I was up Friday, 12/17/21, at 3AM and messages Captain Pelican as to the status of the boat for Firday morning. He reported to me that Ralphie was mating and he was expecting to get out. I looked up the wether report and it was reported to be a bit windy, out of the west, but with 3 foot seas. And Pelican asked for coffee. I asked him to hold the boat for me and I'd bring Breakfast.

I picked up coffee and Dunkin Donuts opn Kings Highway at 6AM and everything was packed and read for the trip at 6:30AM when the cab came. I arrived to find everyone on the MJ4, which was a bit of a disappointment. The MJ5 is not just a bigger boat, but it is more comfortable around that rails, especially if we are heading out past the NJ Highland, as we routinely do for Black Fishing. During the week, the Black fishing has been good, and I was hoping for more of the same. We loaded up and steamed south, with a boat full of the FRIDAY FISHING CLUB, the premium edition, with Felix Perez, Indian Joe, Jay, Frankie Kneski, Smilie - Robert Smilen, the Chins, Davie and his family, just a lot of expereinced rods in the water.

On the first stop, some hour south, the stern of the boat lit up with fine fish, except for Frankie Kneski who was on the port side bow, opposite of me. He pulled in two quick keepers, but I was getting nothing on the starbart side of the bow. Fortunately, I had my radio to keep me company for the first half of the trip and we had lots of hot coffee. Things changed after 11:00 AM, and we lit up. I was fishing with the green Rod Geeks stick I had Ethan Klawansky make for me with a slowed up black pen torque 12 star drag on 30 pound braid and 30 pound flouro top shot and 3:0 Owners straigh hooks... no circles. I was trying to fish with my Penn Internation 987 baitcaster, my favorite Black Fish reel, but it needs to go into to Penn for seasonal work. I was fishing 5 ounces of weight. In the morning, the current was strong so I had to up the weight to 6 ounces, higher than I wanted. In the afternoon the current died down and I dropped to four ounces. And then I hit 3 keeper fish between 11:30 and 1:00PM. I kept two and gave one away to my neighbor in the bow who was having less luck. I just didn't get the fourth fish.

Around the boat though, we had fish and often HUGE fish. The Chins plucks out of the water one of the biggest Black Fish I had ever seen. This thing would play paddle ball with its tail. It must have been a 75 year old fish. People caught all about the boat. But late in the afternoon, we were up to having conversation in the bow. I was playing, by happenstance, the Cars, Steely Dan, and the Velvet Underground on the radio. Everyone seemed to have had a good time. And the ride home was pleasant enough. It was a good day, with good fishing and a happy crew.

The one very sad note was that we didn't take out the MJV. That boat was sadly sold this week and is heading back to Cap Tree. That really is a bummer as I liked the mudhole trips with that boat and the room for the galley and food. It will be missed.

As we close in on the holiday season, fishing remains quite exciting in Brooklyn with both Blackfish and Striped Bass seasons in full swing. I have personally not fished much for Striped Bass, but the Lady Flamingo and the night time trips on three of our famous boats, The Davie, The Sea Queen, and the Marilyn Jean, have been hammering on the fish, pulling in lots of fish in the legal slot from 28-25 inches. Many prized fish, 40 inches and up had to return to the ocean. Instead of striped bass fishing, I have done a lot of black fishing. Both on the Ocean Eagle and the Marilyn Jean, nearly twice a week, I have been fishing on the 7AM boats as they run to the grounds. Most commonly the boats steamed south of the Atlantic Highlands, up to an hour and 20 minutes south as the most. The deeper waters from 120 feet deep have been productive as have many spots more inshore. Fishing has been adequate, and reasonably challenging. That makes it fun, and the weather has also been holding out.

Let me start with the two trips I took on the Ocean Eagle. The first trip I took had both Chris and Tommy as the mates. We had a fun trip, and I shared the stern with Robbie and Cano. Even if we didn't catch as many fish as Captain Greg wanted, we still caught many fish, and I had an excellent time. Tommy was at his best game, and just a delight to be fishing with and I caught fish! And we had a pool winner.

One of the best things about this trip is that the crew and regulars were in such a delightful mood. My friend Tony was "a spaining" and in a talking mood, a very Italian cultural trait, and you can listen in a little here on this wonderful video. Enjoy a of a real slice of life on the Oceanside Docks at Sheepshead bay.

The second trip that I took with the Ocean Eagle was on an incredably rough Friday with lots of wind and quite cold. It was a light crowd, but again, I caught decent fish, including 2 keeper Black Fish and a huge Cunner which I love for Breakfast. It was a vewry tough day on the boat and when not fishing, we ened up huddled in the cabin. That can be good or bad, depending on the company. But we still caught fish that Friday and got into dock before Shabbat.

On Thanksgiving Weekend itself, I spent my free time on the Marilyn Jean V. We fished that Thanksgiving, and on that Sunday, and it was very plesant. Fishing aside, the MJ5 itself is the most comfortable boat to fish on, and Rafeal, the first mate, is a delightful guy and a personal friend. On Thankgiving, we have a traditional trip with about 20+ passangers. I have many friends among those regulars, including Jon and Kathy, who caught decent fish on these trips. I brought a bucket of Kosher Chicken to the boat, plus hot coffee. It was a bit nippy, but the fishing was terrific and the ocean was very gentle.

On the Thankgiving trip, we caught a lot of fish! Felix was on the boat, along with Indian Joe and they decided to run their own pool. I don't do pools, which was good for Felix because I caught what would have been the pool winner. We got happy fishermen and great shots! It was GREAT fun and there is more winter fishing to come!

We turn the calander and this Wednesday I made an unplanned Blackfish trip on the Marilyn Jean V for Blacks. We hummed out across the lower bay and down the Jersey Shore and it started out so miserable. With lowering temperatures but bright skies, we had Rojas and Benny as mates, as Rafeal seemed to be out for a prolonged lend to Rhode Island. I was happy to see Rojas. We also had a few guests on the boat, including Fireman Matt, Little Anthony, Denis and his better half, Nickie, all professionals from around the bay. Regular customers included Rooster, and crazy Lou. Lou really does suffer, and he is cashing out his mothers home in Brooklyn and moving, likely to New Jersey. We was well behaved and had a good time on the boat which is cause to be happy. And he pulled out some very nice Tautog!

The temperatures plummeted into the 50's, which was a shock on the system as we have been hovering over 70 degrees for weeks. The drop in water temperature seems to help the fishing. But my morning was one of suffering. I lost 4 rigges in the first half hour after anchoring up. And to make matters worst, my Penn 987 Baitcaster was acting up and not catching. It it the best blackfish reel I could get, and it is needing to be sent in when I need it most. And noone seemed to be catching. It was just fustrating all around, so much so that I tossed my pole onto the rack and retired to the cabin, wondering to myself why I even do this. It seems like such a waste of energy and time, and honestly, the people at the dock overall wear me out.

I cooled my jets for a few minutes and listened to my jute box, before finally returning. At this point, in an effort to avoid losing more rigs, I lifted the snaffu rig up the topshot leader, by about six inches, and attempted to gently lay the rig across the bottom, a bit away from the weight. This did prevent me from getting stuck. It didn't help in catching fish. Captain Pelican came down and said a disgruntled word or two about the set up, and complained that after all this time I should know better on how to make a working rig. The truth is, he is only half right. It is easy to see what others are doing than it is to execute it and it has only been about a year now that I have tried to make my own rigs and set up myself. It is part of the skill building that I have put myself through. But today it was pretty miserable. And I intended to use the alternative set up to dtop getting hung up. He was right about one thing though, this was also failing.

So I lowered my rig again, and shorted the length of the hook leaders, making everything tight. This seemed to have produced some results, as I hit a nice short and then a legit keeper on this set up, while nursing my sick reel. By the end of the day I pulled in 3 keeper and 8-10 fish all together, sending the rest back. This was satisfying and I have fresh blackfish for Shabbat.

The Striped Bass action has begun at night. Honestly, night Striped Bass is not my favorite way to fish for them as I perfer to jig for them, but the run is on and last night was an exceptional catch. We had about 20 folks on the boat and they had a wonderful time. About 12 fish over the 28 inch slot came of the rail, and many were true monsters that was over the slot limit and had to be returned to the water. But we still got a few to take home.

