “I can fish any time I want.” Friends and fellow casters know about Toad’s bad back. Landscaping will do that to you. But they won’t count on it to level the playing field. Toad’s tenacity is as legendary as the blue streak he talks, the stream of consciousness that flows while he casts, until those casting around him abandon their rocks or wet their wetsuits and waders laughing.
Toad proved his piscatorial mettle over the summer to hold the top two places in Paulie’s summer-long fluke tournament with doormats that weighed 9.65 and 9.5 pounds. Plus, the fish were released to go breed and grow bigger. “I have a live well and release them after they’re weighed. I must have released at least 50 fish off the dock this summer.”
His prognosis for the fall event was upbeat, “unless a week or two of northwest winds blows the bait out of here.”
One of the smaller tournaments took place on Sunday at the Harbor Marina on Three Mile Harbor. By small, I refer to the size of the fish, not the intensity of the competition.
The annual snapper derby found Ben O’Sullivan, 5, the youngest winner. His six-ounce snapper blue was caught at Louse Point. Brett Nicholson, 10, caught a five-and-a-half ouncer. At 10 and a quarter inches, it was just under the 12-inch maximum size for snapper, a k a baby bluefish. Brett caught it at Maidstone Park using a snapper popper. Among the older competitors, Barbara Dayton landed a five and a half ounce snapper with the able help of her daughter, Ali.
Harvey Bennett at the Tackle Shop in Amagansett virtually screamed the news from his iPhone: “False albacore here big time in the bay and ocean. Big blues and bass at White Sands and Georgica, 16-inch porgies all over, bass really good in the bay at Cherry Harbor.” And finally on Tuesday morning: “Full moon, east wind, overcast! Someone is going to catch good.” Thanks, Harv.
Those who return to this column on occasion may remember the mystery sounds, the staccato chirping, that I heard coming through the hull of Leilani, my sailboat moored at the south end of Lake Montauk. You couldn’t hear the sound topside, only below deck. After asking around, I concluded the sounds that begin at sunset and end at dawn were being made by shrimp. Then a friend suggested toadfish, but I think Capt. Dave Krusa probably has it right.
When I told him about the sounds, he recalled a story he’d heard about a similar phenomenon in Fort Pond Bay. As many locals know, the Navy tested torpedoes in the bay during World War II. While setting up the facility, submarine noises had the torpedo testers wondering if the sounds emanated from some kind of diabolical German listening device or weapon.
A study was made. Turned out, the sounds were coming from spider crabs rubbing their legs together like crickets in some sort of mating ritual. Would make a great B movie.