baltimore fish kill: could it happen in Jamaica Bay?

Over the weekend, I was in Baltimore, Maryland, for a wedding. When I arrived down there on Saturday, several friends who had arrived early for the rehearsal dinner aboard a boat the night before told me that there were dead fish all over the harbor thanks to an algae bloom that presumably caused oxygen levels in the water to drop dramatically. The algae, Prorocentrum minimum, usually is present in the harbor around this time of year. But this time, levels were higher than usual.

If you spent even a little time outside of your car, you'd know it was true. The stench of the harbor water blew through all the nearby streets. Frankly, it didn't smell like dead fish, but rather smelled like stagnant water or maybe even the Gowanus Canal on a bad day. Walking around near the hotel and in the Fells Point neighborhood, I can say that the smell ranged from tolerable and even fishing-boat-esque at times to downright nasty at others. Get anywhere near the water's edge and you'll see them - dead Menhaden floating all over. In just a short walk, I probably saw about a hundred. I took one look and thought that they were all small bluefish, but an article said otherwise and that makes sense because none of the fish was any bigger than about 14 inches. According to the article, thousands upon thousands of the fish littered the harbor, and city cleanup crews would work to skim the water and remove the dead fish.

Could you imagine if that happened in New York? Or if the water even smelled half as bad around Manhattan? Fells Point is surrounded by condos and renters. In New York, some developer would find a way to perfume the air or install emergency air pumps.

Yesterday, I made it out on Jamaica Bay for a prime-time afternoon of fishing. High tide was at 4:45, and I got out about 2 to try my luck with four poles. At various times, large schools of bunker being chased by blues broke through the water's surface, about a hundred and fifty feet from the wall, but too far out of reach for even the strongest of casts. My dad came down and brought the dog, and I tried clams, bunker and even bunker oil for the first time, to no avail.

All I got was a mud crab and a horseshoe crab.

On the way back, it was ironic. I ran into my neighbor, an avid angler, and he said that earlier in the week all of the bait that he'd reel in came back covered in a black, oily sludge as if something had been dumped in the bay. He said he was alarmed, and added that while the substance looked and felt like oil, it had a muddy smell like...well... the bottom of the bay. He blamed the mess for stopping the bass run.

Disturbing. But yesterday, even though most all of my bait was coming back still on the line, at least everything seemed clean.

Next fishing day is Friday, with a high tide just after 7 in the evening.

fishing the cycle

Last week, to mark the Memorial Day weekend, I spent four nights up at the lake with friends, which was a rare treat thanks to the holiday weekend and two additonal vacation days that were tacked onto the beginning.

The goal was clear: starting Thursday and continuing through at least Sunday, catch the complete lake cycle - one of each type of fish that swims the waters of Kittatinny. That's right, your old friends. Sunny, pickerel, catfish (either kind), perch, small mouth bass, large mouth bass, crappie. And let's not forget the American eel.

Over the course of four days, seven out of the eight were captured and released. The American eel, ironically enough, was the only one of the eight to elude. Last year, eel were so common it was a sure-fire bet.

Photos and video to come, but highlights included a large pickerel caught on boat, several beautiful perch landed, a catty found live on a hook left out in the water after a late night, and a large mouth hooked in the shade about five feet off water's edge.

Fellow angler (and college roommate) Adam traveled up from his new home in Baltimore, Maryland, but thought ahead - that lake pro...- and purchased a 2-day permit to fly fish Big Flat Brook, just ten minutes down the road.

All seven of us took a Saturday field trip to Flat Brook, the scene of many a childhood summer afternoon for me - quiet days of yonder where we'd ride bikes down the dirt road and get to the big pool to hop into the frigid water from the massive rocks, trout darting through the brown water below.

The cars lumbered down the hole-filled dirt road to park near the pool, where we found three other anglers casting in silence on the other side of the stream. It looked like a perfect day, and the stream had been stocked just two days before.

We stood watching while A.Z. got geared up, and had the chance to see at least one angler reel in a fish. In the water, literally dozens of trout were visible from our rock perch, including rainbows, gorgeous browns and others. They congregated in groups in the deeper parts of the water. The browns shot around near the surface, within a foot or two of the edge, and further down lighter looking rainbows held their ground. In the same area, one or two absolute monsters lurked - trout that had to be 20+ inches almost sitting perfectly still in the water. If this sounds good, don't be naive. Get the fishing permit because game wardens and forest rangers are guaranteed to visit throughout the day.

We spent a good half-hour watching the scene and when we left to take a walk, with the exception of Hemingway back there on the stream, who was now one in seven anglers fishing corners of the same large pool, we all experienced the same thing. Extreme interest in fly fishing. New-found appreciation for the sport...the nuances of the sport...the technique...the gear...the variables. Just from sitting there and quietly watching what was going on (no one wanted to speak at all for fear of disturbing everyone), it was clear that there was quite a scene going down. Quiet sportsmanship rules practiced but unspoken between fishermen.

Did you know that rainbow trout do not thrive in many areas because they need very cold waters? Brown trout, in turn, aren't even native to this country. Yet they do very well and outnumber the rainbows - at least they did on BFB. Some fishermen took great care to de-hook their trout without the fish so much as breaking the surface of the water - they methodically brought the fish in then carefully brought it by their side and removed the hook. Some flies sink, others float. Some lines are held up by aerial floats, so as to make the fly appear more natural. Many flies get caught in trees, some are so tiny that the hooks are hardly bigger than a grain of rice.

My favorite interaction among the fishermen down at the pool (there were many funny interactions) was when this one guy in full gear sort of upstream finished fishing for the day. I hadn't seen him catch a thing while I was down there. At one point earlier on, I had quietly commented how Adam was lucky because all of the other fishermen hadn't even noticed the giant brown and good-size rainbow he had been casting toward downstream. Well, when the guy finished, he said a few words to the other anglers, stepped back and from the ground picked up a gill-line with about four good size trout that had been tied up live near the bank. Then, practicing good etiquette, he walked about 20 feet further downstream before crossing, so as not to disturb anyone. When he walked back upstream past us, he had the fish dangling and flippin on the line in his hand. A fashion show.

