Outdoors

If all goes according to plan, four of the club's Har-Tru courts will be under an outdoor 85-by-200-foot National Hockey League-size ice rink and open for business as of Saturday, marking the beginning of the Buckskill Winter Club's 16th season.

"It's kind of hard to believe we are at the end of the year," said an understated Harvey Bennett at the Tackle Shop in Amagansett. "Like many others, I'm tired. I hope next year brings better hope and promise. We all deserve it. Let's close the book on 2020."

The pandemic has seriously impacted many who fish or work on the water for a living. With restaurants and the food service industry taking a big hit, the demand for various seafood products, including oysters, has been severely curtailed. A new partnership between the Nature Conservancy and the Pew Charitable Trusts is offering help for oyster farmers whose oysters have grown too big to market.

On the fishing scene many remain thankful for the great action. While striped bass can still be had from the ocean beaches (Sunday afternoon saw a classic bass blitz from Bridgehampton to Southampton), Montauk continues to be the main port of call for fishing activities, especially for blackfish, sea bass, porgies, and cod.

It was an unusual season on the water by all accounts. When the boat was first launched in mid-March, the pandemic was already beginning to have a firm grip on New York and Long Island. It was a scary and uncertain time. In many ways, it still is.

The fishing season is winding down, but the fishing for blackfish and sea bass remains strong and the bite is still good for striped bass from the ocean shoreline.

After about an hour steaming off in my boat to the northeast on Gardiner's Bay, the fish finder machine in my cabin painted a perfect picture of the bottom I was looking for. With the anchor set on the incoming tide, I was positioned on top of a tight cluster of broken rubble and small boulders in about 40 feet of water. It looked fishy.

Their fishing trip in Gardiner's Bay on Monday may not have yielded the blackfish they were after, but Aidan McCormack and Mark Deckman came away with quite a tale to tell.

Monday morning dawned bright with a stiff, northwesterly wind on the bay as I lifted the bedroom shades. I squinted as I tried to focus on my surroundings from the second floor. It was a little after 7, and not a single boat was in view. It was a sad sight to see but not a total surprise.

The East Hampton Town Trustees opened Georgica Pond to the Atlantic Ocean on Oct. 19, a biannual event that allows spawning fish to enter and exit and flushes the pond. Unlike in the last two years, though, the pond closed naturally just six days later.

With two dredges and a culling board laid across the stern of my boat, it was time to see if the upcoming season would be boom, bust, or perhaps something in between. Sadly, it did not take long to see that the hope for a bountiful harvest of scallops would very much mimic the unfortunate events that have unfolded in the black cloud that is 2020.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has reclassified two areas in East Hampton waters to restrict the harvesting of shellfish.

Blackfish, also known as tautog, are perhaps the most challenging of fish to catch in our local waters, and quite a few good fishermen are not ashamed to admit that they have never mastered the knack of catching the elusive, bait-stealing fish.

New York State has set Nov. 2 as the opening of scallop season in state waters. But the trustees have traditionally opened waterways under their jurisdiction for scalloping shortly after the opening of state waters to allow additional time for scallops to spawn.

Anglers last week saw an influx of migrating striped bass mixed in with bluefish and false albacore that has brought back pleasurable memories of the productive fall run of years past. "It's insane action at times," said Capt. Michael Vegessi of the Montauk party boat the Lazybones.

I really don't have any excuses, but it's been well over a month since I have picked up a fishing rod. I'm not quite sure of the reason, but other than pulling my lobster and crab traps out of the water for the season shortly after Labor Day, I had not even untied my dock lines. My boat, and my body, have sat idle for too long.

Two mysteries hang over Montauk's Fort Pond this week: What happened to 26 laughing gulls found both dead and injured, all in the same manner and all oddly clustered in an area near PSEG-Long Island's Montauk substation on Industrial Road? And was that really an alligator people saw in Fort Pond late last month? The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has looked into both matters.

Since 1921, the Ryder family lived in the white farmhouse next to a small pond on North Haven that has been known in local lore as Ryder's Pond. This week, the Village of North Haven held a name dedication ceremony to officially designate name the pond for the family.

On the fishing front, the gusty winds have made it a challenge for many anglers, whether fishing from boat or shore. So The Star's fishing columnist took his motorcycle for a ride to the North Fork, where he got the fishing report from the boats tying up at the Orient by the Sea Marina.

Dustin Reynolds has traversed much of the world alone in his 1983 Bristol 35.5c sailboat and arrived in Montauk for the first time on Friday. To say he has made the journey single-handedly is at once literal and figurative. Mr. Reynolds lost his left arm and his left foot in a 2008 motorcycle accident, caused by a drunken driver, that nearly claimed his life.

At times, the local waters this summer looked more like Cannes or Monte Carlo, with yachts that are seemingly larger than ever and more elaborate. David Geffen’s ship, which anchored up in Gardiner’s Bay back in July, was 450 feet long. 

Capt. Paul Dixon, a fly-fishing guide with To the Point Charters of East Hampton, is a pioneer in this specialty fishing locally and thanks to his advocacy helpint to preserve the stocks of striped bass and other fish, was recently named to receive the 2021 Izaak Walton Award from the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

It’s impossible to ignore. Labor Day is upon us. While still technically summer, it’s less than three weeks until fall formally arrives. The early essence of our next season can already be felt in the cooler mornings and more deeply slanted rays of sunshine in the afternoon. Much like a book, the page is being turned.

At their meeting on Monday, the East Hampton Town Trustees discussed a surge in boating activity this year, which they agreed is a consequence of the pandemic. That, they said, means that the two pump-out boats the trustees own and operate are in particularly heavy use this year, especially the one based at the Star Island municipal marina in Lake Montauk. The other boat serves Three Mile Harbor.

Cownose rays? Sounds like a fictional Hollywood B-movie monster manufactured in the mind of a very creative screenwriter. But the reality is that these large-winged creatures, like many people, have found the Hamptons to be quite pleasurable during the summer months.

Several East End scientists are working to dispel the persistent public perception of white sharks, which prevents understanding their importance in the ocean, and their increasing vulnerability.

Like blue-claw crabs, for several years now Menhaden's inshore presence has been abundant. It's been a welcome sight. While their population has exploded on a local level, efforts have been ongoing for several decades to help protect their stocks on a regional level. The menhaden board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission decided to finally adopt "ecological reference points" for their management.

Tropical Storm Isaias's winds brought about some anxiety as to how my lobster traps were surviving. Being that they were positioned on open bottomland, they were also not protected by any lee of the land.

In today's social media-charged environment where news, fake or not, makes instantaneous headlines, the word that various species of sharks have been seen offshore here should hardly come as a surprise.

The East End of Long Island will be spared the worst of Tropical Storm Isaias. According to the National Hurricane Center, its path is expected to remain well to the west of New York City on Tuesday, passing over Philadelphia and Trenton, N.J.