We fished eels with 8-12 ounce weights on a triple rig, with mandated circle hooks, each attached to about 2 feet of line. Bass fishing is jackpot fishing. If the captain can find fish, usually even newbies can catch them, and it can be great fun. And sometimes, you can come up blank. Pelican spanned much of the lower harbor from end to end and hit the fish big. For some reason on our boat, nearly all the fish were caught in the back of the boat. So they had great fun in the stern.

As the fall and winter creeps in upon on and on the Halloween Season, I was able to squeeze in a post-Shabbat long range trip to the far wrecks in the area. These trips are usually rewarding in that you can nail some really decent size fish and in quantity. This Halloween, Captain Dave offered a 10PM Saturday Night voyage to the wreck grounds. I loaded up with food and headed out to the Oceanside Docks and the Nautical Recreational area on Emmons Avenue. Davie's boat is anchored at Pier 2 on Bedford Avenue and Emmons.

Up and down the Northeast, fishing trips this weekend were cancelled as we were wedged between two NorEaster storms, but heading into Sunday, the reports started clearing up and by Saturday night the Jersey boats were changing plans and opening their boats. So we loaded up the Captain Dave, at near capacity, the only boat on the whole of Long Island that seemed to get out, and we ferried out to the world-wide ocean. We hugged the coast and steamed east for nearly 6 hours and then about Fire Island turned SouthEast to an area south of Shinnecock around the Mochies. It was long trip and the boys has a floating penny ante poker game that lasted more than 10 hours back and forth. The boys had fun. I slept on a beanbag that was lent me from Richie at Stella Maris.

We arrived the next morning and the steal boat was flattening out what was otherwise a rough sea. The guys next to me pulled up 5 huge seabass, 25+ inches. Huge porgies came up the rail, swallowing 3/0 and 5/0 hooks. I fished with my Herucles Seeker paired to my baitcaster Penn 987, using 50 pound braid and a 60 pound topshot, topped off with 3/0 Owner hooks and a 12 ounce weight. I pulled in endless fish, but most of my seabass, including some 8 double headers in a row, with mostly 14+ inch fish. Nice fish but not legal to keep under the draceon NYC regulations. I pulled up one nice monster and another keeper before Captain Paulie decided to cut the trip a little early and at about 12:30 we pulled out and headed home. All in all, we arrived at about 9PM Sunday night. Everyone stumbled off the boat with smiles and fish, quite pleased with themselves.

The Jewish Holiday Season just passed us and we are now beginning to expereince the cooler temperatures and waters entering into fall. The Scup fishing has continued to support the recreational fishing, but there has been a lot of sightings of Tuna and Albacore throughout the waters. Boats are gearing up and we have seen very decent Blue Fish throughout Jamaica Bay. The birds have been pounding the surf and we have spotted peanut bunker inside Sheepshead Bay.

Fridays continue to be my favorite day to fish and we have had lovely trips. Throughout September and now into October, we pounded huge porgies inshore, and as they have weakened somewhat, we pounded HUGE Sea Bass slightly offshore. Last week I pulled up a monster 23+ inch Sea Bass, along with a pale full of other fish. The boat had excellent catches all around. I had one young boy of about 10 years of age, the last 2 weeks, outfish me, which is fun.

Over this last week, I have had the pleasure to fish, mostly with Frankie - El Grecco. on the Marilyn Jean V on the night trip on Sunday Night, Monday Night and Tuesday Night. During this time, it has reminded me that New York, and especially Brooklyn, can very well be a world of water. When one visits for a period of time California, or in Israel in the summer, one can go through weeks without significant rain. But we have been in a water world. Between rain, mist, ocean spray, and the ocean itself, we have been surrounded by water and the boundry between the bay and the air and the sky has blurred by water. Tonight we had a decent rain storm through out the early even, and by night I was quite wet, but this has been largely the case for the whole week. Porgies, though, love this weather, especaily with the new moon when tides are at their peaks. We have had a week of excellent Scup fishing over the entire week.

This past Thursday Night I managed to get to Pier 7 and hop on the night trip for the Marilyn Jean V and get some fishing in with Captain Pelican. We cruised out to Jamacia Bay and found a wonderful catch of decent size Porgies. This was a boat full of first timers and newbies, and that resulted in a lot of fun. Then, at about midnight, after we were supposed to be already back in the dock, Captain Pelican decided to make a pit stip in a secret local that I am sworn to silence on. And we hit HUGE fish, all in the 18 inch range for Porgies, and we ran into a keeper Striped Bass. That made everyone happy, despite entering late into the dock at almost 1:30AM. I didn't get home until nearly 2AM. But it was worth it.

We were lucky enough on this night to have members of the Staten Island Fishing Club on the boat. I fished the bow with Paulie, a founding member who pulled in some excellent fish. He is a very serious guy with very serious fishing techniques.

If you are visiting New York City, you owe it to yourself to experience a full day of fun and action at New York's Oceanside Piers at the Sheepshead Bay Recreation and Entertainment District --
Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn USA.

I have been working on this promotional pamphlet for the Nautical Recreation Area of Sheepshead Bay. It is still a work in progress but presentable. Oceanside is more than just Peirs, but an entire district dedicated to Tourists and Locals alike for an authentic fishing and recreational experience. Bait, Tackle, Boats, Charters, Jet Skis, Dining, Movies, Hotel Accomodations, Kayaking, Boat Clubs, and more are all available and waiting for your discovery, right here in Brooklyn USA.

Downloadable Pamphlet on the Oceanside Piers of Sheepshead Bay

Cautious optimism is creeping into the regions consciousness as we seemingly emerge from the lock downs of Covid-19. Part of that optimism is carried by people finding other things to do then sailing on fishing boats. The resulting corwds which are now be slimmer. Going into the Forth of July, it rained. In my experience, when it rains, Porgies love to bite. But the day after, as sweet water and sewage makes it way into the harbor, they tend to turn off for a couple of days. The Friday Fishing Club got out, but the Marilyn Jean V didn't. Instead we fished with Greg on the Ocean Eagle. The Ocean Eagle has had a wonderful season run, and it has seen terrific fluking and very decent porgy fishing. I had no expectations for this trip. The night before, Thursday night, we did get out on the MJV during the rain. I ran there from work and was without my serious fishing gear or my serious rain gear. I got soaked through. We went out, and headed east. I caught 5 decent sized porgies, and the rest of the boat, much less. And it wasn't for a lack of effort. So my thought was that after the rain, if we went porgy hunting, it was not likely to be a big bite.

This last week of June we had an extraordinary group of fisherman, and fishing in the beginnings of the heat of summer. We still have some spring coolness in the breeze, but the midday sun was very present. On board fishing this Friday was a set of veteran anglers including Indian Joe, Glen Evans, Doc, and Jay, along with plenty of new and old faces. The day before, Captain Pelican found a pile of large Black Sea Bass, and that drew quite a bit of interest. But the Friday trip wasn't able to repeat that. We did pick up some beautiful Sea Bass, however, including this whopper I hooked which barely fits in my wok.

Fathers Day after the COVID-19 Lock Down has every family stiring an looking for terrific outdoor activities to do with dad! Of course, this means that the entire fleet at Sheepshead Bay was sold out and railed with fishermen, young and old! Multi-Generational fishermen from local families had a great day of fun, and the fish cooperated, leaving smiles everywhere.

Well the much anticipated wait for the annual summer porgy run is over. This Friday morning on a rough day out in the ocean, we scouted out on the Marilyn Jean, along with the Ocean Eagle, in shore and about Jamaica Bay for the Porgies. There has been roumors that they have been making their way down from The north shore and Long Island Sound. At first we checked out the rough waters about the jetty and read them. We got a few nibbles and found a stray baby black fish, and some silver dollar porgies. It was not what we were looking for. Then we fished about the inside lick of Breezy Point up to Roxburry. And we found some Porgies, nice and fat ones. Not a lot, but a steady pick at them for the boat. I ended up with a moderate number of them, about 12 large fish that ended up on the Shabbat Tables of friends and myself. This is all good news for the fleet and Porgies are their bread and butter. For me, it means the end of Ling fishing and the end of Cod fishing. That makes me unhappy. By August we will be up to our waist in Porgies.

