Lights Enroute to Gardener's Island and the Race

Recently we put the boat in at Greenport Harbor and headed due east to do some fly casting on and beyond the Plum and Gardiners Islands flats. The day was a bit hazy and the air had a little bite to it. We were hoping to catch blue fish, striped bass and false albacore (little tunny) but the weather from the northeast two days earlier had put them down and only the "albies" were spotted under a flock of gulls hitting the water to eat the scraps left by the marauding fish. I fought one briefly before it managed to get unhooked, a risk I take by using only barbless hooks which do almost no damage to the fish I want to release. Only their egos are hurt. The day was not a total loss however. I had my camera and squeezed off a few shots of the light houses we passed along the way and enjoyed the companionship of my boat mates and an excellent packed lunch to be eaten at slack tide waiting for the change to incoming.


Long Beach Bar Light (Bug Light)




Little Gull Light




Plum Island Light




Orient Point Light (the Coffee Pot)




Plum Gut at slack tide with the Coffee Pot to the extreme left and Plum Light on the right. The water goes through this two mile wide gut with depths from 60 to 200 - 300 feet. My brother Bruce would remember a white knuckle passage we made several years ago. Click here for a video made from a powered sailboat fighting the current.



For more photos and commentary about this area and north to Connecticut see Matthew Housekeepers excellent blog "Soundbounder".

Kids & Fish

Most kids like to fish at least for a little while. Thrilling excitement, concentration and fear all play across their faces as they feel the tug on the end of their line and realize that they are now connected to an unknown, unseen "something" down in the water.

This gentleman's congratulations became a bit much for his grand daughter and her snapper catch.

In the lower photo my nephew was proud of his first striped bass catch on the Sound. If I hadn't grabbed his pants I think he'd have gone over the rail when the striper hit the clam-belly bait. Upon returning home to Florida he told his dad that he wanted to live with his uncle Mark on Long Island :-)

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Amy's Stuffed Striped Bass

Fresh striped bass meat is firm textured and not "fishy". A whole fish yields mostly white meat. Fish size is limited only by the size of your oven and bakeware (this one fit nicely in our 36" Viking). Ingredient amounts are very flexible depending on the fish size. Gut the fish and scale thoroughly because the roasted skin is yummy! Remove the head and tail if they don't fit in the bakeware. Cut several places in the side of the fish to prevent curling, rub salt and lots of black pepper into the skin and coat with olive oil. Extra stuffing can be baked in a dish. Leftover striper makes great fish cakes.

For the stuffing:

Butter/bacon fat and or olive oil

Chopped onion and celery

Saltine crackers and semolina bread chunks chopped in a food processor with some dry bread crumbs

Cooked shrimp coarsely chopped

Clam juice (bottled) or chicken stock

Fresh lemon juice

White wine

Whole celery seed

Hot pepper sauce

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Thyme

Chopped parsley

Two eggs well beaten

Saute the onion and celery in a generous amount of fat until soft with a little bit of crunch. Add to the bread cubes and saltines in a large bowl. Add the shrimp. Wet the bread mixture with clam juice, lemon juice and white wine until it all holds together nicely. Season to taste with hot pepper sauce, celery seed and plenty of salt and pepper. Add eggs and blend well. Bake in and along side the fish. Place the fish on a bed of coarse salt to bake so the skin doesn't stick. Make a lot... you'll want more!

Preheat oven to 500 degrees, bake the fish for 10-15 minutes then turn heat down to 400. Roast undisturbed for another 15-20 minutes until the fish looks sizzly and well roasted with an internal temperature of 130 degrees. Don't let it bake long enough to get dry. It's not necessary to turn the fish. Use two big spoons to separate the meat from the bones. Yum!!

Lobster, will there be enough?

Oysters & Clams on the Half Shell

Jellyfish Up Maratooka Creek

Bait - Greenport

Host Clam

There Be Fish

Generally speaking, there are fish around from March into December if the water temperature is anywhere near normal for that part of the year.  Different temperatures within that range appeal to different species and trigger different habits, feeding, spawning, migrating, etc., so fish come and go more or less on a schedule and after a while one kind of knows what to expect.  Of course, the fish may not be where you are when you want to fish, or may not be feeding or may just be stubborn or "put down" because some jerk just went through your fish with a motor boat or jet ski.   (Just what do they think you're doing with a fly rod in your hand?)  Sometimes one can see evidence of fish when they come to the surface, just a dorsal fin coasting at the rate of speed of the current, or  a swirl as it turns quickly to eat or avoid being eaten.  Here are a series of photos of evidence of fish.  In the first two there is a phenomenon afoot.   Large predatory bluefish and/or striped bass have worked from below in concert to school menhaden ("bunker"), and then pick them off at their leisure.  The bunker are swimming tight to each other like any herd does when wolves are about.  They often jump when the big critters come up from below to pounce.  Casting into the school can result in a fish accidentally snagged on your hook, not a well-taken bite, as those bunker are too worried to feed and are only aware of the immediate danger below.  When one is snagged and being brought to shore most often there will be a tremendous pull and you'll be left with half a fish or less.  It is difficult to get a fly under the school to where the big boys are but if you can, a 30 to 36+ inch fish may be your reward, as just happened twice to me last week.  (I tie flies with barbless hooks only and release my catch 99% of the time.)  If you click on and enlarge the first picture you can see where an escapee just splashed back into the water only to quickly rejoin all those little dorsal fins in that desperate school.  In picture two the dorsals and the "boil" are a little clearer (hard to get at a distance with my wee 3x zoom).   Picture three shows fish swirls as do four, five and six, the later in a fresh water lake.

Lobster in the Rough - Greenport

Horseshoe Crabs Mating

Minnows (click to enlarge)

Horseshoe Crab