Carey Kilgannon of The New York Times had a great story today about fishing for striped bass from shore at the Montauk Lighthouse on Long Island in New York. It sounds like they’ve brought combat fishing to new heights there. The story isn’t about fly fishing, although I know a lot of fly fishers go after stripers at Montauk. Here’s a portion of the story:
REX ADILI of Totowa, N.J., took up fishing several years ago because he wanted a relaxing hobby. Then he discovered Montauk, and bought a crash helmet.
Fishing here is an extreme sport, especially on the perilous rocky shores around the Montauk Lighthouse, where boots with tungsten-carbide spikes are needed for traction, where fisherman wield $1,000 rods, where fights regularly break out over fishing spots.
It’s not unlike going to war. Adili, 46, has spent $5,000 on equipment, and when he fishes the lighthouse, he is decked out like a specialist in the Navy Seals, dropped into enemy waters. The helmet is used in case he takes a nighttime spill down the steep, rocky breakwater.
“You know how, during the California gold rush, you had guys battling for their stake?” Adili said while fishing next to the lighthouse a couple of weeks ago. “This is what it’s like here in Montauk right now. But instead of gold, we’re going for stripers.”
Stripers, or striped bass, are trophy fish for anglers, and they feed here in droves from late September through early November before migrating south. This is known as the “fall run,” and regulars boast that the fishing here and now is the best in the world.
“Best time, best place,” said Dave Lynch, 21, a college student from New Jersey who was fishing next to Mr. Adili and was energized by the 10 stripers he had already caught on this trip. “We come for the thrill and the challenge — stripers aren’t easy fish to catch.”
As Lynch spoke, areas of water offshore were churning with fish. These are known as blitzes. Bass gorging on the bait fish at the surface roil the waters, and the gulls and terns carry out a simultaneous air assault, diving on the scraps. The feeding binge sets off corresponding chaos onshore, with surf-casters sprinting to the closest point from which to cast their hooks into the frenzy.
This action is what lures the fishermen to Montauk after the summer crowds have gone. The fish hunters arrive in trucks and campers and stake out spots on beaches and in shorefront parking lots. They are people like Rob Mazzei, 45, of Tennessee, who is in his second month living in an aging camper mounted on his pickup truck parked in the lighthouse lot, sleeping during the day and fishing at night.
“Montauk is ground zero if you’re a surf-caster,” said Mazzei, a former New York City police officer. “You have people from all over the country fishing here now. We have a couple from England that flies over every year.”
The lighthouse is the most popular place to fish in Montauk. For one thing, it is at the very tip of the South Fork of Long Island, where the bait fish spill from waterways to the north and east, and are swept across the point, magnets for hungry fish. The lighthouse parking lot becomes a fish camp, packed with avid anglers staying in large recreational vehicles and small vans. Scores more set up on nearby beaches.
Greg Fellini, 35, a metalworker from Bayonne, N.J., waded into the ocean to swim toward the fish he was hunting. Just off the lighthouse, pole in hand, he was slammed by wave after wave. Washed in the surf and dragged over rocks, he still managed to keep his rod aloft all the while, casting out and reeling in. Mr. Fellini wore a rugged wetsuit made for kayakers that does not tear on the rocks. He said he had had some scary moments being dragged by currents, but nothing that would make him give up the hunt.
“You have world-famous fishermen here, so you got to go all out if you want to hold your own,” he said, smoking a half-soggy cigarette afterward on the shore. The thrill comes from outsmarting the bass and finally experiencing that adrenaline-pumping moment when the striper hits your lure — “It’s like an explosion!” Mr. Fellini said — and you pull in your trophy fish, the one that gets your photograph published in the fishing magazines and on Web sites.
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