"Going after those big ones, eh?" he said. He'd known it was there the whole time, but hadn't even sent over a single cast.

I guess you can't pull the wool on a pro.

We left A.Z. at the stream and went back to the house. When he returned hours later, he came back without a fish, but told us the story of the rest of his day. He ended up hooking a monster brown trout, which several other fishermen helped him land using their nets. It flipped clear out of the water a few times measured 22-inches and weighed 4 pounds. It was his personal lifetime best. He also hooked a great rainbow, but it was foul-hooked, i.e. hooked in the side or the gill rather than the mouth. In fly fishing land, that's bogus and not grounds for an officially counted catch. He had the rainbow on a makeshift gill-line, but the knot came undone at the last minute, during transport.

Even still, A.Z. was satisfied with the day, and he was amazed at the size of the trout he landed and the fight.

five hours: no fish, but two captains save lives

I fished the bay beginning on Saturday evening at 8:30, an hour before high tide, and got a ride down to the wall because there would have been no way to carry the cooler, net, bait, tackle box and four poles on my own.

Jon D. was set to come down by 10 p.m., and as I casted the first line two things came to my mind: 1) Three of the poles needed re-rigging after a disastrous triple-tangle last time out. I didn't even have enough equipment to rig them all and 2) If I caught a fish now, I'd have no way to bring it back to the house. No one home, brother out in the city.

Oh well.

I got two out of four poles rigged, baited and thrown in as the sun was just going down, and when Jon arrived at 10, I still had caught nothing. His brother arrived shortly after and we had the extra supplies to get all four poles in. But while Jon was making the supply run, I checked the poles (which had constantly come up empty - without bait - each and every time one was reeled in) and one felt heavy, like dead weight. A crab, I'm thinking.

Sure enough, I got the line in and see what was weighing it down - a spiral shelled snail, like one you'd find on the sands of Jamaica or something like that. It had my bait and hook locked inside and surely had a death grip. I managed to pop the hook out and put the snail on the top of the wall as proof to show that at least something was caught.

By around midnight, the wind was really starting to pick up and there was one point where we remarked that it suddenly seemed to just take off. Shortly after, we saw emergency lights coming from every direction and a police helicopter took off from Floyd Bennett Field, just across the way, heading toward Breezy Point. Trucks from Brooklyn drove over the bridge, pausing for a moment mid-span, and a few police boats flashed blue lights. We saw what looked like a big glowing fire flickering at the horizon and, at the time, thought that a house had gone up.

As it turned out, it wasn't a fire at all that brought all the rescue. A boat had capsized in the bay and four people were in the water at that very moment. Apparently, their boat was slammed into the waves and began taking on water. Two nearby fishing boat captains heard a "Mayday" call and arrived in time to get all four people on board and to shore, where they tried to keep warm after a few minutes in the frigid water.

We had no idea any of this was going on, but, still, nothing bit our lines.

In the end, after five hours of fishing, there was nothing to show for it.

reading: cod

I’m not finished reading Cod (Penguin Books, 1997) by Mark Kurlansky yet, but I wanted to post up some of the most interesting things from the book so far, in my esteem:

- No one knows exactly why cod have a small dangling piece of flesh below their lower lip.
- Cod has just about no fat and is more than 18% protein, more than most other fish. When it is tried, the water in its flesh evaporates and the meat contains about 80% protein.
- There are more than 200 species of cod, almost all of which live in cold waters in the Northern Hemisphere.
- Because cod feed on sea life that thrives where warm and cold waters meet, cod are almost exclusively caught in waters where two currents of different temperatures meet.
- While a cod can lay between 3 and 9 million eggs, it is so difficult for eggs to thrive that the cod population would stabilize if even just two of the eggs survive to maturity.
- Traditionally, there had been a much higher demand for dried, salt cod as opposed to fresh cod.

the first day out: a 34-inch bass

Saturday marked the start of the 2009 Jamaica Bay fishing season, and we were out in heavy ranks. Jon D. drove down from Albany, while George, brother Nick and guest Michael took time away from Orthodox Easter celebrations to put in a few hours at the wall.

I pedaled my way from Bay Ridge over the Marine Parkway Bridge that morning, picking up bait and supplies, making it out by 1:30 that afternoon, well before the 4:05 high tide scheduled for that afternoon. We had two poles down when Nick showed up on a bike with a basket and three other poles - two from past summers, one from... the past. It looked like a Beach Boys pole, but it took on the moniker the Jesus pole, perhaps in honor of the Easter festivities and its age.

It was in shambles, and was the joke of the day. The reel was held on by three or four plastic ties and a length of electrical tape, and the top eyelet was bent opposite the others. When George rigged it up that morning, he ignored the eyelet altogether, and I don't blame him because using it would have twisted or snapped the line for sure. Clearly

And wouldn't you know on only the second cast our there, the Jesus pole, about 20 feet down the wall, falls to the ground, is pulled upright again, and starts to slide down the cement. Nick ran for it, and set the hook only to realize that the reel had no drag and was barely controllable. Still, he managed to get the line to come in and when we hopped up on the ledge of the wall, there it was below: the first catch of the season - a beautiful keeper bass on the end of the line, swimming sideways through the bay water.

Now the debate begins: free it or keep it? As I may have mentioned on these pages, I've been leaning more and more toward freedom rather than food, but the general feeling that instant was to get the fish out of the water no matter what. Judging from the old rod and reel, it felt like it could escape at any moment, so its fate was sealed: it would be kept.

