Fishing

“The fluke bite has really picked up over the past week or so,” Paul Apostolides said. “Nice fish up to 10 pounds have been taken.”

Thirty years later, Patty Eames says it was “a day that’s right here at the front of my brain.” She was one of many locals and luminaries who were arrested at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett on July 28, 1992, during a storied protest that found the East Hampton Baymen’s Association in open defiance of a 1990 state ban on haulseining for striped bass off the ocean beaches.

Fishermen can be a rather superstitious lot. Many have unusual habits or a routine that is indelibly ingrained based on past history — sometimes on fact but more likely fiction.

Lobsters grow by molting. It's basically a process in which they struggle out of their old shells while simultaneously absorbing water which expands their body size. Marine scientists estimate that molting occurs about 25 times in the first five to seven years of a lobster's life. Once shedding their old shells, lobsters put on the feed bag in a big way.

Serena Vegessi Schick, who died last fall, touched many in Montauk who work on the water, having spent years in her youth and early adulthood, as well as the final few months of her life, working the deck of the Bones netting or filleting fish, untying tangles, or just patiently helping youngsters catch the first fish of their lives.

So far this year, Mother Nature has served up a curveball, as bunker showed up on schedule but dispersed rather quickly to parts unknown.

Once again, the weather gods, despite sunny skies, spoiled our plans, as a gusty 30-knot breeze from the northwest would make fishing difficult and downright uncomfortable.

On the local fishing scene, the action has generally been good in many locales, and anglers of all ages have taken part.

Want to catch a striped bass? Then Montauk is clearly the place to be right now.

I decided to try a few quick drifts for striped bass in Plum Gut last week. The bass, according to reports, have been running in great quantities there.

In baseball parlance, the fishing season is now formally in the bottom of the ninth inning. There are two outs and two strikes on the batter at the plate, or in this case a fisherman with a rod and reel in hand. For my part, I did not want to strike out by not fishing one last time before the end of the year.

The other night, I came across my first fishing logbook, started back in 1978, in which I began to inscribe my saltwater exploits when I was 15 years old. Back then I considered it a chore to take time to make notations of success or failure in my fishing excursions and wondered how it would ultimately serve me. But now I finally know.

With my boat prematurely out of the water for the season with various and costly engine issues, I have to find other vessels to fish on. Many friends have already hauled out their crafts, so I’m resigned to fishing on open boats, and that’s just fine with me. Two weeks ago, I took passage on the Peconic Star 3 out of Greenport for blackfish. It is skippered by the ever-youthful Capt. Speedy Hubert, he of the age of 84. Spry and energetic as ever, he anchored us up on a wreck off Horton’s Point in Long Island Sound. I had not fished that area in probably over 35 years. It was nice to be back.

Rick Pickering, the owner of Ship Ashore Marina in Sag Harbor, broke the bad news: “The turbocharger on the engine of your boat needs to be rebuilt, or we can get you a new one.”

After a few weeks of incessant gusty winds, the weather gods who rule from the clouds high above finally provided anglers with a much-welcomed reprieve for several extended days of very fishable conditions, a rare occurrence by November marine weather standards.

I was determined to find out for myself if the dire prediction of another terrible scallop season was in fact true.

Saturday’s marine forecast looked promising for a change. The bushel of green crabs that I bought two weeks ago would finally be put to good use for a few hours of blackfishing in and around the Plum Island area.

As the gusty east winds finally abated last week after a four-day blow, the opening of blackfish season was eagerly welcomed by a multitude of anglers.

A three-day blow over the holiday weekend put a severe damper on things for those intent to wet a line.

Sadly, I’ve not been fishing on my boat in well over a month, and my 30-foot Nova Scotia-built craft is high and dry on land while it receives a new stern deck.

“Oysters are incredibly hardy,” said Kim Tetrault, who oversees the Cornell Cooperative operations in Southold. “They can withstand a lot of what Mother Nature throws at them.”

Owning a boat certainly has its ups and downs. Lately, it’s been more of the latter.

We are getting close to August and it's clear that the fishing scene has shifted into full summer mode. The summer menu of fish includes everything from wahoo to swordfish, codfish to red hake, as well as dozens of other fish in between.

Last week, I was mugged. Someone pulled my lobster traps, whatever lobsters they may have contained, and three dozen oysters I had placed in the traps and left the rope tangled in knots. "Some people really suck," said my companion, who helps me on deck.

The South Fork is forecast to experience the worst of Tropical Storm Elsa’s gusty winds, heavy rain, tidal flooding, and rough surf between 6 a.m. and noon on Friday. Elsa, which made landfall in Florida on Wednesday, is expected to move through Mid-Atlantic states and into New England through Friday.

Kim Tetrault, the longtime chief oyster guru at the Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Center in Southold, tends oysters hatched in late March and scallops still too tiny to be seen without a microscope.

Walking along the weathered docks of Montauk Harbor on Saturday morning, it was nice to see that a great many boats, both of a commercial and charter/open craft nature, were out to sea on a warm, breezy day. Fishing is a tough business in good times, but it was an even greater challenge during the pandemic to secure much-needed income. Thankfully, that seems to have changed.

The lead character playing the part of Ahab these days is a commercial lobster diver from Provincetown, Mass., named Michael Packard, and in this updated adventure on the high seas, Packard, while diving near his hometown last week, said he was inhaled by a whale.

The three-day Memorial Day weekend northeaster that brought about rough seas and winds up to 40 miles per hour was nasty on many fronts. 

Strong northeast winds, combined with a cold rain, that started on Friday and unfortunately hung on until Memorial Day on Monday meant the weekend was a washout for those looking to wet a line, but the action should improve in the coming days.