Cast a line for striped bass and new fish stories
Patrick Orna, left, and Wayne Persaud, enjoy fishing on a balmy Tuesday, at least for December on Long Island. Forecasters say the relatively mild temperatures could continue for much of the month. Credit: Newsday / Alejandra Villa
In the back seat of his car parked at Jones Beach, a man slept with his arms wrapped around a big striped bass. A few hours earlier, I had seen him at sunrise sitting on the sand, telling passing anglers that he had caught the bass in the middle of the night. What a prize. It must have been 40 pounds. When he dragged it by the gill to his car, the fish left a fin trail in the sand all the way to the parking lot.
For those who enjoy fishing on Long Island, activity heats up in the spring. The winter flounder season opens April 1, but catching a winter flounder on Long Island in this day and age is rare. It’s a lot easier to catch a cold. I haven’t caught a winter flounder in about 10 years despite fishing both the South and North shores. There are still other fish in the waters — bluefish, fluke, porgies, kingfish, sea bass and others — when the season hits high gear by summer. For me, though, it all starts with the opening of striped bass season on April 15.
The bass is a mystical fish. It has a cult following on Long Island and up and down the eastern seaboard. Many fish caught along the shore, such as “cocktail bluefish” and fluke, are usually just a few pounds. But the striped bass can exceed 50 pounds. If luck and skill are applied, it can be landed from the shoreline, a boat or a pier.
On Long Island, the striped bass lures fishers to the great outdoors, curing them of their winter blues.
Numbers of striped bass fell dramatically in the early 1980s from overfishing, pollution and other factors. But severe restrictions from the mid-1980s to 1995 helped the fishery recover. Today, anglers are limited to one striped bass a day, and each must be at least 28 inches long. Still, New York State says 7.2 million pounds of stripers were caught by recreational fishers in 2014, and another 529,000 pounds were caught by commercial boats, which have their own restrictions.
On the early fall day when I saw the man in his car hugging his hefty bass, there were at least 50 anglers lining the Jones Beach surf. Along with fluke, striped bass is the most popular fish. The potential to catch a big one is like playing the lottery. And the bragging rights after nabbing a huge one are tough to resist.
Yet, what I like most about the striped bass is the stories about catching them. One morning, I arrived at Jones Beach and saw an angler with an inexpensive rod and reel land an impressive 38-pound bass. The next morning, I saw him again, this time with his young son, who asked his father to catch another one. I couldn’t resist a laugh to myself.
One day after I landed a 20-pound bass at Jones Beach West End 2, I cast my line, planted my rod in a sand spike, and walked over to a fishing buddy. He suddenly signaled for me to turn around. I whirled and saw my rod and reel being dragged into the ocean. I ran about 30 yards along the sand and 10 feet into the surf. But it was too late, and my rig, which included a favorite Penn reel that my father bought at a garage sale, was gone. You never know when a fish is going to hit.
Reader Frank Schiff lives in Wantagh.