I held the line taught, and the fish was exhausted. George showed up just in time to grab the gaff-on-a-rope, and we were set to not repeat mistakes of the past. Carefully, the hook was lowered down, and when it was in the fish's mouth, pulled upward and hooked into its lip. As opposed to last year, this time we didn't rush, testing the weight before lifting it briefly off of the water to put the net below it. One it was lowered back into the net, the job was easy and within seconds we had it over the wall and onto the ground: a 34-inch bass caught with a rod and reel that you'd laugh at.

Best yet, on opening day! Last year, I think we got maybe four or five keepers the whole summer, and now on the very first day out we get one.

Nearby, a guy in a Verizon truck pulled to the side of the road with his flashers on to watch the commotion, and when we got the fish up, he offered to buy it on the spot, but Nick wanted to keep it, and it was his catch.

How much would you have sold a 17-pound bass for?

In the end, the fish caught a ride back to the house in the basket of a bicycle, if you can believe that, and the next hour or so was spent discussing the success.

For the rest of the day, nothing was caught on any pole, new or old, except a measily skate that I caught later in the afternoon.

We left after about 4:30, having put in a good few hours, and I didn't make it out there the next day.

Next up: Sunday a.m. high tide fishing this weekend. We'll see.

Striped Bass Season Opens: Same Rules as Last Year

Official confirmation is in, via phone call to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation: striped bass season is open from today (April 15) to December 15, following the same size and quantity limits as the '08 season.

Each angler is permitted to keep one fish, minimum 28 inches, and a second fish, minimum 40 inches, per day.

Today in New York, it's rainy and chilly - certainly not the most comfortable conditions for fishing. As for me, my own plans include two afternoons of high tide fishing this coming weekend on Jamaica Bay. Two other fishing pals have committed to join, and the plan I've hatched is to stake out the bay wall for at least the two hours before and after high tide.

Last year, after a disappointing couple of weeks toward the end of prime time (May 1 - June 15), it wasn't until June 13 that I deliberately set out to fish high tide. The results were shocking. I had five poles out, all fully rigged and landed four bass ranging from 22-36 inches. At two instances that afternoon, two poles were hit at the same time and I ran from one to another, setting the hook and quickly trying to judge which fish was largest.

My strategy this year: focus on high tides, no matter what time of day.
Record each catch, if possible, and document as many catches as possible.
Also, more nighttime fishing.
Finally, listen to more Jackson Browne.

bunker burglars!

The owner XTL Transportation, in Linden, New Jersey-based trucking company reported that more than 63,000 pounds of Menhaden baitfish (a.k.a. bunker) were stolen early Wednesday morning along with the refrigerated trailer the fish had been stored in.

In an article published in the The Star Ledger, the owner of the trucking company stated that two other storage containers that held furniture and other items were also cut, but the items were not stolen. Only the baitfish were.

He admitted that he suspected an inside job, and police are investigating. Supposedly, the fish are valued at about $130,000, which seems about right if your gold standard is the Citgo baitshop in Rockaway.

I can just see Tony Soprano now, sitting on a pile of bunker near the Jersey shore.

The Golden Trout

Courtesy of two close friends and fellow anglers.

The Ghosts of Jamaica Bay

When American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into Belle Harbor on November 12, 2001, I drove back home to my parent’s house and made it there by sundown that evening.

I was a sophomore in college, and that morning as I was getting ready for class, the apartment phone rang and my freshman roommate, a volunteer fireman at the time, said he didn’t want to scare me but I should turn on the television. Barely two months after September 11th, such a call was nothing to take lightly. On the TV screen, I saw a wide shot, presumably taken from Manhattan, which showed smoke billowing from land just beyond a stretch of marshes. Even though the news kept saying it was “Queens,” I knew the marsh was Jamaica Bay, and the land was Rockaway.

I called my Dad, who was working in Manhattan, and he had already phoned home. He said no one really knows what the hell is going on out there, but they were worried about the Bulloch’s gas station being on fire. I was shocked it could be that close to home. Bulloch’s was on 129th, and we lived on 138th. Dad said Mom and my brother were fine, but that they heard and felt the boom when the plane hit, and looked out the window to see plumes of smoke rising from a few blocks down.

I didn’t go back until the Friday after September 11th, but this was too much. I drove home that night, despite classes that day and next, and had never felt such a pull to get back there.

It was the feeling of knowing that something major was going on, but being unable to share it with anyone. It was like having news to tell, but no one to tell it to. I don’t know if it was my first trip back to New York after that initial post-September 11th trip, but it struck me as kind of funny how this event had taken place that very morning, been on news screens around the world all day, and now here I was, in the dark, paying the toll, driving my parents’ minivan over the Marine Parkway Bridge, parking in front of our house and standing seven blocks from the crash.

The smell of jet fuel was the first thing you noticed. It was like being at the airport, but stronger. Down the Avenue, emergency vehicles still flashed, but they were outshined by the bright white mobile flood lights that seemed to emanate as far down as you could see. There was no seeing past 131st, where all the lights came from. There, a pile of airplane parts and debris from three destroyed homes rose high into the street. Telephone poles and trees were charred, and workers in yellow haz-mat suits were scouring the pile, a job that would last for days.

Our main street of stores was closed because a jet engine had landed in the gas station, miraculously making a clean landing on a narrow strip of cement between the pumps and the building. In the schoolyard of St. Francis de Sales school, yellow plastic sheets covered the chain-link fence, rumors of a makeshift morgue.

In Jamaica Bay, NTSB officials had used a crane to lift the tail wing of the Airbus out of the shallow waters near 106th Street.

I wondered who may have seen what happened here. And the only thing I could think of: fishermen.

They line the bay wall at all hours, and man their spots well into the fall and even winter. They’re unnamed, anonymous hoodie-wearing men. They typically aren’t from the neighborhood, and they speak different languages.

