Five weeks after an elderly North Haven couple reported that at least $30,000 had been taken from their bank account by an employee, Southampton Town police arrested Tristan MacLeod, 34, of Maspeth, last Thursday.

Mr. MacLeod was charged with five counts of second-degree forgery and one count of grand larceny, all felonies, after he allegedly siphoned $58,000 from Wilfrid Sheed and Miriam Ungerer's bank account and charged more than $5,000 on one of their credit cards. Ms. Ungerer is a longtime columnist for The East Hampton Star.

Mr. MacLeod was arrested at Get 'Em, a Manhattan retail shop where he is employed, with the assistance of the New York City Police Department. Police soon discovered that Mr. MacLeod is wanted for similar crimes in Virginia, Washington, and Nebraska, where he is known by different birth dates, Social Security numbers, and names, including Simon MacLeod, Raven Thunderhawk, Raven MacLeod, Nico Carabetta, Stephen Cookman, Mark Prew, and Nico Gambino.

Mr. Sheed, a writer who lives on Stock Farm Lane, told police on Oct. 25 that a man who had worked for him and his wife had taken their money. Mr. MacLeod had worked for the couple since January, making purchases for them with their debit card, police said.

During the investigation, police learned that Mr. MacLeod "had befriended the victims when he found out through a casual acquaintance . . . that the victims may be in need of live-in assistance," according to Detective Sgt. Randy Hintze.

After he moved into their North Haven house, Mr. MacLeod allegedly "began a systematic withdrawal of cash from the victim's accounts and utilized credit cards in the victim's name," Detective Hintze said.

Mr. Macleod was arraigned before Southampton Town Justice Deborah Kooperstein on Friday and is being held without bail. Police have notified the other states where Mr. MacLeod is wanted. Those with information about Mr. MacLeod have been asked to call Southampton police detectives at 728-5000 or the police hotline at 728-3454. Calls will remain confidential.

East Hampton Village police arrested Matthew Declan Curran, 35, of Sayres Path, Wainscott, when he turned himself in at police headquarters on Saturday.

Mr. Curran was charged with third-degree criminal mischief, a felony, and making graffiti, a misdemeanor, for allegedly writing "noodles," "7aeto," and another word in fresh cement outside the East Hampton Cinema on Oct. 18. Detective Sgt. Margaret Dunn said that the cement work had to be redone, at a cost of $3,000.

In 1895, 73 years after meat and vegetable merchants along South Street on the downtown Manhattan waterfront were officially recognized as the Fulton Market, the Long Island Rail Road was extended from Bridgehampton to Montauk, and that extra 10 miles of track would eventually become one of the foremost supply routes for fresh fish in the nation.

On Sunday, three tractor-trailer trucks, each carrying 35,000 pounds of loligo squid and whiting, left Montauk, heading for processors in New Jersey, and then to the new Fulton Fish Market, which opened for business in the Hunt's Point section of the South Bronx on Nov. 14.

Five more fish-filled trucks left for the city the next day. Montauk's Inlet Seafood alone ships an average of nine million pounds of fish to the Fulton Market each year. Refrigerated fish trucks also pick up boxes at the Montauk Fish Dock, from docks in Greenport, and at Shinnecock.

Years in the planning, and built at a cost of $85 million, the new Fulton market offers 400,000 square feet of refrigerated space to wholesale dealers who, in turn, sell to purveyors who distribute fish throughout the metropolitan area.

Despite the fact that Fulton's sources of supply have grown exponentially over the years, it is safe to say that the East End has made a major contribution to what is now the second largest fish market in the world. Only Tokyo's Tsukiji market is bigger. The impact of the Fulton Market on East Hampton and Southampton would be hard to overstate. The 100-mile run to the city and its gigantic appetite for fish freed fishermen from the need to market their catch directly. The city's diverse ethnic makeup has allowed fishermen to take advantage of the great variety of species that swim off the coast. 

Gone is the darkly-lit world of South Street, with its ancient buildings and its strong odor of fish and of the 19th century. The law of supply and demand ruled there, one way or another, for 183 years. Also gone are the market's original links to the East End.

In 1879, Arthur Benson, the developer of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, bought 10,000 acres in Montauk for $151,000. Ten years later, Mr. Benson and Austin Corbin, president of the Long Island Rail Road, became partners in a scheme to make Montauk a resort and deepwater port that would attract the well-heeled returning from Europe by steamship. After playing for a day or two, the posh set would return to the city by train.