During the third week of June, I had the pleasure to have a rare Wednesday off, and we hit the water, porgy fishing. I pulled out my Porgy sticks, including my custom made MHX sticks loaded with 30 pound braid on my Abu Garcia MGX2 reels. This is what they were designed to do. I took a position in the stern of the boat, which is unusual for me. You can almost always find me in the bow. But I figured on a light weekday trip, I could squeeze into the portside bow comfortably, and we had a decent group of people. I fished near my friend "Raster", who was fishing a Penn levelwind, GT321 with a lever drag. On the second drop, I hit bullseye on the second drift about a mile outside the Rockaways. I pulled up huge fish, and we had a day of very large porgies. We are talking routinely 17+ inches of fish. And I was loading up on them, but the rest of the boat seemed to be stone cold. So about 15 fish in, Captain Pelican decided to move me off the spot!

Eventually we moved to about the 2 bell where we hit fish, and later moved closer toward the Brighton Beach shore line. In the end, everyone hit NICE fish. The fishing wasn't drop and stick, as it is in August, but we made up for it with the size and quality of the fish. Poor Raster didn't get a hit until almost 12:30PM. Then he nailed a huge fish, along with a share of later catches. A young man to my left had a steady run of quality fish. There was nothing but smiles on the boat today.

The weather is finally beginning to heat up and the Porgy Watch is well on. They have been biting for them in the Long Island Sound, but down here on the south shore, they haven't yet apeared. So we are still enjoying a nice mixture of Cod and Ling Fishing, down the Jersey Shore in about 160 foot of water, and Bass Fishing in Raritan and Fluking. Fluking has been largely been steady on the Ocean Eagle, and the Captain Dave. Bass fishing has been explossive on the Lady Flamingo and on the Sea Queen (both day and night). The Marilyn Jean IV has been picking at Fluke, and the Marilyn Jean V has been steady with Ling and Cod. Personally, I enjoy Ling and Cod, so I am not complaining.

I haven't picked up any Cod, but folks around me have been steady on them. This Sunday, on June 6th, I was out on the water with my old friend, Paul Robert Marino. We've been hitting the Red Hake at satisfactory rates, and two lovely Cods were picked up around me. Something weird seemed to be happening to my hooks today. I took a day and night trip, with Rafeal and Rojas mating the day trip and Billy and Benny on the night trip, I dropped a large number of large fish at the surface, including 3 huge baseball bat size ling, and 3 reasonable size blue fish. The common theme was that these fish where all hooked from under the boat and pulled in. Pulling them up, the fish were at an odd angle. But this is nothing I haven't handled before. I am using Owner hooks, and still fustratingly dropping fish all day.

Even still, we had a terrific day of fishing in the bow. The variation in fishing depths and species has been a welcome change before the Porgy runs. Here is a great montage of bow fishhing.

Brooklyn is experiencing one of the great Striped Bass and Blues runs of the decade. Early on Bass reports were pouring in from the Raritan Bay area, and now it has spread to all over the harbor and into Jamacia Bay. We started on worms and the Six Packs like the Rock Fish were giving great reports. Later, the night time party boats and specialty cruisers like the Hunter were killing it, hitting bass in the slot size to the limit and many monster fish that had to be returned to the water.

I finally got in on the action in the 3rd week of May with a night trip on the MJ5. Benny and Billy were the mates, and the captain was Pelican. He guaranteed that we would catch sh, which was entertaining because one never guarantees fish. But we did catch a load of fish. I pulled in two keeper fish, fat cows, 28 and 31 inches, and the fish loaded up on blues. We bunker chunked on fish finder rigs. Many of the blues were caught on wire rigs on bunker chunks as well. We sailed into Jamacia Bay, out to the back and loaded up on fish, essentially one stop shopping, which a good chum slick for the night.

When I was busy raising my kids in the 1990's, I most often fished on Tommy Marcini's Pilot. Tommy was a sweetheart to his customers, and loved my kids. He sadly died of cancer and the reigns of the Pilot was entrusted to a young captain, Anthony "Pelican" Reyes. Tony was born with a birth defect in his jaw that gave rise to his moniker, "Pelican". They rode him fairly hard, and the defect was eventually surgically fixed. But in the face of much adversity, he shined, and developed his own following.

I didn't meet Tony until about 2014 as I was going through multiple personal setbacks. I was going through a devastating divorce, the death of my grandmother, who was all but a mother to me, and terrible and undeserved legal problems in my career brought on by a malicious investigator who dragged me into an pharmacy investigation for a store I only worked a day a week in, and had no dealings with. Things reached a point where I wasn't even sleeping for days on end. In desperation, I finally ended up early in the mornings at the dock. And upon someones recommendation, found the Marilyn Jean IV, where Captain Pelican was running the ship.

Pelican took me in as a lost family member and before long we were almost like family. I spent weeks in the pilot house with him, absorbing all the comings and goings of the entire harbor, and even Pelican's personal life. I recall the death of his father, and the disfunction on his home front. But on the boat, Pelican was king and in control. Hardly perfect as a person (who is), but he had grudging respect from the entire harbor, and friends everywhere he went.

Pelican and I are very close. He has earned my friendship because of the man he is. He is generous with his time and his knowledge. He has included me on adventures I would never otherwise imaged. Most of what I have learned about fishing, I had learned by being schooled by Pelican. He catches more fish that anyone on the East Coast, if not in the entire country. It helps that he targets Porgies in the summer, but it is still a fact. He has more happy customers than anyone else on the docks, and he works hard with beginners and new customers on the boat, and sends them home with smiles and fish. He can be a bit gruff, even childish at times, but he has matured considerably in the time I have known him, and he always leads with his best foot, and with sincere friendship to all.

So much time and friendship has passed between us, that we both take it for granted. Mind you, we come from two separate worlds. But we share a common Brooklyn heritage, and a love for fishing, although he does it professionally and I only wish I did. And we have come to learn a lot about, not just fishing, but life as well, in our time as friends. The contrast works for us. The love I have for this man is genuine and real.

When we fish in deeper waters for Tautog or Red Hake (Ling), we often run into swarms of smaller fish we call Berballs, but which are more properly known as Cunners. Off shore these can grow to decent sizes of 6-8 inches. Most often we seem them as very small and agressive fish that steal bait, with a size of 2 - 3 inches. They are annoying bait snatchers and they live in the wrecks and are a primary cause of folks getting stuck on the bottom as they wrap up light weight lines into the rocks and wrecks. If you pull up, you often stab them and they come up to the surface harpooned in the head or belly. They must be thick on the bottom. Most people throw them back. I love them for breakfast.

They are in the Family of Wrasse Fish (Labridae), and that makes them a cousin to Blackfish. If you look, it is obvious. They both have that teeth set up and similar locomotion.

It is a very Jewish thing to have fish with breakfast. In Israel we have huge smorgasbords of fresh fish. So I seem to have taken to this NYC form of fish in the morning with Cunners when I can get them. And of late, I have gotten quite a few Berballs for my breakfast table.

Cooking Cunners is as easy as it gets. Just gut and scale the fish. Maybe you don't even need to scale them. Throw them on the grill or the pan and brown them on each side. They are done as quickly as the eggs... a few minutes. It can't get any easier. As for the tast, they are DELICIOUS. They are better than lox for breakfast. They tast almost like makeral, but with a lighter, more delicate meat. They have a more salty flavor, and the small amount of fish for breakfast carries over in the pallet as one eats the eggs, enhancing all of breakfast, even the coffee. If you are a Brooklyn fisherman, you have access to this delightful specialty you have to try this. Even the rich don't eat this well, and to my knowledge, you can't buy this at any price. A Cunner breakfast, with eggs, once over easy, with two thin slices of Challah make for a special breakfast, especially if your trying to impress someone special for a relaxing morning by the docks.

Eating them is a bit of a finesse. You feel very classy eating them, and you need your fork. They do have small bones, but the bones are lined up in a delicate row, very easy to remove with your fork. The meat is very white, and visually appealing. You will have a great meal and it is quick and easy to prepare. This is sooo much better than caviar. Anytime I get a chance to take home Cunners, I do so and they are a regular staple of my mornings. Try them yourself!

May has come and the early Black Fish season has come and gone, but Fluke Season has opened, The Striped Bass are on full run, Blue Fish are being seen in the waters, and Ling and Cod have been ON FIRE. As Mothers day has come and gone, fishing has lit up accross the board. You can have succcess now in nearly any kind of fishing, from jigs, chuncks, bottom fishing, and fluking. This is NYC's best fishing at its finest and you're lucky that the crowds are still small. Don't expect that to remain so as the boats are putting up more and more pictures.