What tales did they have to tell, these silent, patient guys?

Fishermen in a boat earlier that day said that they witnessed the crash and had helped police boats recover debris from the water. To this day, many people are uncertain exactly what took place where over the Bay that day, and statements from fishermen who witnessed the crash that day has provided some of the strongest fodder for those that have argued against the NTSB's explanation that the plane's tail fell off following extreme forces exuded by its rudder.

Rockaway was hardly developed a hundred years ago, but I wondered what else passersby might have witnessed from the shores of that bay?

For years Jamaica Bay was more known for the history of aviation than for anything else. Over the same stretch of water where we cast our rods, Howard Hughes took off from nearby Floyd Bennett Field, Charles Lindbergh took off, Wiley Post took off, and Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan famously “accidentally” flew over the Atlantic in a record-breaking flight, instead of zipping to California. The nation, in the midst of the Depression at the time, needed a hero, and Corrigan was given a ticker-tape parade through Manhattan.

A wide, cement, often moss-covered, launching ramp still to this day leads from the eastern tip of the field into the water, and it was from that very ramp that three wooden seaplanes - I'm talking Wright-brothers style, but with pontoons - entered the bay on the morning of May 8, 1919 and sped over the water before taking off and vanishing out of sight.

The goal was to cross the Atlantic by plane for the first time. Navy destroyers were positioned along the way to act as guides, but two of the planes that formerly sat atop the Bay’s blue-gray water that May day wouldn’t make it to England. One would go off-track and mistake an ocean liner for one of the destroyers, landing nearby and floundering for a few days before being rescued. Another would take on serious damage on a rough landing and be forced to motor for several days on the ocean’s surface before reaching an island on the coast of the Azores. Only one would successfully make it, taking several stops along the way to gain bearings, but successfully crossing the Atlantic and landing in Plymouth Harbor, off of England.

24 days to cross that ocean in the days of primitive radio transmission, all beginning in Jamaica Bay.

Reeling as we were from the events of that fall – as crazy and surreal as it all seemed – the crash in 2001 wasn’t the first time a plane had plummeted down into the Bay.

In fact, on March 1, 1962, on the very day that the New York was honoring astronaut John Glenn following his successful Mercury 6 mission with a tickertape parade in Manhattan, American Airlines Flight 1 took off from Idlewild Airport (now JFK) with a broken rudder and plunged nose-first into Jamaica Bay, in Pumpkin Patch Channel, a shallow area to the west of Cross Bay Boulevard, before the bridge into Howard Beach, Queens.

From reports issued following the crash, it seems that rudder failure caused the plane to dip into a 90-degree right turn and then slip sideways through the air, hitting the bay almost head-on. The plane exploded on impact, flocks of birds scattered from an otherwise tranquil bird sanctuary nearby, and all 95 people on board were killed, including several high-profile individuals. Louise Eastman, heir to the Lindner Department store fortune and mother of Linda Eastman (who would go on to marry Beatle Paul McCartney) was among them.

In 1962, it was the worst commercial aviation disaster in history. In 2001, the crash nearly took that same inauspicious title. It was the second worst.

Floyd Bennett Field was a mystery to us for most of our lives, and it still is today. All Rockaway residents traveling over the Marine Park Bridge pass by the Field, which runs for about a good mile or more beside Flatbush Avenue right after the bridge. In recent years, it’s more opened to the public than it has ever been since it served as New York’s first and only municipal airport, from 1931-1939. Scores of record-setting flights took place, but many more were failures. LaGuardia Airport began the demise of Floyd Bennett Field, but FBF was used as a Naval Air Base throughout World War II, slowly falling into disuse until being handed over the National Parks Service in 1972. Since then, many argue that it’s fallen into total disrepair.

In 1993, Floyd Bennett field was home to us public school students for about a week while the NYC public school asbestos fiasco extended summer break. We played inside the giant hangars, one giant gym class that lasted five days so our parents wouldn’t have to worry about childcare.

For better or worse, Aviator Sports Complex opened in 2006, after four of the eight hangars were renovated and combined. But there’s still an air of mystery that surrounds the place.

Last summer, I made it into the control tower of the administrative building, led up by a park ranger who brought us past locked glass-paneled doors and dusty rooms with broken floorboards. The office that housed the commanding officer still bears a legible stencil upon its glass pane.

Up in the tower, it was hot as blazes. But for the first time, the scope of the place was clear. Three runways criss-crossing one another in the shape of a giant star. Woods out to the left, beyond the main runway, and out of visibility, to the right, obscured by more trees and the massive hangars - Jamaica Bay.

Killing Time

We used to fish constantly at the lake, and we used to also constantly watch my grandpa fishing, too.

He’d stand beside the dock, casting in a spot under a tree where the rest of us wouldn’t bother. We’d lost so many hooks and bobbers up in that tree, but he’d stand out there in a dirty shirt with his spinner reel and throw the line out at all hours of the day, and when there was a bite, he’d yank the rod with a quick flick of his arm that said that the fish didn’t mean anything to him. They were rarely anything other than small sunnies that we caught off the back, and I don’t have any memory of him catching anything large back there, but grandpa still quietly fished off to his side, while the other kids and I fished the dock or the other small stretch of water to its left, but never too close to the other trees.

One summer grandpa unveiled a fishing cage he’d constructed himself. No one saw where it had come from, and no one could imagine when he’d spent the time to make it, but the cage was meant to keep fish alive in the water in captivity until it was time. It was made of several pieces of light-weight metal grating, and, tied with a string to the side of the dock, it splashed down into the water and remained there until someone opened the lid to throw another unlucky, small sunny in. The funny thing is that, under all normal circumstances, we’d always throw the sunnies back, no matter how big they were. But, when the cage was in the water, they came out on our hooks and were captured forever; we kept them no matter how small they were.