The dream never materialized, however, in part because of Mr. Benson's death. In June 1895, Mr. Corbin bought 5,500 acres from Mr. Benson's heirs. The first train rolled into the Montauk station on Fort Pond Bay on Dec. 17, 1895. Mr. Corbin died the next year in a carriage accident.

During the summer of 1898, the dock was used by the Army to take soldiers off troop ships following the Cuban campaign of the Spanish-American War. Nearly 30,000 men recovered at Camp Wikoff, which, that summer, included most of Montauk. The pier extended far enough into the bay to accommodate up to three freight cars.

Whether or not the fish business played into Mr. Corbin's original plan, boats returning from the fishing grounds were now able to tie up at the dock and offload their catch directly into the waiting cars. After they were backed off the pier and coupled to the coal-powered steam engine, the train headed west. Montauk was not the only source of fish.

At 4 a.m. on Jan. 16, 1894, the American schooner Fanny Bartlett, loaded with 1,250 tons of coal, ran aground in thick fog. The railroad was under construction, and a flag station with a platform was built on Napeague. Someone removed a plank from the grounded schooner that bore her name and nailed it to the wooden platform. From then on, the Napeague flag station was known as the Fanny Bartlett stop.

According to Stuart Vorpahl, a commercial fisherman and one of East Hampton's three official historians, the platform was located beside the tracks where the remaining radio tower is today. Mr. Vorpahl said the platform was used by inshore fishermen who could have reached it either from Napeague Harbor or from the ocean side of the narrow stretch of sand that connects Amagansett to Montauk.

It was probably used by the Edwards brothers of Amagansett, who worked large, floating fish traps off the south shore of Napeague. The Edwardses also seined for menhaden, otherwise known as mossbunker, or bunker.

Beginning in 1872, a number of fish docks and processing plants were built at Promised Land on the north side of Napeague. There are three versions of how Promised Land got its name. According to the records of the East Hampton Town Trustees, the area took its name from the "large number of customers who promised to pay, but never did."

The roads were bad in the days when a sole deliveryman traveled them to carry supplies and the mail. The owner of the Smith Meal plant, the largest and longest running of the Promised Land businesses, was looking for an address. The letter carrier, a religious man, suggested Promised Land because it was so hard to get to.

Fannie Gardiner, a descendant of East Hampton's first English settler, once said she thought that an act of Congress had "promised" that the factories would never have to move because of their smell. The area was also known as Bunker Hill, because bunker were possessed there.

In any case, Mr. Vorpahl said he remembered the "oil cars" lined up on the railroad siding that connected the Smith Meal plant to the railroad's main tracks. The plant was closed in 1968. Neither the oil nor the fish meal were delivered to the Fulton Market, although market fish were also landed at the Promised Land docks, and presumably were sent by rail. Another platform for loading fish was located a bit farther west on Napeague near Mulford Lane, Mr. Vorpahl said.

The train made other stops for fish en route to the city. In November 1880, 3,000 barrels of crabs were shipped from the Moriches station. At Jamaica, the iced fish cars were directed to the railroad docks at the Bushwick Terminal in Brooklyn where they were loaded onto one or two-track barges, or "float bridges," as they were called. The barges carried the cars across the East River to the Fulton Market. After World War II, Long Island's roads had improved enough for trucks to take over the job of hauling fish. The railroad stopped its run to the Fulton  Market.

It's the time when Postwar Dad put his feet up, lit a pipe, and read the paper. Called "evening" in TV guides, the gray area from 5 to 6:30 p.m. or so is used less distinctly now, with men and women often still at work or at least in commute and a date with a hearty dinner less likely than some take-out food reheated in the microwave.

However rattled instead of relaxed, evening is still a transition time, when the detritus of the day - homework, housework, paperwork, dealing with grumpy clients - is cleared for the tide that narrows into bedtime.

We give up that gray time Sunday, when daylight saving time ends. Cabin fever looms. Waving a white flag at 5:30's black attack, we'll get a little too cozy with our housekeeping, our pets, maybe even our families. No more neighbors now, just twinkling TV hearthfires dotting the block.

But daylight does go elsewhere. Look for it in the morning at around 6 - a good time to steal a walk, read the newspaper, peek at the weather forecast, and have a microsecond of reflection or an unharried word with a spouse or a child. These are enough reasons for good cheer.

