Outdoors

It’s appropriate that Michael Potts will be honored on Sunday afternoon as the Montauk Fishing Legend of the Year at the Montauk Grand Slam fishing tournament that Henry Uihlein has hosted at his marina for nearly three decades.

I trapped 15 lobsters on July 8. That was the good news. The bad was that the Yanmar diesel engine on my Rock Water encountered problems on the return trip to Sag Harbor.

My good friend Robert Cugini, who hails from Seattle, has served as a valued deckhand for many years when bay scallop season opens in early November. But lobsters are a different ballgame.

I know that the East End is a well-known hot spot. I realize that nothing stays the same, but I miss the more simple days when courtesy, respect, and kindness ruled the road and water. Is it too much to ask for today?

The recent heat wave zapped my energy for getting on the Rock Water and wetting a fishing line. But I sucked it up and checked on my lobster traps anyway.

After a good catch of bluefish, I steered back to port in Sag Harbor, but my engine stalled out a few minutes later. Not good.

The D.E.C. has announced changes to recreational fishing regulations to improve management of protected shark species. Plus, a record blue-claw crab hits the counter at Tight Lines Tackle.

“It’s the first in a very long time” to visit New York State, “if not the first ever,” said Shai Mitra, an assistant professor at the College of Staten Island, said of the American flamingo that visited Georgica Pond in East Hampton last week. The bird was last seen there Saturday at dusk.

In local waters there has been a decrease of kelp, much of which was typically found from the east side of Gardiner’s Island all the way to Montauk. A new project looks to change this.

It’s mating season for the horseshoe crab, and last week, a group monitoring the crab for the Cornell Cooperative Extension dropped in on an all-night orgy repeated along bay beaches for 400 million to 500 million years.

Fishing-wise, things are much better than my 62-year-old body or my Jeep Wrangler’s transmission.

Blowfish are one of the tastiest local fish in our warming waters as we jump from spring to summer. They are one of the cheapest fish at the markets, too.

I was supposed to take my boat to check my lobster traps. It had been about 10 days. I also planned to do some diamond jigging for striped bass in Plum Gut. None of it happened.

The striped bass showed up en masse for their annual residency off Montauk on May 1. It was a true sign that spring had sprung for those who wet a line for the highly prized linesiders.

It’s been sad to watch the demise of our local inshore lobster fishery. I’ve seen a clear downward spiral that’s been especially acute in the past five years.

The dawn chorus of birdsong is different depending on your habitat, your location, and the time of year. Songbird migration will peak by mid-May. As songbirds migrate overhead during the night, they blanket the sleeping country with sound, calling to each other to keep their flocks together and tight. When they land, they sing us awake.

The recent closure of the only tackle shop in downtown Montauk was a blow for fishermen, but all is not lost for those who wet a hook and line in Montauk. The Montauk Anglers Club, right near the Montauk inlet on East Lake Drive, is looking to fill the void left by the departure of Paulie’s by adding more tackle, bait, lures, gear, and services to its already well-stocked marine and tackle store. 

The question was whether I should stay in port on April 9 or put out my lobster traps for the season. Sounds simple, yes? But it wasn’t. Hear me out.

Hundreds of anglers were saddened to learn last week that Paulie’s Tackle Shop, operating in downtown Montauk for over 20 years, had closed its doors forever.

Odds are, you’re not going to see an American bittern, despite its large size. Frankly, the American bittern doesn’t want to be seen; it chose invisibility as its superpower. Still, this is the best time of year to try; make the experience at least as much about the journey as the destination.

When the ball drops marking the beginning of the new year, for some, a silent gun goes off and an invisible race begins. They’re the bird listers, and their goal is to find as many different species of birds as they can over the next year.

Coyote sightings on the North Fork this autumn and a month ago in Bridgehampton are not surprising to those who study this wide-ranging mammal. Coyotes have never bred in Suffolk County, but with one-off sightings increasing in frequency, the question isn’t if they will breed here but when.

When darkness closed out the Audubon Montauk Christmas Bird Count and the species were tallied, participants agreed that the good weather might have played a role in the total: 134 were found, the highest in a decade.

Low spawning levels have spurred the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to put forth a comprehensive management plan to rebuild the stocks of striped bass.

Out on the water for a last chance to catch some blackfish, The Star’s fishing columnist enjoyed some good camaraderie, and if the fish were to cooperate, so much the better.

The plight of our beloved scallop is a sad one. For five straight years, we have witnessed a summer die-off. Baymen never have it easy.

After breeding on the northern lakes, loons arrive on the East End in the autumn and increase in numbers through the winter as their breeding territories freeze. They can survive our winter water because they’re so well insulated.

With the season for blackfish and sea bass concluding in a few weeks, our columnist headed toward Block Island on a trip organized by Bill Bennett of Sag Harbor. They enjoyed consistent action all morning.

“I honestly don’t think I missed a fish, as they were taking the bait with such abandon,” Joel Fisher said of the waters off Big Gull Island. “All were in the 14-to-17-inch range. It was a great way to end the season.”

The plan was to head out on a 90-minute ride to Block Island for blackfish, sea bass, and codfish. When boats were able to get out in recent days, the action was good, especially for blackfish.