I got my second pfizer vaccine yesterday, so I went on the boat feeling expectedly under the weather, slighly soar all over my body and achy. The right arm, that recieved the shot, felt weak the entire trip. On the second cast of the morning, once we go out on this Tuesday morning, I was whopped be something I didn't know. I was using my United Composite Mega attached to my low gear Torque 12 star drag. It was spooled with 30 lb blue braid and about 12 feet of 30 lb Flourocarbon topshot. Then I ran a lower snafu rig (hooks on opposite ends of 10 inches of 60lb leader) and a top hook of 9 inches of 60lb leader snelled to the hook. All the hooks were 3/0 Owens hooks. These hooks really do make a difference and are worth the expense. The entire rig was nchored by a 5 ounce weight. And to my susprise, for most of the day this rig, with all three hooks, held up nicely and I didn't loose it until nearly 1:30PM.

On the second cast, when I pulled in the two Blacks and they were hanging on the top hook and the bottom. As they were swimming around each other, the rig got fairly tangled, and this was one of the small disadvantages of the this rig, its tendency to table and the need to detangle it. If I shortened the higher hook, I might had avoided some of this, but I wanted the slight potential overlap of bait on the bottom. So I lived with the hooks getting tangled from time to time. The resulting fishing was outstanding.

The rest of the day was a steady pull of Ling, with a sprinkling of Blacks and Huge Sea Bass mixed in. Pelican, the captain of the Marilyn Jean V, really found fat spots today. The cod was caught on a standard rig and boat hooks. We filled coolers all about the boat. It was nearly 6 hours of steady bottom fishing, with fish on nearly every pull. We fished clams the whole day, without use of artificials. The sole mate today was Rojas, and he was exceptionally busy with fillets, cutting fish until we entered th dock. He earned his keep today, despite the light crowd.

With all that, I was excited to finally get some decent pics and video. But when I pulled out my camera, I noticed that it was missing its memory chip. So all I have are pics from the smartphones taken by Pelican. Sorry :). So, I will get decent Spring fishing images soone enough, just not today.

So what can I recommend for Fisherman now? It is ALL good. Jigging on the Flamingo, Stripers on the Hunter, especially at night, Fluking on the Ocean Eagle or half day on the MJIV are all driving EXCELLENT reports. Davie has turned into the golden boy this spring with wonderful Tile trips and Canyon andventures happening and the Charter Boats have been killing the striped bass. Everything right now is Aces, so get down to the Seasonside Docks at Sheepshead Bay and get in on the action.

Late in the week, the Ling Fishing has slowed into Sunday. We hit enough fish to keep everyone interested, but after hitting 40 fish days for a week, Sunday was a considerable slowdown. We had a great trip, though, and made new friends including Daniel and his Father who caught their share of fish and smiled a lot.

We also had the pleasure of fishing with Freddie the Jinx - one of the oldest characters on the Bay.

It is worth noting that the Hunter has a new Midnight to Morning Blues and Bass trip and they have been very successful in getting clients AND catching fish. For the smaller boats, blues and Bass are in top form right now,

After a short winter, spring fishing opened in the Borough, and we have chased a decent run of Spring Blackfish and Striped Bass. For myself, I love the Spring Ling Fishing and Cod runs down the mudhole. Fishing has been at times wonderful and sometimes completely a dude. The weather has been difficult and there is a big of a COVID-19 hangover. We've had some fun catching a few fish, anyway. And the entire gang has gotten into the action, both young and old.

In addition to these Blackfish and Cod trips, the Captain Dave has been whomping on the Tile Fish, doing successful offshore trips with Paulie as captain all string long. They are really encouranged and keep adding more and more trips onto there schedule. They are really doing well on these trips.

Along with the regular reports, we have several new options now in Brooklyn for fishing. The Hunter now has added a fast, far ranging, charter boat, dubbed by Mike as the Hunter Express. Schedules haven't yet been announced, but we are likely to see some action soon with that boat. And in addition, we have a new charter berthed in Geriten Beach, the Sound Bound II, which is a 6 pack charter in the class of the Rockfish. The Rochfish itself is always booked so there is likely capacity for the new boats.

Enjoy all the Photographs from fishing in the Fall and Winter of 2020/2021

• November 2020 Fishing Picks!
• December Black fishing and Stripers 2020
• New York Harbor in November
• Stella Maris in Fall 2020

After the disaster of the 2021 year comes to a close, the Blackfish season in New York closed on December 22nd, and the Striped Bass season ending on December 25th, the Winter Fishing is shifting into a new stretch. Black Sea Bass ends on New Years. That legally closes almost all the productive fisheries for legal fishing accept for Ling and Cod. Many of the boats are taking the time to do winter repairs. The Sea Queen, and the Hunter are shut down for a period of time making upgrades and repairs. I saw that Michael, the owner of the Hunter, is working on a new rail for the Hunter, especially on the bow of the boat. That will be a welcome addition to his boat. The Marilyn Jean 5 was in the dry dock under painting and repairs, and just this week (I am writing this on Mon Dec 28 09:49:32 AM EST 2020) has just returned to Sheepshead Bay and not the Marilyn Jean 4 is undergoing repairs. The Ocean Eagle had run decently Tatoug trips right to the end of the season, and is not pausing until the New Year, when they expect to fish Cod.

Cod fishing has started out with a bang, being lead by Paul Paris on the Captain Dave. He has produced both regular wreck trips that have run from Friday through the weekend, and 12 hour local Cod and Ling trips. They have been most productive. They pulled in one Cod that made me green with envy, which I am showing you below. Based on that success, I headed out With Davie on Sunday, December 27th, that ran from 5AM until 5PM. We headed out from the Colera Grounds, to the waters around Jones Beach, hitting nearly every wreck and reef along the way. The weather was cold, barely tipping over freezing in the mid-afternoon, but the ocean was calm with nearly any wind. But we produced no fish, other than spiney dogfish. I tried nearly every tackle I carried from light tackle on 4 ounce weights and porgy hooks, to 3/0 high lows on wreck fishing torques on heavier sticks. Nothing seemed to work. Even the light tackle felt barely Gebal nibble. The fish just weren't biting.

We had a good time though. Chris proved that eating fish every day for 40 years gives you a hairy chest, and the guys had a decent game of penny-ante poker going on. The cabin was warm, and the weather was stunning for a mid-winter ocean trip. Honeslty, we had lots of great laughs, and the next day, today, I am fully relaxed, which is the best gage of a decent fishing trip. That has real value in the middle of this Covid-19 Pandemic

Before the Blackfish and Striped Bass seasons ended, I had a chance to do a little more Striped Bass and Blues Fishing using my new Fathom Low Profile 400 High Speed reel attached to my United Composite GUSA stick. As we headed out to the south shore waters, we passed massive amounts of both bunker and birds, acres worth in all directions. Pelican found some very late Porgies in mid-December and he went Porgie crazy. But I was really interested in the Blackfish and the Stripers. I hit enough blackfish, but I had the most fun using diamond jigs and pulling in Striped Bass just as Chanukah came in. For Shabbat on Chanukah, we had most excellent Striped Bass Sushi!

With Thanksgiving and December rolling in, Blackfishing slowed down. Many of the standard drops for Blackfish have been all but fished out. All the boats targeting blackfish have had good days, and bad ones. For a while, we fished inside New York's upper harbor. This is actually the first time I fished up there, and I learned about several new spots. Some of them I can't disclose, out of respect for Greg on the Ocean Eagle. They rigirously have protected the exact locations where they fished. The Marilyn Jean and Hunter also hit spots inside the harbor. We slammed the blackfish in these locals and put some of the best hit rates on the Blacks for the season within the New York Bight.

The Ocean Eagle on the week of Thanksgiving put me on a Tautog heyday, when I reached the state limit of keeper blackfish. Others also did well that day. On the next trip, I hit a few keepers, but the boat was much more quiet.

On the first Friday in December we had some terrific company on the boat. The weather held out, although it was cold. Pelican, the MJIV captain traveled for1 1/2 hours down the Jersey shore hunting for ripe Blackfish grounds and NY Harbor was largely fished out. But we largely came out blank. For the time being, the blacks see to be fished out. Other boats had similar results, scouting the entire area. They largely worked as a team, anbd shared info, and it seems from the Harbor to the Jersey shore, right now, the Blackfish are very slow. My friend Felix, who fished on the Hunter, believes they are there, but they are just were not biting.