And, spring will come, as surely as the sunrise.

A newly opened exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art of Jackson Pollock's earliest drawings, the first of its kind, reminds us once again that youthful ineptitude is no herald of what is to come.

"Seldom has so sumptuous a showcase been awarded to such tentative, graceless art," declares The New York Times's critic, Holland Cotter. The work in Pollock's two earliest sketchbooks, says Mr. Cotter, forms an "often mortifyingly awkward record of his effort to achieve even a minimal graphic proficiency."

The young artist apparently would have been the first to agree. In 1930, at the age of 18, Pollock thought his work "rotten." He wrote his brother that it seemed to "lack freedom and rhythm. It is cold and lifeless. It isn't worth the postage to send it."

Shades of Albert Einstein! Shades of Winston Churchill! At 4, according to legend, Einstein had hardly begun to talk; his parents feared he was slow or even feeble-minded. Churchill, so the story goes, had such trouble learning Greek and Latin that it was feared the future Prime Minister would not graduate from his public school.

As Mr. Cotter points out, any insight into the career of such a towering figure as Pollock, who did much of his postwar work in Springs, is valuable - the show at the Met particularly so since its "looping . . . doodles" and "lumpish, mollusklike bodies" are housed under the same roof as many of his great mature paintings.

Comparisons may be odious, but they can be instructive as well. Would-be artists, writers, scientists - students all - take heart.

A fan at Saturday's East Hampton High School football game observed at halftime that it somehow wasn't right that East Hampton was playing the likes of North Babylon, Comsewogue, and Harborfields. "They should be playing in the league they always played in, an East End league with Southampton and Greenport and Hampton Bays," he said.

Unfortunately, with combined high school sports, things have changed. East Hampton is now joined in a number of sports, including football, with Pierson (Sag Harbor) and Bridgehampton High Schools. The idea was to open up sports participation to more students, and that, of course, is a good idea. But, with East Hampton's increasing enrollment, and with Section XI's apparent failure to take into account how few athletes the grade schools feed into the high schools, Bonac sports programs can apparently look forward in the near future to an absurd elevation to Class A competition reserved for schools with enrollments exceeding 801 students. Spring track got the word this week.

Lest a double-bind be created in which youngsters are encouraged to come out for teams that continually get pounded by behemoths and in which the teams must content themselves at best with .500 seasons, Section XI should look again at the numbers.

Though the wheels of government turn slowly, they apparently have begun to turn in regard to a 15-mile bicycle path that in the not too distant future may span the Amagansett railroad station and Southampton Village.

On Tuesday, the East Hampton Town Board appropriated its half of the estimated $28,800 design cost for the first four-mile segment, which would provide cyclists with a paved path adjacent to the Long Island Rail Road right-of-way eastward from the Sag Harbor Turnpike.

"What's remarkable," said Lisa Liquori, the town planner, "is that we have an opportunity, without relocating any houses or structures, to have a path in this location."

The project is estimated to cost $l.8 million in all, though 80 percent is to be reimbursed through the State Department of Transportation. According to a recent Southampton Trails Preservation Society mailer, the state also has obtained a $60,000 grant that would reduce the towns' share from $360,000 to $300,000.

Over in Southampton, government has been somewhat less ardent about this project and the Trails Preservation Society has issued an "alert" asking its members to sign cards in support of the path that the society can deliver to the Southampton Town Board. Perhaps, in past years, the bike path did not have widespread and enthusiastic support due to the price tag, originally projected at $45 million for 15 miles, or more than $250,000 a mile.

Noting the ever-burgeoning numbers of "inline skaters, joggers, bike riders, nannies pushing prams, et cetera, on our crowded roads," the society notes that the time has come finally to move forward on the plan: "It is only a matter of time before a terrible accident occurs."

And the price, at $150,000 per town, seems right.

This year at Thanksgiving dinner, there is an added ingredient to the usual turkey entree, the thought of a potential pall of avian flu shrouding the world in years to come. Roasted turkeys don't make you sick; neither do farm-reared ones, for the moment, at least, but recent findings of the bird flu virus in North American fowl makes one sit up and take notice.

The virus itself is not new; it has probably been around for thousands of years. No doubt there have been a number of pandemics from it across the face of the globe through history, but none, as far as we know, that has affected humans or other mammals. The latest mutant strain shows that it's capable of doing just that.