You could never really see clearly whether there were fish in the cage, or how big the captured fish were. Their dark skin blended in perfectly with the murky rocks on the lake’s bottom, and through the green-brown water, most of the time the fish just looked like moving brown objects below. But when it was killing time, grandpa would lift the cage, the water would drain into the lake and all over the lawn, and the eyes of every kid in the yard were peeled. Fish would flip and flap in the empty cage, and grandpa would throw the latch, releasing them all out onto the lawn.

He’d take a few fish at a time in his hands, never seeming to care about the spines or fins at all, and walk over to the firewood pile, beside the shed, where he’d already set up a worn plank atop the wood bundles. The other sunnies near the cage would bounce all over the grass, and if one or two somehow bounced its way back into the lake, it didn’t matter much. By the shed, one fish would go on the floor, still flipping, while the other was laid on its side on the plank. The setup was simple, and so were the tools: a pair of red-handled shears and a small, serrated kitchen knife, the exact same kind we ate with each evening, but from his shed drawer instead of inside.

My brother and I had seen this spectacle many times before. Grandpa would frequently take fish back to the Chinese living on his block his store was on, in Little Italy. But, our friends at the lake never got tired of watching. And, I admit, I never got tired of watching either.

We would end up being all boys up there in the backyard at killing time, and grandpa was merciless. First, he’d take the shears and snip the fins, spines and tail off, leaving the fish useless. Sometimes it would squirm and flip in his hands, slipping off the board and onto the sticks below, but it didn’t matter much. Then, he’d take the knife and scrape the scales off of both sides of the fish. Usually, at this point, it would be bleeding from somewhere, bright red blood onto grandpa’s hands, the knife, the plank. Then, he’d take the knife and saw into the fishes underside, from its breast to the tail. He’d put the knife down and reach into the cavity with his bare hands and rip out the guts with his fingers. There’d always be a few strings of something or other that wouldn’t come out easily, and he’d pinch it between his finger and snap it out.

Our friends would stare at grandpa with strained jaws, occasionally getting in the way. The best part, however, occurred only on occasion. The cleaned, gutted fish would be piled on one side of the board, and once in a while one would still flip on the board, devoid of any fins and insides, otherwise completely dead. That was the best part, and it always elicited our shouts and laughs.

When killing time was over, grandpa would throw all the cleaned fish into a pale of lake water, and they’d float there on their sides, fish no more. His hands would be covered in now-dark, dried fish blood and scales, and he’d fake smearing it on one of us on his walk inside. The fish would be wrapped in butcher paper and put in the back of the freezer, and that was all we ever saw of them.

The 2008 Fishing Wrap-up

Why fish?

To connect with nature, to revel in the quiet.

To actually have an appreciation for putting in your time, and seldom being rewarded.

To pick and pull at different tactics and see which is best.

To simply pass the time.

For the rush and chaos of a big strike that you can screw up at any number of points.

To make those hours of drinking actually productive.

To spend three or four legitimate hours down the wall from someone who has spent all night out there and fishes for sustenance.

To pass several hours for only the cost of a cup of bait.

To speak to and fish with strangers who aren’t strangers.

For the history, and the opportunity to wonder about the past.

For the chance of breaking your personal best record-catch.

to fish or not to fish

The date for the fifth annual Jamaica Bay Kayak Fishing Fundraising Tournament, heck of a long name, was announced recently, and it's got me seriously thinking about joining in in the mayhem. That's right. Fishing. From a kayak. May 3rd. See pic above (not me).

The rules: catch and release; rulers are provided; you begin at 6 a.m. and fish until 2 p.m.; anywhere in Jamaica Bay is legal; you must photograph all entry catches coming into your boat; in the event of a tie, the "visibly biggest" fish wins.

Following the event, there is a celebratory meal, "Italian food."

People come from all over the country for this. The website lists hotels in the area.

And it's right in my backyard.

I'm sure there are some champs out there that have been doing this since the 70s, but I've only seen it in the past three years or so. In fact, I've watched my neighbor and fishing cohort, Duke, kayak fish all the time in recent summers. He swears you can get right to the swells of jumping bait fish and birds, cast right in, and hook one of the bigger fish that caused the commotion to begin with.

Of course, these bait swells are always out of reach for lowly surfcasters like myself, so it's seemed appealing.

Also, my brother's kayak hasn't seen the water in about two years, owing to a missing boat plug.

The best: prizes go to the biggest fish caught in any method, the biggest caught with fly-fishing only, or - drumroll - by winning in the "Grand Slam," what I'd like to call the Jamaica Bay hat-trick category: landing the largest combined catch of a striper, a weakfish, and a bluefish.

Maybe this is the next step.

durian disaster.

Mundus is Dead

Now, I had never heard of Frank Mundus, or Donnie Braddick, for that matter, before earlier this year. But go figure. In the past three weeks, I ended up hearing some of their great tale - landing a world-record setting 3,427-pound Great White off of Montauk, in the summer of 1986 - directly from a relative of Braddick. And, now Mundus is dead.

I'm told Mundus was a character. An article I read about him just a few months before his death painted a picture of his salty charismatic ways. This was a guy who, for decades, claimed he was the main inspiration for the 'Quint' character in the film Jaws, while writer Peter Benchley had always denied it. Mundus published books, he sold t-shirts, and, despite his passionate protest against Benchley's denials, Mundus constantly marketed himself as the original Jaws-man out of Montauk. $2,000 was the cost for a day-long 5-person fishing charter with him aboard the Cricket II.

What is confirmed is that Mundus did take Benchley out on several fishing trips while Benchley was researching his book. According to reports, Benchley was impressed by Mundus' seemingly unusual technique of harpooning sharks and attaching them to ropes that dragged large air-filled barrels that, even if pulled underwater, would inevitably float back to the surface when the shark would tire out. This technique is perfectly suited for the silver screen, and, naturally, it was portrayed in Jaws.

