Ling-A-Ling-A-Ling

    Moving to New York City, amid the logistical planning and excitement about the future, I knew I had to include plans for a fishing trip. Especially with the new species that come in new, unfamiliar waters, I immediately searched for bottom fishing party boats in the area - that way I'd get a basic introduction to some of the popular fish in the area that may not be as famous as the stripers and fluke. I also like to see the differences in party boats in different areas, as while many of them tend to go bottom fishing, there also tend to be some variations in fishing methods in different areas. I found out that the nearest fishing boats were down in Brooklyn by Coney Island, and that from my apartment I'd just need to take the Q train all the way down to get to Sheepshead Bay and onto a boat. The most appealing trip I saw was a full day, 7 AM - 3 PM trip on the Marilyn Jean IV, so I set today in my calendar and bought a ticket. After weeks of anticipation, I prepared my backpack last night and went to sleep relatively early so that I could wake up at 4:30 this morning.

    The time had come, and my plan had been in motion. I woke up, took a shower, put the cold freezer block in my "cooler" which was an insulated lunchbox I'd recently bought at Bass Pro Shops for this purposes and headed out into the early morning to the subway station. There may not have been many people, but it is still always interesting to see the other people taking the subway so early in the morning, especially from Manhattan to Brooklyn. With my fishing shirt, backpack, and lunchbox, I probably stood out, and I definitely felt like I did when I came back and was walking through the city streets in the afternoon. But, I was on a great trip and I was excited for what laid ahead. It was somewhat surreal getting to the boat this morning, considering how much I'd anticipated it for the last few weeks. I was finally in Sheepshead Bay, and walking over to the boat. I got there a little early but it was definitely better to be early than late especially with an hour-long subway ride between me and the dock. Seth, a friendly deckhand, welcomed me on board and set up the rod I'd rented with the ticket. I asked to be placed somewhere near the stern and got it. The first difference with this party boat was the choice of bait; each station had a bucket with cut pieces of shrimp. The conventional reels were rigged with a simple high/low rig and an 8 oz sinker. At 7, as the boat filled up, we left the dock. It was cool heading out of the inlet and seeing the faint New York skyline in the morning haze.

    As we headed out, I asked Seth whether we'd be going for any ling, a cool species I'd honestly only heard about when doing my research for the trip, unlike any of the other fish we might have caught, which I'd known of for years. He said that we'd start fishing for porgy, and if that went well and the decision was popular, we'd move on to ling. I was happy just to fish and catch whatever I could, but I definitely did have the desire to catch a ling burn a little more than others. The first stop we made was right past the jetty, but no dice. The boat didn't have any nibbles, so we soon left to look for fish. Same with the next stop. This he entire boat was fishless. I was still optimistic and we had a lot of time left, but it was somewhat concerning that we hadn't even felt nibbles at the first two spots. Very soon into the third spot, however, I felt a heavy pressure and my line went straight to the right as I fought a big fish. It took me to the right (crossing the next fisherman's line) and then to left before cutting me off. It was an absolutely exhilarating fight, and the fact that I saw color before it cut off made it sting. Apparently it could have stung me physically had I caught it, since Seth immediately knew that it was a Cownose Ray. They must normally do this kind of thing since right after cutting me off the boat started the engines and we left in order to avoid the rays. Naturally, with so many lines in the water, another bite from a ray can take out many of them at once - which isn't quite what party boats want to have happening. That being said, having had one on the line, the break was heartbreaking. Still, I was assured that there was nothing I could have done, and the 40 lb line was not enough to stop it. There was a clean cut on the line. Leaving the rays behind, we made a long run further southeast past Sandy Hook.

        Finally, at the next spot the boat started feeling nibbles and catching fish. Most of what came up were Black Sea Bass, but there were some sea robins too. Lowkey I was getting outfitted by the boat. Right as I was trash talking myself in my head due to the dismay and frustration at getting outfished by some other newbies on the boat, however, I get some strong nibbles and keep the pressure on to hook into a fish. I reeled in a double up of black sea bass on both hooks! While it wasn't my first time catching these fish, and they weren't big enough to keep, they were my first saltwater fish in the state of New York and also the biggest black sea basses I've ever caught. Soon after I reeled in another bass before we moved on.