Striped Bass, however, were everywhere. As we pulled out of Breezy Point, the entire horizon was covered with birds 270 degrees around. The bass boats had a feild day. This has been a jigging holiday. The weather over this particul weekend sucked. High winds howled in the wrong direction. The hunter went out to tried to beat the weather with minimal luck. Mike is very capable of doing this but bottom fishing has just turned hard. Even Jersey boats are cancelling trips for the weekend.

As the second week of December rolled in, after skunking on the previous Friday, Pelican, on the MJIV decided to try the fishing grounds off of the Rockaways. These are more traditional Porgie grounds, and to our suprise, we actually hit a few Porgies. But there were Blackfish also, som HUGE ones. I was so jelous when this fish come up over the rail. But I made up for it when we stopped for Jig for Bass and I hit a delicious Blue Fish and pulled in a nice Striped Bass which I incredibly dropped at the rail. I hit these with a Diamond Jig and the new Pen Low Profile Fathom 400 HP. Its a killer.

It was cold, and after the trip, we headed to Stella Maris where Richie was busy feeding the entire dock. He is like an loving Grandmother like this. He loves to cook and insists that everyone sit and eat (and give money to local charities). Look at the smiles that Richie has on.

No matter what you do, and where you fish, enjoy your time at the Rod! If it was easy all the time, it would be no fun! BTW - we are seeing a few large lings byting on crabs. So that is a good indiciation for the winter.

Along with the Blackfish season, we have had an outstanding fall run for Striped Bass. The Sea Queen has been pounding the fish, day and night. The Flamingo has been steadily feeding on huge fish, and the night trips on the Marilyn Jean have been productive. Despite that, and even armed with a new jigging reel, a Penn Fathom Low Profile 400 High Speed monster, I hadn't nailed a decent fish the whole season. I finally boned up last Sunday and took the Marilyn Jean IV our on its scheduled 8:00AM to 2:00 PM trip. We were loaded with Bronx residents who excitiedly came down to the dock fully loaded for Striped Bass. And we headed out into the harbor on a day that called for moderate swells. Instead, the weather took a slight turn for the worst, and we ended up in 10-15 foot swells, with chilling air and a blowing wind. But I pulled up to the rail with my UC Mega and the Low Porfile Fathom, tipped with 20 foot of 30 pound flourocarbon and a 2 ounce diamond jig and immediately hammered the fish. ***BANG*** I was on and my arm was getting a serious workout after 2 weeks of rest. I could feel that lactic acid burn up my arm and my elbow got seriously tender. I pulled in the fish and pounding the wake again, when ***BANG*** another great Striper was hooked up. Now my arm was getting seriously number and sour, but I pulled up that fish, slapped it onto the Deck, and punched out the jig again, 80+ feet into the surf... and ***BANG*** another fish and another and another.... I pulled in 6 in all when I lost my jig on the bottom of the ocean, and the pain in my right arm got too much to bare. I put down my pole, and caught a breather, and didn't really have another stretch like that for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, Indian Joe, the mate, was just getting started. But the later part of this trip, he found a grove and pounded in at least 20 Stripers, all but a few distributed to the croud, returned safetely to the water. I got a terrific shot of Joe showing off his fish. This is one of the best Fish photo's I'd ever had. So click on the link and enjoy all 15 megs of this fabuous striped bass pic.

Over some time, I had wanted to have an excuse to fish on the Captain Dave III. Over the warm weather we had this November, the right chance finally arrived, and I had a chance to both film about the Captain Dave, and to take a hand at trying to catch a few Blackfish. This ended up as one of those truly poisitive trips, on the Davie, heading out to the Mud Hole, to go after some Blacks, and having satisfying success. Usually when I take the Captain Dave, it is with the old Man, Dave Paris, and looking for Fluke. Fluking seems to be hard for me. As a rule, I do better fishing for Blacks, and I have learned a few tricks from everyone I fish with, giving me a decent chance to land some fish. This trip was with his son, Paul (Paulie). He is truely a pleasant kid and a good fisherman. Having a good trip on his watch pleases my ego and makes my legend grow on the docks (I say this toung in cheek ).

I had a chance to get a good film of the boat. This video is a bit large so give it a chance to download. It is worth the watch.

Blackfishing on The Hunter

Blackfishing on The Marilyn Jean - later that week

All along the Jersey coast line, construction is still being done in the wake of Super Storm Sandy. It's interesting to see the sand projects with front end loaders fully in the water, and dredging boats pumping sand onto the shore line. Most of the housing has been rebuilt since Sandy. It is a lot of effort to save the Jersey shore line communities.

At times on this trip, we did quite well. I got two overall keepers, and over 12 other fish more than 14 inches. We were sometimes overwhelmed by sharks, but between them we pulled in a number of blackfish, and many nice keepers.

It is worth exploring, at this point, some of the intricacies of of my Tautog gear, because experimentation with the tackle seems to have affected the trips success. First, with the return of my Penn Internations 975CS baitcasting reel, I've put it to immediate use, loaded on my Hercules Seeker custom rod. I also loaded one of my low gear ratio Penn Torque 12 Star Drag onto a United Composite GUSA Mega, which has become my favorite rod. They are both lined with spools of 30 pound test braid, with 40 pound flourocarbon topshot. Significantly, this means that my braid often breaks in the rocks when stuck, rather than the leader. The end tackle has varied from lightweight 30 pound leaders, which is good for feel and allows for the tackle to break on the end tackle when stuck, rather than the braid. But the downside is that it curls and bends out of shape quickly. One usually wants a stiffer leader material to attach to hooks. If one can fine stiffer line, you can get by with a lighter test. That is not always available and sometimes I am not sure what the nomenclature is for such leader. More often I end up using 60 pound test fluoro, which is stiffer, but still too twisty.

That leaves us with a choice of hooks and "jigs". The latest craze in blackfishing is the use of a jig with a piece of crab on a hook. I'll show this a little later. Otherwise we have plain hooks. I have often used Gamakatsu 3/0 circle hooks. Lately I've gotten exasperated with trying to properly hook the crab to the circle hook, and have moved to 4/0 Owner SSW hooks. They are a lot easier to bait, and are very sharp. Hooks take a beating when blackfishing. First, they get stuck in the rocks where the fish live. Secondly, the hard shell of the crab takes its toll on the hook tips. Investment in quality hooks with blackfishing can be of a major advantage.

This some instruction from Glen Nardiello on the Ocean Eagle, I've settled on a method to make a SNAFU rigs. This is a rig with 2 hooks snelled on opposite ends of flouro or mono leaders. Just off center is a drop loop, and that loop is attached to your shock leader about 3 inches up from the surgeons knot that holds your weight. This is one of several kinds of blackfishing rigs, but probably the most common. After consulting with several people, I decided to alter this basic design and installed a 2 way swivel to the end tackle, with a latch to take the weight. I extended a 6 inch or so leader with a terminal loop. To that loop I attached my SNAFU rig. This gives me a little bit of length from the crabs that sit and float in the water, and the weight. I had hoped that this would give the crabs a more natural looking presentation to the fish, while causing fewer unresolvable sticking events in the rocks and wrecks as the fish can hit the crab without necessarily dragging the weight about the bottom. Meanwhile the swivel gives 360 degree rotational flexibility to the rig. The result is that fish can attack the rig from all directions equally and the initial attack will not drag the weight into the rock. This provides increased stability and allows for multiple hits, which is essential when smaller fish, such as cunners or even crabs.

There has been some doubt about the effectiveness of this rig, and the concern is that the complexity makes it too easy to get hung up on the rocks. But after 2 trips, one on the Hunter and one on the Marilyn Jean V, I've lost only a single rig, fishing in some stick bottoms. I tend to let this rig just sit on the bottom, almost like you are dead sticking it. Then I swing on the first really good tug, although I have found that sometimes fish take the crab and sit on the rig silently, which is an attribute of the long leader. Some big fish come up like that.