Mundus had caught a 4,500 Great White by harpoon in 1964 off of Montauk. The 1986 record-setter was caught by rod and reel. Mundus was the captain, and his boat had come upon a whale that had recently died. It was just after midnight in calm seas, and two large sharks came upon the carcass and began feeding, taking huge chunks of flesh off of the whale. Mundus decided to wait until daylight to even attempt hooking any of the sharks, which he said ranged from about a thousand pounds up to the largest one, which looked at least three times that size.

Before dawn, hooks, lines and wires were rigged up, and when the largest shark was going in for another bite, they slipped a hook in front of it, and the bait was taken. The rod was placed in a holder right away, and, in at least one of Mundus' recollections of that morning, "Donnie [Braddick's] in the chair." It was a battle that would last for an hour and forty-five minutes, supposedly with Mundus calling all the shots, and Braddick doing all the muscle work.

The shark that day measured 16-and-a-half feet, and weighed 3,427 pounds. It was, and still is, the largest fish ever caught on rod and reel.

So why does Mundus get all the limelight, while no one's ever heard of Braddick? Well, Jaws came out in 1975, for one. In the end, really, the only difference between the two was that Mundus would go on to market the heck out of himself; Braddick would not. On virtually every part of Mundus' personal webpage are links to purchase something or other. It's a constant sales pitch that's, at times, blatantly opportunistic.

Braddick, I'm told, went on to have a falling-out with Mundus, but has spent considerable time in the shadow of Mundus, who, while acknowledging Braddick as the angler of the world-record setter, stole the scene. After all, you have to be able to back up charging $2,000 for a day of fishing somehow, right?

Supposedly, Mundus put Montauk on the map. Carl Darenburg, owner of the Montauk Marina, told Newsday that no one fished specifically for sharks off of Montauk before he did. Of late, Mundus spent his time alternating between a home in Hawaii and a residence back out in Montauk. But I'm told that in recent years, he had become a notorious presence up in Montauk. Supposedly, had been blacklisted from the Marina after repeatedly being caught selling his own hooks and merchandise to anglers within the confines of the private marina. Mundus, I'm told, rest his soul, was jaded, bitter and cynical.

However you look at it - a Mundus fan or not - it's clear that the fishing world lost a true character last week. I'd like to think there is a little catharsis in all of this. The New York Times, in its obituary of Mundus, finally seemed to take the liberty to call Mundus what he'd been insisting all along: "Frank Mundus, 82, Dies; Inspired ‘Jaws'."

take me to the bait shop

kosher or not: a question in the night

Last week, it was midnight on the morning of July 4th, and we were fishing on the shore, five poles (two being used), some bait and tackle, and a cooler. The catch: two sandsharks, one about 15 inches, the other a little larger, probably about 24, and two striped bass a 23 and a 26 incher.

When one sandshark (dogfish) came in, a Jewish guy and presumably his girlfriend happened to be walking by. They seemed to live in the neighborhood and were very excited and surprised to see a fish come out of the water. He asked me four times what kind of fish it was. Then he asked me if it was kosher.

I said yes.

I didn’t get into details. But even non-Jews in New York have a little knowledge of Jewish customs and laws. I figured, if bananas are always kosher because of their protective skin, fish must be, too.

As it turns out, my rationale wasn’t far from the truth. But the real answer lies not in the skin, but in the scales.

According to Rabbi Doy Lerner, whose gracious advice answered an internet reader’s questions some time ago, fish can indeed be considered kosher. It doesn’t matter whether a fish is swimming in the ocean eating non-kosher food. It doesn’t even matter if a fish, or an animal, for that matter, is raised commercially and fed commercial feed full of non-kosher ingredients.

The megalith Kashrut.com reminds readers that all fish with scales are considered kosher. There is also a longstanding policy of accepting all fish with pink-colored flesh as kosher, regardless of whether skin or scales are visible.

However, according to the Chicago Rabbinical Council's extensive list of kosher and non-kosher fish, all sharks, including the dogfish are considered explicitly non-kosher, along with skates and all other rays, eels, catfish, lampreys (if you ever manage to see one in your life!), blowfish and sturgeons. Striped bass are kosher.

Several other sites say that a fish’s scales must be visible to the eye and must be able to be taken off of the fish without tearing or damaging the fish’s skin. Finally, blatantly, kosherkooking.com says, “Sharks are similarly not Kosher, because their skin is covered with tiny teeth-like armor, which are not considered scales at all.”

Indeed, sandsharks do have skin that is covered with very, very tiny scratchy bumps. They feel like sandpaper and could probably scrape you up if you're, so-to-say, rubbed the wrong way.

Still, I am at a loss as to exactly why scales are required for a fish to be considered kosher. Is it just that the types of fish that have scales are the more mainstreamed, omnivorous fish and the types that don't tend to be sort of unusual, maybe bottom-dwellers like rays and sharks? Are bottom-dwellers just considered unclean or unfit for consumption?

I was wrong in suggesting that the sandshark was kosher. We threw it back anyway.

Other things about kosher law I learned today:
-Certain slurpee flavors are considered kosher; others not.
-It’s not enough to take the word of your fish monger when it comes to kosher law. He could be just lying about what kind of fish he’s giving you.
-All Brooklyn Brewery beer except Local 1 are kosher.

in search of redemption

today is about revenge

philadelphia sunset

the tale of the 40-incher

All I caught this past weekend fishing in Jamaica Bay was a seaweed mess. Seriously, it's getting pretty bad. Not even a crab, not even a searobin! Nothing. Alive. At. All.