    We spent the next hour or so moving spots, fishing, catching a little, and moving on to see if any other spot might be the honey hole. At one spot, I felt nibbles as I dropped it down but the nibbles soon disappeared. I felt some small shaking, so I optimistically reeled in hoping I had a fish on my hook. I did! It was a small bergall, a common type of wrasse in these waters. I unhooked it and released it, thinking about how now I can finally cross "Bergall" off of the fishing bucket list. It is a small and pesky fish, but I'd always had it on the list because, from what I'd heard, it seemed to be sort of like the standard common fish caught in the New York/New Jersey area, like how the pinfish or bluegill are back in Florida. Now I had experienced catching the fish that practically every angler in this area had, giving me a sort of initiation to this fishery.

    My next few drops also resulted with bergall. They were routinely taking the bottom of the two hooks. At the depths we were now fishing, it was difficult to even know if I had a bergall on; I'd mostly just reel in to check on my bait only to discover that I'd caught another bergall. My excitement at the bergall was somewhat short lived. While it is always nice to catch a bucket list species, I had now caught it. I could start to see why they are somewhat hated and branded as "bait stealers" as the rest of the boat was catching other species like ling. I caught two more bergall as time kept ticking and I started to get a little frustrated and dehydrated. After all, it was getting hotter out and it was beginning to be a real pain to reel in the hundreds of feet of line every other minute to check on my bait. As I frustratedly reeled in to check my bait after nibbles I'd felt vanished again, I found a small Ling on one of my hooks. What a reward! My mood changed instantly. "LFG baby" I said to myself having caught the species I'd sought in particular. On top of that, ling do not have a size limit, so it could be kept. Ling are really called Red Hake - ling is what they are called colloquially - and they are in the Cod family. I was excited to try it when I got back. Something I thought was odd about this boat was that, unlike others in California that leave the fish in burlap sacks and those in Miami that put the fish on ice right away, they had a bucket with water for each fisherman to leave their fish to die out. It is commonly known as best practice for the meat to be killed and iced immediately, and this seemed to be contrary to that. I was unsure about how it would taste, but I'm happy to say that it didn't seem to affect the taste of the fish at all - it was delicious.

    I got advice from an old timer next to me named Rocky who brought his own fluke rig which he used with shrimp on the bucktails to absolutely kill it with both fluke inshore and ling in the deeper water. As he was reeling each one in, he would sing "Ling-A-Ling-A-Ling" as if it was nothing. He told me to put multiple pieces of shrimp on each hook. I'd been committed to the strategy of one piece for the sake of double hooking it for security on the hook as well as thinking it was all that was needed for a big fish, but it was time for a change as the rest of the boat was catching more than me. I followed through on his idea and, to no surprise, it paid off. I felt a gradually heavier tug on one of the ensuing drops and I reeled in a big ling. It was one of the biggest caught on the boat so far. It was a very nice catch and solidified my having enough to eat. Seth told me the best way to hold them were from under the gill plates, although they were relatively soft and easy to hold by their bodies.

    The process repeated itself, leading to more ling. I'd rig up with multiple pieces of shrimp on each hook, drop, feel nibbles, then get a heavier feeling on the rod, and reeling in a ling. At one point the fishing was so hot that it felt like I could expect a ling on the end of the line. Things had instantly changed from how they were before, and I was excited to now have enough ling to take home and try. In the end I had two new species on the day, including the ling which had caught my interest and is harder to catch from shore. I put the meat at the end of the trip into my "cooler" which the freezer block had kept cold, which preserved it very well as I walked back to the train station and hopped on the Q to go back home. I left the fish in the fridge while I went to the store to pick up some extra ingredients before cutting off the pin bones (Seth had been in too much of a rush with all the fish caught on the boat to take them off everybody's fish), breading them, and frying them. The fish tacos came out incredibly. It was a great cap to a special day of fishing. It felt nice now that my plan had come to fruition in its entirety.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