It's hard to accept the popular notion of "intelligent design" unless, perhaps, we apply it to the first virus ever created. Given the power of our present-day understanding of molecular biology, genomes, and medical diagnostics, we are able to see viruses transform from one form to another before our very eyes. If this isn't evolution, in the Darwinian sense, what is?

Similarly, those proto-proteins called prions that cause mad cow disease, scrapie, and wasting disease in a variety of hoofed animals are found in a plethora of forms, some more harmful than others. They are always mutating and remutating, never static, always dynamic.

As we go further we will find more and more examples of such evolution from benign forms of microbes and submicrobes that have been here all along into virulent, lethal ones. The old idea that such agents are species-specific, i.e., are confined to this or that animal population, has been shattered. As they change their forms, they are able to spread from species to species, genus to genus, family to family, as in the H.I.V. virus, presumably starting out in monkeys, or from class to class, as in the avian flu virus.

The old idea that parasites start out as hostile forms, then evolve into nonthreatening, even helpful forms, is no longer the standard paradigm. Modern parasitological studies tell us that a symbiotic form resident in a species and causing no harm to it can mutate into one causing great harm overnight. There is no eternally safe or beneficent symbiont. The E. coli in our guts might aid us in digestion, but let a few get into our bladders and watch out!

It was thought that when a parasite killed a host it meant curtains for the parasite. On the other hand, the parasite that merely used the host, say, the way the Lyme disease spirochete bacterium uses the white-footed mouse to reproduce without harming it, was going to exist for a long time.

Now we know that a parasite can be benign in one animal, disease-causing in another. Malarial plasmodia don't hurt the mosquito that carry them, but they can be fatal to humans bitten by that mosquito.

As long as those parasitic agents that kill their hosts can get to another host before the first one succumbs, they can remain harmful throughout their evolution. Thus, the rabies virus, first discovered by the French microbiologist Louis Pasteur 150 years ago, is no less virulent today than it was then.

As long as the rabid mammal bites another mammal before it dies, the rabies virus will continue to thrive, spread geographically, and pass up through subsequent generations. The mammal that eats the flesh, especially the brains, of the one with a form of Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease, will perpetuate the mad cow prion in its lethal form, on and on and on.

The West Nile encephalitis virus is another case in point. Introduced into New York City mosquitoes in 1999, it spread rapidly from bird to bird, and from bird to human via mosquito bites, then took off across the country carried by bird vectors. Within a few years, every state in the Union had a human case or two of West Nile disease. While the disease is often fatal to the birds that carry it, and, to a lesser degree, to afflicted humans, in most hosts it is benign or merely causes a sickness that the host will recover from.

Diseases such as avian flu carried by birds are particularly scary because birds migrate and some cover thousands of miles in migration. Waterfowl, in particular, are great long-distance fliers. Eurasian ducks and geese often wind up in America, and vice versa. The fact that the avian flu virus has been found in North American waterfowl gives cause for worry. The flu virus can be devastating to birds, and, if it's the right strain, devastating to humans.

Knowing what we know now, and didn't then, the history of some of the great die-offs of bird species in the world might be attributable more to diseases such as bird flu, not as much to humans. Take the passenger pigeon's demise in America at the end of the 19th century. Was it the market gunners and "eggers" that did them in or was it a virus, perhaps an avian flu virus?

The mammalian species at this moment in the New World that is showing the most astronomical population growth is not the garbage rat, the feral cat, the coyote, or gray squirrel, it is the white-tailed deer. Wildlife biologists will tell you that in the absence of predators - the coyote, wolf, mountain lion, bobcat, and so on - the white-tail has the capability of reproducing until it covers every square inch of America the Beautiful.

Ah, but what about disease? It is only within the last several years that we have discovered large numbers of deer being taken by a wasting disease that affects only members of the deer family, that is, deer, elk, and moose. This prion-caused malady has been epidemic to deer in Wisconsin and Michigan, and it may become the very agent that limits deer here, having been discovered in a few upstate deer in 2004.

And what about the American turkey? Sure, it was shot by every Tom, Dick, and Harry indiscriminately for 250 years, but it's hard to imagine how a bird so widely distributed and in such great numbers as that species, when the colonists first settled America, could become reduced to a mere handful of native birds in the mountainous areas of northern Pennsylvania and southern New York by the beginning of the 20th century. Overhunting might not have been the only factor contributing to its near-extinction; disease could have played a role.