I had a good feeling about it, too. The bay wall was lined with anglers up and down. The tide seemed high, which I interpret to be a good sign. There wasn't too much wind. All the pieces were there, but didn't come together. I did, however, have just one sign of hope: the first bite of the season. The tip of just one pole did two simple shakes, but to no avail.

Better luck next week. I did manage to take a few pictures to illustrate our most miraculous catch. The 40-incher in '06 was close to being the 40-incher that almost was. Let me explain.

It was getting late into the evening, and we'd been out fishing for a few hours on a warm night in early June. We managed to down about two bottles of wine and had already reached the point where....we weren't fishing while drinking, but....were drinking while fishing. It's the point when it no longer matters if you catch anything. But, like the moment when you're rebaiting one pole and turn your back for just a second or two, somehow the fish know to strike when you're at your weakest.

In the streetlight, drinking red wine out of red plastic Solo cups, one pole took a dive and kept dancing. I grabbed it, made sure there was enough drag in case it ran, and gave a quick pull to set the hook. The fish felt as if it were running half the bay. Line kept flying off the reel, which buzzed with yard after yard. All this would have to be pulled back in, and with any luck we'd land the fish, but crazier things have happened than losing what would have been a great catch.

Over the next five minutes, I walked a stretch of wall about 150 feet in length, going where the fish went, fishing partner, at times, assisting my continuing wine drinking by holding the cup to mouth. It became very clear this was a big fish on the line.

When it finally seemed that almost all of my line was in, and I had sufficiently tired the fish out, George pulled himself up onto the 4 1/2 foot wall and looked over. "It's huge." I held tight to the pole, and we switched spots so I could see, too. I lifted myself up onto the wall and saw the white belly of a long, straight fish pointed head-first to the wall, like a foam buoy. Its gills still moved, and in that moment the wine buzz took the back seat to our only prerogative: getting it out of the water as quick as possible before something could go wrong.

Because of the 10-15 foot drop from the wall to the surface of the water, we'd rigged a large net that dangled from a length of string. It's the only way to get heavy fish up. One person holds the pole, while the other hops up onto the wall and tries to scoop up the fish into the hanging net. We'd done it before, but this time the fish was too big. When we managed to get it into the net head first, it's weighty back and tail would cause it to slip out at the slightest pull. Same when it went in tail first.

We tried this for five or ten minutes. If it came down to it, I vowed I'd walk down to the bridge, climb over the railing and down onto the boulders and pull the fish up myself.

Just then, another fisherman wheeling a shopping basket full of gear and poles strolled by on the sidewalk about twenty feet behind us. He asked if we had caught anything, and when we told him about our problem, he pitched in without hesitation, pulling up a short stepladder and suggesting we try "gaffing" it. I'd never heard of such a thing, but in a second he pulled out a plastic bottle with string wrapped around it. At the end of the string was a large hook. I mean, bigger than something you'd fish with, but not as big as you'd think it would be to pull up a massive fish. He lowered the gaff, and I stood back, George perching atop the wall, watching. All I could think of was that this unknown guy was going to hook this fish the wrong way, the hook would slip, the line would break and we'd have just been a part of the biggest fishing debacle I'd ever heard of.

Before anymore fear, however, the fish came over the wall and dropped down onto the jagged concrete. In another instant, the guy was gone, off to his own fishing spot, laughing himself down the sidewalk, hoping for a similar catch.

We laughed, as well. It would have been entirely impossible to lift the fish out had the stranger not walked along. The fish measured an even 40 inches, and according to the rusty scale in our tackle box, it weighed 19 pounds.

There were scales in my parent's backyard for weeks.

fishing season opens

April 15th marked the start of the 2008 striped bass fishing season in New York, and for the past six years, I've frequently fished Jamaica Bay, the estuary located between Brooklyn and the Rockaway Peninsula, where I grew up.

By some accounts, stripers are doing better today than they were in previous decades. After extensive overfishing in the New York and the New England area in the 1980s, strict laws were enacted, making it illegal to keep any striped bass below a length of 36 inches from head to tail. In fact, it's said that in some areas of the Massachusettes coast, bass haven't been caught in 50 years. In 1990, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission eased the regulations, in reaction to successful improvements in the striped bass populations along the coast. Today, each angler per day is permitted to keep one striped bass no smaller than 28 inches, and a second bass no smaller than 40 inches.

In six years of fishing with friends, we've caught what I'd estimate to be about 15 fish that were over 28 inches, the largest of which measured 40 inches (2oo6), 36 inches (2003) and 35 inches (2007). In six years, we've only been checked by park police once (2007) to make sure we were not in violation of the law.

Out of all the fish we've hooked in the waters off of New York - searobins, blue fish, fluke, weakfish, skate, sand sharks, sea bass, porgy - striped bass are, by far, the most prized. While they don't have the sharp teeth that blue fish are known for, bass are strong swimmers and good fighters when hooked. Oftentimes, they'll hit a baited hook and run with it, pulling out long lengths of line before they are slowly tired into submission and brought in. Their meat turns tender and white when cooked, and not oily or full of bones like other types of fish. The average 28-inch fish weighs about 10-12 pounds, and a larger bass of about 35 inches usually weighs around 20 pounds and could easily feed around a dozen people.

The real allure to bass fishing in New York is the simplicity of it all. You cast a baited line out and wait for something to happen. No licences or permits are required to surfcast or fish in the bay. All one needs is a single rod ($30), a net ($12), hooks ($3), some light gear ($7), and a cup of bait ($3). All of this, including the fresh bait (clams) could be purchased at any of several gas stations in Rockaway.

On Saturday, the day was overcast at first, and we headed out about 11 a.m. to our usual fishing spot, near Riis Park. This past winter was the first time I've given any serious attempt to getting out and fishing in the off-season, just to see what I might catch. As a Christmas gift, I picked up a pair of chest waders and gave it two or three attempts from January to March before understanding why the bait shop didn't even bother to stock fresh bait until the weather was a little warmer - not even a bite.