Alternately, I have experimented with the blackfish "jig". These are not really jigs in the traditional sense in that one is not to bounce them on the bottom. They are the shape of boats with numerous color schemes. Out of the tip of the jig comes a hook that holds crabs. When placed on a flat surface, this jib rocks until it is stable, holding the crab bait up and forward. Indian Joe has had much success with these jigs and owns a box full of them of different varieties. They are not that cheap, being about 3-5 dollars each, so losing them on sticky bottom can be very expensive. He uses a light spinning rod when he fishes with them. I've tried them with my United Composite, which is very light and sensitive, but not at the level of my porgie sticks.

From what I have observed and learned, the key to these jigs and their effectiveness is centered on the presentation that they make of the crab. Light weight, from a half ounce to 3 ounces, they gently float to the bottom, an rock into position, holding the crap a few centimeters off the bottom. Being light tackle, you feel the hits very easily and the jig itself is disguised either as a small rock or perhaps even part of a crab. Such as it is, it seem the length and position of the hook is key to how you succeed with these jigs. I was fishing one jig with a smallish shank to the hook and it did well over a couple of trips. I lost it on the rocks and switched to another jig with a much longer shank on the hook. I had no luck with that, and seemed to just be losing bait. Frustrated with that, I switched rods to use the SNAFU rig, and I hit tautog hard, at one point pulling 8 fish in a row out of a specific spot before Captian Pelican decided to move the boat. But even after that move, I still had success with the SNAFU rig on the triple swivel.

All that was nice and the trip was also wonderful. We brought in more than a few fish and had some Friday fun. But it wasn't easy. At first I fished with a whitish jig that I had used prior and it worked nicely. And then I got it stuck on the rocks and lost it and then I switched to the jig you see below. It is green with a longer hook shank. It didn't work. The first kept stealing the crabs without me even feeling the bite. I tried large crabs and small crabs, and half crabs and whole crabs, with a variety of hook settings, and nothing worked. The first Mate, Rapheal, strongly suggested I use a weight, so I switched to the SNAFU rig. At that point, I began hitting on the fish again, bringing in 8 consecutive fish before, for some inexplicit reason, the boat decided to move to another spot. I believe the difference in the length of the shank was the criticle difference.

Others on the boat had there fish, and smiles were all about the boat. Blackfish are a gourmet fish and always apreciated on the deck. They have a rich meat that cooks well whether you are flying them up, or serving them like I like best, steamed with some light sause prepared in my wok.

Going into November, the weather has been difficult but around Brooklyn we have had a continuation of on and off again Black Fishing, and a steady feed of HUGE Striped Bass. If your heart is set on hooking the big bad striper, this is the time to hit the boats, both day and night. You might come up empty, but you might well hit a fish over 40 inches long. The Flamingo, Sea Queen, Captain Dave and Marilyn Jean V have all hit on big big fish this month and monster trips. Not all the trips are like that, but many are.

Bottom fishing has been spotty but at times great, fishing mostly for Blacks. I've had a steady diet of keepers on the Ocean Eagle and the Marilyn Jean V. The hunter is reporting excellent success with the Blacks as well.

While none of this is the constant bang bang bang fishing that the Porgies had, it is in many ways more fun and very challenging. Enjoy the Fall!

Early this week I took a couple of early season blackfish trips on the Marilyn Jean V. I hope to catch a trip with the Ocean Eagle a little later in the week. I can report that the fish have been biting nicely and I'd taken more than a few keepers, as has the rest of the boat. I was puzzling over the gear to use for the adventure, and settled on my new custom blue Hercules Seeker powered by my black Torque 12 Star drag outfitted with a 4.8/1 versa gear replacement. The low gear with the extra power killed at pulling the blacks out of the rocks. I pucked dozens of Tautog out of the water, with many keepers. The fridge is full.

In addition, we were hitting on big porgies. These fished seemed all but gone, but on the East Reef they were attacking the Crabs and I pulled in a few on the 3/0 hooks. Surprisingly, my friend Tommy pulled in two buckets of Porgies by 11AM this morning Tue Oct 20 2020. Tourists on the having trouble blackfish did well with the Porgies. I had Gil and his father from Pennsylvania who came in for his fathers birthday that whaled on the Porgies, pulling in a bucket, and taking home fillets and whole fish. I was a good time and we had some rain and even a rainbow. My friend Felix, the head mate on the Rockfish, fulled in a monster fish that I hope to get an image of later. Meanwhile, enjoy these pics including yesterdays pool winner.

I had a free Friday morning when the docks were very quiet, but I managed to get a ride out to the Porgy Grounds with my friends, Greg Nardiello, Chris and the old man, Tommy (who is the oldest mate I know of in the tri-state area) on the Ocean Eagle and took a trip out to the Porgy grounds about the lower harbor and Coney Island. There is a few interesting wrecks in the area which are more like Blackfish grounds, but we did find some really large and nice Porgies at a steady pick both in the Rockaway Inlet of Jamaica Bay and out past Norton's Point.

During the earlier part of the trip, during the pick, I was pulling in, to my suprise because of our location, some of the largest Porgies of the year, steadily over 13 inches and very fat fish. The rate of the pick bothered Greg, so we moved inevitably to another local near the community wreck, until we hit "Drop and Stick" Porgy Fishing, but the fish were smaller on the 10 inch size, moslty keepers. I pulled in an endless stream of fish, bang bang bang, almost boring for me, but the rest of the boat was very excited.

One of the most interesting part of this trip was the arrival of huge schools of bunker into our local waters. It was seen previously and the docks on Emmons Avenue had been hot with bunker and blue fish attracting in the know fishermen. But this was well beyound that. It is often seen that bunker move in before the big fall striped bass runs. These are the largest bunker schools I'd ever witnessed, that were stretched accross miles of harbor, as of about October 10th. This video I took lets you see the fish expanssively about the Ocean Eagle. This is a massive display of nature in action, which most folks are completely ignorant of.

This Succus holiday, in the middle days (Chol Me-od), I decided to take a long range fishign trip on The Hunter that went from 6AM on the 5th of October until last night, Tuesday at 9:30PM. For me, it was a long trip on a real fishing platform, no cabins, and no gallery (although they had plenty of food). Tuna fishing has been good, and the previous trip was washed out by the weather. But this run was set, and although the swells were consierable heading out to the Hudson Canyon, the weather when we arrived was spotless

I had always wanted to see the Canyon, and we've heard stories that at times it is like an ocean wild life TV show. Whe did see whales and the dolphins disrupted out fishing. It was interesting to look out to the ocean calm and to see the horizon with nothing but ocean and sky, and no city skyline. It was nearly a 10 hour ride to where we were going, and we spent nearly 13 hours in the deep water. We had targets Tuna and Mahi Mahi, which use too highly different types of tackle. The boat had 10 passangers on a boat that can carry twice that at least. And even with that, there was barely room for all out sticks. I had friends on the boat, including Ralphie (who was somewhat grumpy) on the trip, and Anthony, the dutchman, and of course Mike, the captain. We stopped on some lobster pots allong the wall of the Canyon and found plenty of Mahi Mahi. We hit these fish on lighter tackle, nearly no weights (I had a 1/2 ounce bead on my line just to prevent the line from eagle nesting in my Torque 40 reel on 40 pound braid), and drifting small bait into the water from 10 to 40 feet below the surface. This resulted in plenty of action on 2 drops.

I'd had been excited to get one of these gorgeous and tasty kosher fish, but I hooked up with 11 of them, even after taking time out for picture and video taking. It was awesome, and my United Composit stick got a bit of a work out. We got GREAT video:

After the first Mahi attack, we turned our attention to Tuna. We switched to heavy and short sticks with huge reels. I borrowed from the boat a rod and senator reel. All night I sat and watched my reel, waiting for the big hit in the wake and the cool fall winds. By day break, after about 11 hours of watching, waiting and changing bait, I grew tired and retreated into a bean bag and slept for about 4 hours. No fish were picked up. Mike called around to other boats in the area, but the normal canyon locations where all but barren of tuna. We did hit then a second Mahi shot. We hit them hard and had a great time pulling these fish up, and then tried one more unsucessful tuna run before packing it up and heading home, after a very long ride home.

The Lady Flamingo is parked off the Belt Parkway behind the UA Movie theater. Since it is not right with the other boats in Sheepshead Bay, I take this boat less frequently than other boats, but every time I have taken this boat, it has been an outstanding experience.