In nature and humankind too many of one thing is often a curse, not a blessing. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, and other fowl were not farmed by the millions prior to the Civil War in America, but now they are turned out like automobiles and computers at the end of mass production facilities called "ranches."

The same is true throughout the world. Millions upon millions of poultry have already been put to the sword in order to slow down the spread of avian flu disease among them. The grim reaper in the form of lethal strains of this virus knows no constraint. The big question is, will he stop at birds, or cross over into humans or other mammals? As we speak, he appears to be doing exactly that.

An "owl prowl" has been scheduled by the Cornell Cooperative Extension for 5:30 p.m., Friday at the Suffolk County Farm and Educational Center in Yaphank. Spooky owl facts will be included in a lecture and slide show to be followed by a hayride to the edge of the farm field in hopes of "calling in" a great horned owl.

Refreshments will be served. The fee is $10 for adults and $6 for children 12 and under. Reservations should be made by calling the Extension Service's marine program in Southold.

Walking Dunes

The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society has scheduled a sunset/moonrise hike through Nap eague's walking dunes on Saturday beginning at 5:45 p.m.

Weather permitting, hikers will be able to watch the sun set over Goff Point from the toe of what may be the last walking dune, then stroll through the cranberry bog in the bowl of the dune as the full moon rises. Lee Dion, the leader, has asked hikers to bring a flashlight in case a cloud hides the moon, and to meet at the end of Napeague Harbor Road north of the intersection with Montauk Highway.

At Mashomack

The Nature Conservancy and the Cornell Cooperative Extension are teaming up to offer a weekend of nature at the Conservancy's Masho mack Preserve on Shelter Island from Friday evening until Sunday mid-afternoon. The weekend will feature guided nature hikes, marsh walks, birdwatching, canoeing, and kayaking. Hands-on and feet-in activities will give way to evening relaxation in the Preserve's Manor House. Lodging and meals are included for the price of $250. Reservations are required by calling the preserve.

The North Fork Bancorporation Inc. announced last week that it would take over the New York Bancorp, the parent of Home Federal Savings Bank, in a stock swap valued at approximately $800 million.

Home Federal, whose chairman is Patrick E. Malloy 3rd of Sag Harbor, operates 30 offices in the boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island as well as in Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties.

The savings bank has $3.3 billion in total assets and $1.7 billion in deposits. Following the merger, which is expected to be completed by early next year, North Fork Bank will have total assets of $10 billion and $6.3 billion in deposits.

In a release, the bank stated shareholders could expect to see earnings rise by 15 to 20 cents per share by 1999.

In the takeover, owners of New York Bancorp stock will be able to exchange each share of their stock for 1.19 shares of North Fork stock. North Fork expects to issue an additional 26 million shares of stock to cover the purchase.

Bridge Bancorp Earnings

Bridge Bancorp. Inc., the holding company of the Bridgehampton National Bank, has announced that earnings increased by 11.7 percent, to $1.70 a share, for the first three quarters of the year, up from $1.50 a share for the same period last year. Total earnings for the period, excluding the sale of the bank's former main office on Main Street, were $2,398,000. The sale of the building earned the bank an additional $829,000 after taxes.

Christie's Conference

David Bray and Tim Davis, managing partners of Allan M. Schneider Associates Inc., attended an annual conference sponsored by Christie's Great Estates real estate in San Francisco last week. Allan Schneider Associates, which has offices across the East End, is affiliated with the Chrstie's real estate division, the world's largest international network of real estate brokers who specialize in estate properties.

Besides, the usual sessions on business development, legal issues affecting the business, advertising, and customer service, the conference included a preview of "The World of Resident Sea," a to-be-built luxury ocean liner with 250 private residences, that will sail the world over. Allan Schneider Associates will be among the brokers listing the floating resort.

New Counselor

Maryanne Strong, a certified social worker, ahcoholism and substance abuse counselor, and lifelong East End resident, has opened a new counseling service on Noyac Road in Sag Harbor.

Ms. Strong has worked for a variety of local agencies including Maryhaven Center of Hope, Southampton Hospital, and A Program Planned for Life Enrichment. Among her specialties are family treatment, adult and adolescent services, and alcohol and drug treatment.

