FISHING: On Board Captain Bird's Flying Cloud

By Russell Drumm

A sandhog, three generations of Birds, and a 3-year-old boy named Joey were among the fortunate few swinging to Louis Armstrong and a gentle ocean swell aboard the Flying Cloud on the Fourth of July.

It was gray and cool as Travis Cormier and Neil (Junior) Nixon fixed 10-ounce sinkers to the terminal gear of the fishing rods they placed at intervals along the railing of the popular party boat. The Cloud's mates snelled the hooks and readied squid and spearing bait for the anglers. They would soon be bouncing sinkers off the bottom a mile from Montauk Point with dreams of catching a doormat-size fluke to mark their Independence Day.

A trumpet on tape called reveille at the Montauk Coast Guard station across the harbor - time for the eight-to-12 watch to climb out of their racks. Little Joey Rintrona and his dad, Nick, from Bayport, were among the first to board. It was Joey's first trip on a big boat. Eyes wide. A lot to take in. A little scary.

Jim Harrison set up camp on the bow, port side wearing a T-shirt with the Twin Towers on the back in red, white, and blue. A yellow bulldozer identified his union of "Operating Engineers." Spanish, spoken excitedly on the fantail. Family units staking their claim to a section of bench, the mates arming them with rods. Linda Bird Harris, the captain's daughter, and Ashira Jensen, his granddaughter, up from Baltimore, hung in the mates' quarters.

Capt. Fred E. Bird welcomed his morning group and lit the Cloud's engines as he has done for the past four decades. Out through the Montauk Harbor mouth. A turn to the east past the long line of mobile campers bivouacked on the shore of Theodore Roosevelt County park, flags hoisted, grills at the ready. The Marlin, Lazy Bones, Sea Otter, and Viking party boats made their own way, along with a fleet of small boats, to the rip currents off of Montauk Point where the summer flounder, known as fluke, feed.

The wind had blown from the east for the past several days. East again on Monday, lighter, but still cold without the sun. Those in shorts, sorry for their decision, looking skyward for what the weatherman had promised. Little Joey stayed close to his father. Learning about sea legs the hard way. Not so his dad. Nick Rintrona was four years in the Navy aboard a fast frigate much of the time. Joined the reserves after Sept. 11.

Captain Bird throttled back about halfway between the Point and Block Island. "Lines in," he announced over the P.A., then strolling around the upper deck outside his wheelhouse with a bird's-eye view of his anglers. He urged them, on this, the first drift, to feel their sinker hit bottom before bringing it up a couple of turns. "Wind slow, or they turn into skates," he joked over the sound of Louis Armstrong's band warming up on stage in Chicago back in 1956. The Flying Cloud was built a year later.

"Louis catches best," he said, sometimes Ella. "My uncle finished his basement. He lived in Corona, 105th Street," the captain said of the raspy-voiced trumpeter known as Satchmo. Fred Bird is a jazz aficionado. He likes the big bands, which makes Flying Cloud a kind of time machine. Rods and reels haven't changed, nor the sea, salt air, or screaming terns. And so, on Monday, with all things being equal, the Cloud drifted back to a peaceful place a couple of wars ago.

"Lines up, we're going to make a wiggle," Captain Bird said, firing up the Cloud to find a more productive section of bottom, a spot known as the Rabbit Ears. Benny Goodman gave his downbeat and began to swing as the captain ordered lines down again. The second drift produced a couple of keeper (over 17-inch-long) fluke, as well as hellos, and where-you-froms among newly-made friends.

On the third drift, little Joey reeled in a fluke hooked by his dad as Satchmo and his group wailed "Hold that Tiger." He did. It was netted, then petted, and released over the side with high-fives all around. Time passed, but didn't, not an unusual feeling on a fishing boat.

The sun appeared on the fifth drift at the urging of Mr. Armstrong singing "Sunny Side of the Street." Sweatshirts off. Little Joey reeled in another, a keeper, as did the captain's daughter and granddaughter. "I can't remember when I first went fishing on this boat," Ashira Jensen said, looking up at her grandfather with a smile. She planned to fish the afternoon trip too, watch the fireworks, then drive seven hours south in time for work at The City Paper in Baltimore. She used to work with troubled kids in the city. "I burned out early." In September, she will begin writing a column on yoga and health-related matters.

Jim Harrison's rod bent deeper. The fluke was a beauty. He was a welder in the Navy which later earned him a job, 800 feet below Manhattan, as a "sandhog" digging the tunnel that will one day increase the city's water supply.

He had switched jobs and was working as a foreman overseeing heavy equipment operations when terrorists felled the World Trade Center buildings. "We saddled up and went to work on the 12th, seven days a week, 15 hours a day for eight months straight. This is the best thing to be doing on the Fourth."

It was a good drift. The mates stayed busy with the net. Satchmo sang, "I took you for my friend, and you drank up all my gin. I'll be glad when you're dead you rascal you." Manuel Tacuri's fish was a hefty and welcomed aboard in Spanish. Smiles all around. It was 11:30, time to head home, but not before Nick Rintrona reeled in what the captain called, "the whistle fish." Flying Cloud would leave the dock at 1 p.m. for its afternoon trip.

A number of the morning anglers vowed to sign on again, but not Little Joey Rintrona. He hugged his dad with his eyes closed, all done in by his first fish.

In other fishing news, Merritt White, a light-tackle and fly fishing guide, said Gardiner's Bay turned into a striped bass fisherman's dream over the weekend. "The fishing is awesome, overcast, cool, a new moon, excellent striper weather." He has been guiding his anglers over to Plum Island in recent days to find a mix of bluefish and bass with some of the bass above the keeper minimum of 28 inches.

Harvey Bennett of the Tackle Shop in Amagansett concurred and observed that everywhere that the recent easterly winds were blowing bait toward shore, including Albert's Landing, and Accabonac Harbor, bass and blues were to be found. Anglers were also finding more and more porgies, and good fluke fishing off of Napeague Harbor.

Surfcasting along the Napeague and Amagansett beaches has also been productive.

Offshore, and with the Montauk Boatmen and Captains shark fishing tournament due to get under way this weekend from the Star Island Yacht Club, it is worth noting that a 535-pound thresher shark was taken aboard the Keeper on Sunday.