There are a few things that make this boat different than any other in the City. First of all, it is primarily a Jigging boat for Blue Fish. Blues has been harder to get the last few years as the population has migrated away from North America, but they can and are found, and the Flamingo finds them often. Blue fishing is a higher risk fishing, that it, it is easier to skunk out on any given trip. The captain keeps close tabs on the Blues all year, and nobody is more aware of there location than on the Flamingo. The last 4 trips I took, I nailed good fish every time, and the boat ran all the way down the Jersey Shore to as far as Point Pleasant and into the ocean to track Blues.

I loaded up onto the boat with my new 8 foot Hercules Seeker rod made by Micael Cho, outfitted with a Torque 12 Star Drag which I lowered the gear ration until it is now about 21 inches per rotation on the handle. That is good for my bottom fishing, but for jigging, the downgrade of speed doesn't match the jigs they use, which are designed for high speed retreival. The result is that I caught fish, but I could have done better. It also helps to practice jigging. It's been a while since I regularly did this. The old timers were using ugly sticks and Newells. The kids in the back of the boat that had high hook were using light weight spinning rods. So this is a whole other world for me both in terms of tackle and technique, and I need to learn a new vocabulary.

We've spent a week dodging offshore hurricanes and fading Porgy runs. We've still eeked out good fun on all the boats in the harbor. Meanwhile, while the Fluking season is coming to a close, the Ocean Eagle and the Captain Dave continue with successful regular trips, picking out fluke, which at times can be quite good. The Ocean Eagle split the docks a bit early on Thursday and pulled in late with a lot of happy fisherman. I am still looking forward to the reports. Mike, the owner of the hunter, keeps getting excited with good long distance trips and blows apart the schedule. I have trouble keeping up. As of now he has a mid-range trip on Wed the 30th of Septembet from 9PM to 9PM. At this point it is fair to say he has no regular weekly schedule with long trips punctuating his calender on the 30th, the 2nd, and October 5th! He is really turning the boat into a long trip vessel.

By the way, I promised to get a couple of pictures up for Jessica, a regular on the Marilyn Jean V, mostly on night trips. She came out one evening on her own and pulled in some outstanding fish...

Speaking of special customers, we get, from time to time, extraordinary folks that come down to the boat, and I am always happy to meet them and learn something about the world and our city. On this day, we had a repeating customer who I had met once before, who was celebrating his 90th birthday on the MJV on a Thursday night trip. This fellow spent the evening (7PM to Midnight) catching Porgies near Norton's Point, on a warm fall night. His name is Bill and he was in the Navy during the Korean War, when the cold war was boiling over and the US and China squared off with real guns and not just trade tariffs. They felt safe enough to fish at the rail without masks. In truth, the constant clean blowing winds on the open water protects them and they mostly fished a good 12 feet from everyone else on the boat. They caught more than a few fish, and left the boat smiling.

On that day trip, I fished in the bow with a gentleman from the West Indies who is a novice at the sport and just purchased his first reel for $50. It seems it didn't come with a manual and he fished it all morning with the clicker on. I finally got a little worn out hearing it whine all day, so I leaned over to him and said, "You know if you leave it on the clicker all day, you can damage it. The clicking noise is not for free. It has a ratchet That wears down and it slows your cast." He reluctantly allowed me to show him how to operate his reel correctly and when I picked up the rod, I also found that the reel wasn't sitting in the seat holder tightly. I fixed everything and he casted out nice and smoothly and had a big smile. I turned my back on him, and right off the bat, with his gear now adjusted, he pulled in a nice whopper of a Porgy! And he remained on fire for the rest of the trip. I still can't forgive him, though, for wearing thick socks with sandals. It just make me crazy.

Weakfish are more plentiful now than at any time I can remember. I pulled up with this really nice one tonight on the Marilyn Jean V while loading up on some decent sized porgies. We had a bunch of plesant young adults on the boat tonight who pulled in 5 buckets of Porgies amongst themselves and they smiled when they got off the boat. The nice West Indian women to my left in the stern limited out her porgies, as did most others on the boat. It was just a plesant night, with no stress, and some hot coffee for the entire boats on the new moon.

The Jewish Holidays are here and the tides have slowly been rising. We have had weather and water conditions dominated by a hurricane out in the North Atlantic which has caused increased winds and swells out in the ocean. This has pushed us into the protection of Jamaica Bay where we have loaded up on Porgies and Weakfish. On Tuesday and Wednesday we finally checked out the Ocean and the porgies and blues have been abundant and large about the tin cans. On my last day out on the water before the Holiday, Wednesday, we killed the porgies. It was the kind of day fisherman dream about on the night before a trip. I pulled in nearly a 100 keepers and kept only 10 of the largest, and took home a snapper for dinner. I hooked a good 20+ inch fluke and lost him on the rail when I lifted him over. I should have called a net. That would have made the week. All in all, a racked up 6 consecutive trips, day and night, loading up before the holidays.

Among the trips I'd taken, I went out with my friend, Dr George Moskowitz, who had a pleasant day on the deck while we were in Jamaica Bay. It was a pleasant day and George pulled in a few keepers on my new tackle. This included a very unkosher by cool Puffer and nice Weakfish. Dr Moskowitz has been burning up his hours taking care of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. His office is in Boro Park, in the highly dense and Orthodox Jewish community. He has needed the days off and so we gave him a break.

Being pressed into Jamaica Bay for a couple of days has reminded me of something that often happens on the boat. It is the preconceived notion by paying customers that the best fishing is out "in the Ocean". There are so MANY problems with this, so lets start to break them down. First of all, people really need to learn the geography of New York Harbor and the surrounding New York Bite. Here is a map of the area's water.

Between Coney Island and Sandy Hook is the traditional boundaries of New York Harbor and the open ocean. For this reason, Coney Island is one of the most exciting locals on the world. Its unique position jaunting out into the open ocean from the protected harbor gives it not only a world class beach, but the coolest of evening breezes that tend to switch direction as the sun sets. Unfortunately, it also exposed Coney Island, Brighton and Manhattan Beaches, and Sheepshead Bay, to terrible flooding and storm surges. There was a natural protective system in that Jamaica Bay was, prior to European settlement, a vast Everglades like, salt water marsh, which the Dutch immediately started to landfill as they arrived. Today nothing remains of the original shore line and in an attempt to protect Coney Island, and South Brooklyn, the Rockaway Peninsula was extended from today what is the Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge to Breezy Point. Even today most boats find the water about Coney Island, outside of the Coney Island Channel, to be too shallow to routinely navigate and waves crash over a shoal just outside of Coney Island when the tide is low. But when you reach the Breezy Point Jetty, the Hudson River flow and the tides of the open ocean take controls and you can feel the wake of the waves as you reach the tide lines that run between Breezy Point and Sandy Hook. Likewise, Sandy Hook is in very narrow, but exposed surf. This makes it idea for surf fishing, as is Rockaway.

This gives Jamaica Bay extra protection, and despite being dredged, and reshaped, this large body of water that runs from Nassau County to New York Harbor is filled with fish habitat and big fish. It is over 25,000 acres large, and nearly 5 million people live near its shores. It is filled with fish and bird life. Porgies, Weaks, Stripers, Fluke, Blues, and a dozen other fish live in the waters, swamps, and creeks all along the bay. It is a protected zone that has Osprey, Bald Eagles, Crabs, Horseshoe Crabs, and Egrets. And it is a great place to fish. Often, it is the best place in our area to fish. And that might include a day when you are on the boat. And if you are there that day, be glad that we have such a wonderful option to go and fish, because otherwise we would likely be either without fish or left at the dock because of the weather.

People often come up to the boat and ask if we are going out to the Ocean and the answer is usually yes but...
and here is the but. Fishing boats can travel normally between 8 and 15 knots, and the fast ones can top up near 20 knots. The old Brooklyn VI super cruiser could hit 23 knots, if memory serves me right. A small six pack charter like the Rock Fish can also reach the low 20's. So if you are looking at a 8 hour trip (7AM-4PM), and your anticipating going out to the Hudson Canyon, a good 70 Nautical Miles South West of Sheepshead Bay, you will be disappointed. Those are long trips best done in at least 3 days on the ocean. And they cost a lot of money. After all, you are on the boat for 3 days.

But one should not fret over this. We have plenty of fish within reach of day trips and even midrange 11 and 12 hour voyages can put one in reach of Tuna, Mahi Mahii, and Blues. Closer trips can reach Cod grounds, Ling, Sea Bass, Striped Bass, Weakfish, Scup, Tautaug (Blackfish), Drums, Game Sharks, and more. One just needs to go where the fish are, and fish with the weather and season in mind.