700th Fish at Dania Pier

     Being back in Miami with all the trips done and a big move on the horizon, Marcus and I made a plan to fish again together perhaps one last time before leaving for our respective law schools. Seeing as how he lives a bit closer to it, we decided to hit up the Dania Beach pier. I hadn't fished there in years, but I was excited to head back there and see what we could catch, especially with more fishing knowledge now than before. I woke up at around 6:30 to get ready and after picking up Marcus and his cousin Liam we made our way over to Angler's Bait and Tackle. The workers there were helpful in giving us tips when I asked for confirmation on the gameplan for the day I'd laid out. We picked up a couple of sabiki rigs with 1 ounce sinkers and a pound of squid to use for bait. The goal was to catch baitfish like pilchards on the sabiki and toss those out for bigger fish. Once we were all set following this quick stop we parked at the pier (which was m ore expensive than expected) and walked on, paying the 4 dollar fee each. There were schools of baitfish right at the base of the pier. We immediately put our extra rods to the side and I set up a sabiki on one of them, showing them how to jig one lightly to catch a fish. They tried unsuccessfully at first by dropping it directly down into the water, but when I took the rod and casted a bit out, lightly jigging it on the retrieve, I came up with a pilchard, or Scaled Sardine, on my first cast. I put it onto my heavy rod with a 3 way rig attached to it and casted that out. We spent the first bit of the day fishiong near the base for bait, each of us coming up with some good ones occasionally but nothing too consistent. At one point, I suggested going down further down the pier so that we could use the squid near the pilings for fish while also casting the live bait out into a more reef covered area. As Liam and I were fishing further down the pier, Marcus stayed back and kept fishing with the sabiki. Soon enough, however, Marcus called me over to check out his catch, which he had put into the bait bucket we'd brought. He noted that it was different from what we'd been catching, and a little bigger. I reached in and pulled it out to see that he'd brought in a small Yellow Jack, species #140 for me. A beautiful fish, it was cool to have brought in a new species on the day and a new type of Jack. We all kept fishing, bringing in a fe more pilchards as bait and nothing much going on about halfway down the pier. At this point I figured we should start tipping the sabiki. We brought all of our gear even further down, closer to the reef area and the T at the end of the pier (stopping short of it) and tipped the sabiki hooks with small pieces of squid. Liam dropped it and immediately got hit. It's funny since nobody on the pier was catching much until this drop. He reeled it up as soon as the rod bent over to see a small Tomtate on one of the hooks and a bigger Blue Runner on another. The Blue Runner was so frantic as it came up that its twisting resulted in getting three other hooks from the sabiki rig stuck in and wrapped around its tail. We used the Blue Runner as cut bait on a heavy rod and had to do away with the sabiki rig. Luckily, we bought two at the bait shop. The cut bat (or even live blue runners whose tails I would shred a little to hamper their swimming abilities) didn't seem to work, even with Barracudas prowling. Odd. However, after setting up the other sabiki rig, we tipped the hooks again and Marcus dropped it. He, too, started getting bites immediately and he reeled in a solid Blue Runner. Thus began the frenzy. It felt like every drop we made was immediately met with bites, and while we outfished the entire pier at the time, the rest of the fishermen on the pier were catching too. We'd get pilchards - one time I caught four pilchards in a row in consecutive drops - along with more Blue Runners and Tomtates. However, we'd also add in a few more random species beyond the Yellow Jack from earlier in the day. Liam brought in a Lookdown, I once reeled in a tiny Yellowtail Snapper, and Marcus even caught a Bermuda Chub. It just goes to show how much variety in species there are on the South Florida coastal reefs. At one point towards the end, I started to freeline a strip of squid on a circle hook. Feeding frenzies ensued, and I would flip the bail to set the hook in hard fighting Blue Runners that would try to take me under the pier. The first of these was my 700th fish. Overall we caught about 26 fish more or less before a cool wind instantly picked up and it started to pour. By then we'd had opur fill so we went back to the car to get lunch. It was a very fun day of catching. Once again, the sabiki came to the rescue and provided some interesting looks at what was living under the pier. I'm now over 700, but I'd recently been thinking about how relatively small that is. I love to fish, but I don't go as often as I'd like - I really needed to get my numbers up. Today was the day of high numbered catching I needed. I can also say, thankfully, that I've caught a great amount of species proportionately, and have fished with many different methods in many locations. I look forward to continuing my fishing journey even further as I learn and experience more.

  

   

   

   

  