Bass fishing has been something we picked up entirely by chance. I'd always seen anglers lining the bay wall in Rockaway, and before the September 11th attacks, dropping their lines off of the nearby Marine Parkway Bridge, where I later learned fish frequented because of the change in water currents near the bridge pillars. I think it was curiousity or boredom that first put a fishing pole in my hand out in Rockaway, but it quickly became an addiction, first because of how impossible it was to catch anything initially, then after realizing that there were, indeed, big fish to be caught in our local waters.

Our tackle box today has grown considerably, today comprising of, among other items, a scale, a bait knife, a folding ruler, a flashlight, and several other items that have either been necessary at one point or picked up for one reason or another - a bottle opener, a few paper towels, a bottle of hand sanitizer, etc.

Bay fishing is the simplest fishing to do, but it's not anything glamorous, and I don't often take guests down to the bay to fish because, while the fish are bigger in the bay, they're less likely to be on your line. Our bay fishing sessions are often waiting games spent leaning against the wall, checking the views of the busy waterway immediately in front of us, JFK airport about five miles to the east, and the Manhattan skyline 11 miles straight ahead.

If you're curious, the World Trade Center stood high above the left part of the Manhattan skyline in the picture above, about twice as high as the rest of the downtown building line seen just behind and to the right of the Doppler radar tower toward the left side of this photo.

The biggest problem - just about the only problem - with fishing on the bay is the high number of snags on the bottom. The bay isn't very deep, and there are several wrecks throughout. On an average day of fishing we'll lose five or 10 rigs on snags alone. While we've taken to bringing down multiple poles, usually two per angler, unhooking the snags or re-rigging the hooks helps stave off the boredom in between catches. When there are no fish, it can't hurt to check the lines and make sure they aren't caught on the bottom on...whatever it is they always get caught on. It's a mystery to me.

However, as simple as the concept of fishing might be, it gets complicated when factoring in any number of variables like tides, hook type, bait type, or even cloud cover, knot usage, underwater terrain. I think I could forever be a student of the bay and not figure it all out, but in a few years we've at least picked up a working knowledge.

Saturday's most frequent catch, however - conglomerates. I missed the first two catches, which were a single mussel and a small mud crab. However, I did document the rest of the day, once we had realized the chances of getting an actual, living fish - at least at this too-early point in the season - were slim to none.

Catch 3: a small, crab of some type.

Catch 4: a nasty conglomerate.

Catch 5: a big, nasty mud crab.

Catch 6: a first here - a crab connected to a nasty conglomerate.
That's about it.

We left concluding that this was one of those days where you have to pay your dues, so-to-speak. If we had given up after our first summer of catching no bass at all, we'd have gotten nowhere.

Until the next fishing day - at the very latest this coming Sunday or next. Gotta love the spring.

Richard Martin: Spotted Littering on 59th Street.

The recent publicity regarding Bay Ridge's crazy old superindendent Richard Martin brought me to an amazing revelation this morning. For those of you reading this post from out of state, Richard Martin made the new in February when tenants in his building complained about harassing notes Martin admittedly left in the lobby, chastising tenants for their behavior. Martin claimed they left garbage all over the lobby, and he declared war. Aside from the series of notes, he told the NY Daily News he moved all the garbage pails to the fifth floor, to punish the unruly tenants by forcing them to hike five flights just to deposit their trash in a bin.

An example of one note:

"You tenants better stop being so stupid and retarded"

... "the [expletive] who ripped my Christmas decoration down from ceiling and put in front of my door.

"If I catch you I will kill you where you are. You don't want to [mess] with the Irish," he added.

Truly...well, amazing.

What came together for me today was this:

On the morning of February 9th, I woke early to make it to work because I took the over-time opportunity to drive a group of high school students to a drill meet in Queens. I sat on the R train at about 6 a.m. that morning. Sitting directly across from me on the train with hardly another soul in sight on that too-early Saturday morning, was this older guy who stood out to me because he kept shifting around in his seat and kind of chewing his gums as if he had a pair of loose dentures or something like that. I also noticed he was wearing a Korean War vets hat as he sat and read his copy of the morning paper (the Post, I believe) and drinking from a small paper cup of coffee.

Putting his sort of lanky appearance aside, I thought about the other vets I've seen wearing those trucker-style vet hats. They're the living remnants of wars' past, my tired mind postulated. How come I've never seen any younger vets wearing vet-hats? But I couldn't help but to wonder what they hell this guy was doing riding the R train a 6 a.m.

When we got to 59th Street, I stood to transfer to the N express, and so did this guy. On the platform, about 20 feet down, an early morning MTA employee quietly swept debris into a bucket. Within moments of stepping on the platform, the old guy does something that almost made me laugh right out loud. My sleepy reverie on vets and wars and vet hats came to an abrupt end when I see the guy bypass the platform trash can and instead throw his coffee cup and empty paper bag right onto the tracks- RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE MTA GUY SWEEPING UP THE GARBAGE! Seriously, in plain sight.

I thought, what a slob! So funny. So, so funny. It was just a funny New York subway story, I thought.

Until today. I finally see this funny photo of Martin with his dog on a street-side amusement ride posted on a local blog, and I realize that the old guy that morning, the garbage-thrower-right-in-front-of-the-MTA-worker, was Richard Martin! The very same man that's demonstrated such an objection to the supposed poor hallway hygiene in his own building. I guess Mr. Martin thinks it's OK for him to litter and to be a blatant slob, but not for someone else to be, especially when Martin has to clean it up as the super. Seriously, he threw all his trash onto the tracks RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE MTA GUY.

The irony astounds.

the sudden philly leap year trip

the bay ridge snow day

it's your world

I found this photo on my work computer, and have no explanation for it whatsoever.

winter ain't all that bad