Fishing

Lucky enough to once again secure media credentials to cover the U.S. Open tennis tournament, I needed to do a bit of fishing myself to see who is really hooked on fishing.

“Lots of weakfish are around, plus there are porgies, blowfish, fluke, sea bass, snappers, kingfish, and even some black drum being caught,” reports Sebastian Gorgone of Mrs. Sam’s Tackle in East Hampton.

For boat owners, the fact that diesel has dipped below $6 a gallon is welcome news, even if it's still expensive. As any owner of a power boat knows, fuel is just one part (actually a very small part) of the overall expense of the craft. Other expenditures like dockage, insurance, maintenance, and other factors, significantly overshadow the bill at the fuel dock.

It's news that neither a commercial bayman nor those who enjoy bay scallops wanted to hear: For the fourth summer in a row, there has been a significant die-off of mature bay scallops in local waters.

Despite the excessive-heat warning from the National Weather Service, our intended quarry was a species that’s more recognizably caught in the bone-chilling winds and cold of winter: the iconic codfish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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