Fishing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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