Quick Bass Trip with Larry

     It's been a busy summer. With graduation, traveling, and apartment hunting, I've luckily had a lot to occupy my time. However, being a few weeks since I'd last picked up a rod, I started to get the itch for fishing. I admittedly became a little insufferable to the rest of my family that do not like to fish as I kept trying to sneak it into our schedules. It seemed as if I was going to come back from my trip to New Jersey seeing the Caplans without being able to fish until our flight back to Miami got canceled and we rescheduled until Thursday. While it did change things up in our expected schedule, it gave me another chance to go fishing with Larry. He already had some rods rigged up with small black or pumpkinseed plastic worms (some with a ring tail) that we simply loaded into the car and drove over to a nearby lake. It was a lake that I had fished with Ben before, so it wasn't unfamiliar. It's convenient because, as a retention pond for a neighborhood, it has low grass with fewer ticks than otherwise and there is a road right next to it where you can park. The water at the pond is apparently much lower than normal this summer, and given rain the night before the banks were a little muddy, so Larry lent me a pair of hiking boots. A worry for me on this excursion was the time of day; we could only fit fishing in at the peak of the afternoon, which is not necessarily a prime time for fish activity. That being said, this was more about getting our baits in the water and having a good time than strict fishing. Once we got to the lake, Larry showed me his retrieve, which I followed for most of the day: let the worm fall to the bottom after casting, then continuously reel in very slowly while twitching the rod tip back and forth. Bringing the worm back up at the end of my retrieves, I could see that it did in fact provide a convincing presentation. It was no surprise, then, that Larry hooked up on a bass very soon after starting. I was dealing with a tangle on my own rode, caused by the fact that the very light line was new and had sat unused in the garage for a while. Because of this he kindly offered the rod to m to finish reeling while he cut the knot on my line. I reeled it in and we took pictures with our first bass of the day. It wasn't long after that that I saw and felt fish thump my bait, and soon I hooked up on a small bass myself. It's funny how aggressive Largemouth Bass can be; sometimes small bass can go after baits as big or potentially even bigger (as I have seen) than themselves! I unhooked it and released it and we continued fishing around the bank. There was one spot as we went further along the right, near some trees and a creek, that seemed very promising. I saw sunfish in the water and casted near there, getting a few bumps but no hookups. We kept on making our way around the corner of the bank, casting out into deeper pockets in hopes of hooking into more fish. Unfortunately, nothing more was biting and it was still very hot out, so we made our way casting back along the bait to the car. Larry said he had a feeling about each of my casts, but nothing seemed to work after those first two. He said he liked my retrieve, which was pretty erratic but done exactly how he told me, so that wasn't the problem. At least we weren't skunked! It's always nice to go freshwater fishing, and using artificials for Bass for that matter, because although they are a top American gamefish, I don't often get to fish freshwater as much as I'd like. I also don't often use artificials - there's something to be said, however, for the feeling of accomplishment you get from tricking a fish into biting your plastic lure. It was nice to be back on the water and doing some casual fishing with Larry for a bit before heading back and firing up the grill.

  

Nofing: The Master of the Sabiki

    Today was a unique day, despite not having much success on the water. Noah, a college friend who is from the gulf coast is spending the summer in South Florida and had been trying on his own for some Snook. We decided to get together, along with our friend Adam, to do our best to try to catch them. We planned for 6:30 at the Bal Harbor Jetty at the south side of the Haulover inlet, hoping that the evening outgoing tide would be conducive to our success. I picked up some live shrimp on the way over, and I set my gear up with Noah at the parking spot next to the bridge before walking over to the jetty, with Adam arriving a few minutes later. Chopp had a great idea with bringing a folding chair - something I should think of for next time. As soon as we got there, Noah casted out his sabiki rig just past the rocks, each hook tipped with a small piece of shrimp flavored fishbites, and just left a little bit of slack for like 5-10 seconds before reeling in the line, each time with a fish or two on one of the hooks. Tipping the hooks with Fishbites, a sturdy bait, is a good idea; normally I tip the pieces with shrimp, which is easier for fish to take off the hook. Noah, used to fishing the gulf, which doesn't have as much of a presence of coral reefs, was surprised at the fact that he was bringing up more colorful fish than just pilchards. The sabiki was bringing in Bluestriped Grunts, Tomtates, and even a Porkfish. This was combined with a bluestriped grunt I also brought up on a simple three way rig I had set up with a live shrimp. Noah and I both hooked these small, bait sized grunts, near the anal fin of the fish on 3/0 circle hooks rigged with a relatively light bank sinker on a three way rig which we casted out in hopes of getting a big fish. Unfortunately, nothing substantial took our baits. We were also victims of the copious amounts of sargassum washing in, both from the rotting smell from the dried sargassum on the beach behind us, and the way it would get caught on any line we casted out that stayed on the bottom. While we fished past sunset and a bit into the night, we didn't catch anything else and packed up to go at around 9:10. The three of us then went to the Haulover food trucks, something they've got going until 10 PM every Tuesday night and which I haven't been to in years. Despite not catching what we'd hoped for, it was cool to see Noah's almost magic touch with the Sabiki (it's supposed to be pretty easily successful, but he made it completely effortless with the fishbites) and having a good time with good friends. It was also the first time I went fishing with my new glasses, which helped me see the ripples and reflections in the water clearly for the first time in a long while. It was teh right time to use them too since we were able to see a beautiful sunset.