About Credit Unions

The Community Bankers Association of New York State is distributing a 10-page booklet, "Credit Unions: Fact or Fiction," to government officials, banking executives, and consumer groups as part of a campaign that, according to a release, aims to "educate and create a balanced understanding of the issues involved in the banking/credit union dispute."

For information about obtaining copies of the booklet, the association can be reached at 200 Park Avenue, New York 10166.

Columbus Day morning in Montauk was still. The ocean was like a mirror, with a slight fuzziness on the horizon from the fog the cold air had drawn forth during the night.

Fishing boats stretched like stepping stones from Montauk Point to Block Island. Around the Point, frothing pockets of feeding false albacore could be seen on the surface, each with its frenzied halo of diving birds.

The bait fish - scared into the air by pursuing fish - have not left the area. This, and the unseasonably mild weather, have combined to make for exceptional October fishing.

Bravo El Bravo

The El Bravo charter boat pulled up to its slip at the Montauk Marine Basin on Sunday afternoon with a cornucopia of fish.

Capt. Charlie Harned had taken his boat offshore about 30 miles, where his anglers caught a number of school-size bluefin, too small to keep, and then picked from a bountiful school of green bonito (arguably the best-eating fish in the sea).

On the way back to Montauk, El Bravo stopped at a favorite wreck and pulled a few large cod, then on to the rips around the Point for four large striped bass and some bluefish.

Michael Potts, captain of the Blue Fin IV, said his Monday trip was typical of recent outings: 15 to 18 bass in two and a half hours of fishing, none smaller than 20 pounds.

Venturesome Year

Barry Kohlus on the Venture charter boat has had quite a year. On Saturday, his anglers boated a 40 and a 45-pound striped bass. The following day a 41-pound striper was pulled aboard.

These catches follow a 623-pound mako and a 914-pound bluefin giant earlier this season.

Surfcasters got into the act big-time over the weekend.

"They were three deep at the Point. The good news is they were all catching, even the ones that didn't know how," reported Joe Gaviola.

On the higher tides, schools of bass and bluefish moved past the Point and along the south-facing beaches this week. Mid-Napeague, in front of the White Sands motel, has been especially hot, surfcasters say.

Montauker On Board

Mr. Gaviola reports a change in the standings of the Montauk Locals striped bass casting tournament. A Montauker is finally on the board. Eric Ernst of Montauk was in third place as of yesterday, with a 313/4-pound bass.

Fred Kalkstein of Amagansett is in second with a 341/2-pounder, and Bob Jones of East Hampton commands the lead with a 351/2-pound striper.

The shore action has not yet reached Southampton beaches, according to Altenkirch's Precision Outfitters in Hampton Bays. On the other hand, the fluke fishing outside the Shinnecock Inlet has been good, with boaters catching fish in the three to five-pound range.

Winter flounder weighing as much as three pounds are being taken inside the Shinnecock Canal, along with porgies and sea bass.

Tuna Bite

Altenkirch's also reports that the bluefin tuna bite continues offshore, with some large fish being taken in Block Canyon and the Fingers, at its northern edge. Through Sunday, boats are permitted to catch and keep two "large-school"-size fish (47 to 59 inches) and one "small-medium" (59 to 73 inches long) per day. One bluefin in the "large-medium" or "giant" categories is permitted, per boat, per season. They measure 73 inches and longer.

The tuna species are abundant inshore, too. Fly fishermen are targeting false albacore off Montauk Point with great success.

"It's here. The blitz is here," said Tom South of Dixon's Sporting Life Shop in East Hampton, at 10:30 Tuesday morning. "I just talked to Tom Fisher and he already has 15 false albacore." Mr. Fisher is one of several fly fishing guides who operate out of the shop. "It's been incredible for five days, bass and blues too," added Mr. South.

Shark Bait

David Blinken, an independent fly fishing guide, was also in on the action, as was Harvey Bennett of the Tackle Shop in Springs, who guides fly fishermen to the increasingly popular fall East End action.

Mr. Bennett, not content catching the speedy false albacore off Montauk Point, reported a seven-foot shark circling his small boat on Sunday; he tried to bait it with a recently caught bluefish. It's probably just as well the shark didn't take the bait.

For those who like to relax on the dock by the bay, Mr. Bennett recommends the winter flounder now being taken from the commercial dock at Gann Road on Three Mile Harbor.