The question one should be asking crew when deciding on a boat to take out is "What have you been catchings and where". There is always the risk that any trip can bomb out, and fishing out in the ocean, to the Canyon, Cholera, etc., is no guarantee of success. Even 3 day trips can, and often do, bomb out.

The captains try to catch fish. Customers want fish. Captains prepare for it all the time and there is a network of informal information that they all share. If you want to catch big game fish, you need to go in the right season and in the right phase of the moon, and then follow the reports. If you want to go for fish with less risk of a bust, porgies and bottom fishing is probably your best chance, and you might well end up fishing in Jamaica Bay, or near the Jetty. Fishing for Fluke can lead one to a trip both near and far. It depends on where the fish are. Fluke can be near the Marine Parkway Bridge or out at the MacAlister Reef. Blue fishing comes in many forms, off shore and near shore varieties. They both have seasons and conditions. Stripers can be targets near shore or further out. Past the 3 mile state line, in Federal waters, keeping stripers is illegal. The more you know, the better one can chose as to what trip to take. Don't be arrogant. Ask, listen and learn. Captains and Mates often like to share there knowledge. But just walking up to the boat as asking if they are going out "to the Ocean" just puts the crew in a difficult position. They want to tell you yes, but they really just want to catch fish and spending 6 hours to head out to the Canyon, on a 8 hour trip is no way to catch fish.

Worst than not asking a sensible question when selecting your boat to fish on is when the passenger has completely unrealistic expectations about the nature of a trip or the procedures and chances of finding fish. If for some reason, they have a hard day at the rail, they get surely and nasty, as if it is the crews fault. It happens that indiviudal passengers can just have bad days, and that happened to us just the other night. The weather truly prevented the boat from heading out past the Jetty into the open ocean currents. There were 8 foot waves, a huge swell and high NE winds come off an off shore hurricane (Pamela if you want to look it up). We had reports of an abundance of giant Porgies and large numbers of Weakfish inside Jamaica Bay, not far from the Canarsie pier and the Padeget creek. And we hit fish. Most of the fish were in the swift currents of the bay, and fishing was hot along the sides of the boats. But the fools who were drinking far too hard in the stern of the boat were clueless on how to adjust to the conditions and skunked out. They then started shouting at the captain, and blaming him for not going out to "The Ocean". These bores deserved to go out into the rough seas and fail to catch fish, because bottom fishing in gale conditions is nearly impossible, but it will even make veteran fishermen feel sea sick. You can't keep the bottom when your rocking so hard and you can't feel for fish when trying to hold onto the rail with your hands vomiting. They would have caught nothing out there in the open water. The fish were right in Jamaica Bay and I caught 17 porgies, 2 weaks, and a blue fish. It was not a super night, but it was good fish in our bucket. Thinking that you Know more than the captain is a HUGE error. Those captains do this all day and all night around the clock. You don't come close to their background and knowledge. Talk to them. They are great sources of information, but never tell them where to fish. They are your best chance to bring home fish, and if it doesn't work out, sometimes it just doesn't. There is no magic formula and certain fishing "out in the ocean" isn't a foolproof solution to every fishing problem.

Running into the fall months of 2020, fishing continues to still be on of the few activities available to the public in New York. Scup fishing contines to entertain and the offshore boats have picked up a run of Mahi Mahi and Tuna, not far from shore, as close as the mudhole, but also on longer trips into the canyon. Fluking has been at times very good, although never a guarantee. Lots of Week fish have made it into Jamacia Bay.

The Ocean Eagle has had a productive late summer and early fall, with Pories and Fluke. I had the pleasure on Thursday to take her out, with Greg and Chris, on a fluke trip. I hooked 5 decent Fluke between 15-18 inches. The minimum is 19 inches, so none came home. But I scored 7 keeper Black Sea Bass, and the boat as a whole caught quite a few keeper fluke about the boat. Greg gave us a tour of the harbor making nearly 12 stops, hunting for the sacred fluke spot. We picked at keeper or two on each drop. And at the end, we ended up with a someone hooking a bull head ray. It was a big heavy ugly fish with about 15 barbs in its tail and back. It is not a fish to be messed with, but the entire boat got in the act and we had out share of laughs and fun.

Aside from that, the Ocean Eagle has a new mate, who is fun to be on the boat with, and is a decent seaman. His biggest fault is that he fails to let anyone other than himself to take pictures with fish. Here is Chris with all the fish:

The Hunter is landing good Tuna and Bonita's and more on there long trips. I wish I could afford these trips. Michael, by his own admision, is a very loud Italian, and he has been having the time of his life with the Hunter, and his son, chasing the Tuna, and the Mahi Mahi on inshore and offshore trips. He shared with me some terrific pics of his catches.

I had my son of the boat last week, two weeks before Rosh Hashana. The weather was terrific, but he still was a little wheezy on the ocean. He did a great job of pulling in fish on the MJV, and the boat brought in Porgies and Triggers,

The dog days of summer are turning into fall. This has been a particularly hard summer and nerves about the harbor are getting freyed. We witnesses a 30 minute stand off between two people arguing over a parking space on Emmons Avenue right in front of Peir 6, blocking traffic for a half hour from Ocean Avenue until the Belt Parkway entrance. sll but stopping business and the boats as they were trying to leave at 7PM. And that is just one example of many that are happening.

Fishing has also slowed a bit, although it is diversifing with more Tuna, Bonita, and Blues entering the mix of Fluking and Porgie Fishing. Captain Dave is making a few special Sea Bass / Fluke marathons and the Hunter is running out to the grounds to go after Blues, Bonita and Albacore. Porgie trips are also continueing although that has slowed somewhat.

Here is a close look at my Abu Garcia MGX2 Revo reels after nearly 2 months of solid usage on the salt water boats of Sheepshead Bay

In the late August run the whisper of fall has reached the waterfront and the fish are being affected. It seems that the record sized scup are gone, althougth there are still plenty of nice size fish available. The Jewish community is deep into its cycle of repentance and the month of Elul, and its new moon has come and gone. The new moon brough roaring and nearly unfishable tides and currents. But now in the middle of the lunar phase the currents are much more fishing friendly and the Porgies are biting, as well as many blues and fluke. We've also seen an inordinate amount of puffer fish and real sharks, the ones with teeth, about the harbor. Accordingly, fleet captains have been making some adjustments to there schedules, especially Michael on the Hunter, who is squeezing more Blue Fish runs. The crowds on boats are still thick. The best day to fish is still Friday mornings, with light crowds.

Today, Friday morning, I got on the boat and I had the warm company of young John, from Staten Island, and his family. They were somewhat experienced anglers with there own tackle and rods. They were expereinced enough to pull in a few buckets of fish between them, but only bringing home about 10 fish to cook. The rest were exchanged on the dock to friends. John managed to loose a record number of Scup at the rail, losing 5 fish in the air, which is breaking rule number 3 (the fish is not caught until it is over the rail and onto the deck). I think he was having fun annoying us every time he lost a fish. Such is life for a 16 year old boy. He was also stealing my bait, but we pretended not to notice.

Meanwhile, Nick, who was fishing the bow, pulled in a terrific triple header. He and his buddies had a bit of fun on the boat. And then there was the young women who regulary comes to the Marilyn Jean V and kills the porgies. She is quietly, perhaps, the best fishermen that comes on the boat. She is slowly getting notices as she pulls in the largest and most fish, and does so regularly. I have no picture of her from today, but Pelican started to notice her, as she pulled in a huge double header.

August 2020 Fishing Picks!

Trips on the Flamingo 2020

Study of water in the night

Fishing off the East River in Queens

If you are serious about having a positive day on the water front, Friday Mornings continue to produce the most regular fun. This morning (Aug 14th, 2020) the weather report called for some late morning rain with thunderstorms. So it was not suprising to show up at the dock and to find the boat largely empty. I've been trying to learn how to work out of the stern of the boat after years of fishing the bow, so I grabbed the sterns, portside corner. The new on-line ticketing requirements has all but guaranteed that patrons now who used to show up at 5AM to get the best spots, now show up 5 minutes before the scheduled time the boat was to leave, especially beginners. This makes it hard for the mates to set everyone up, but it is the new reality. Even before the COVID-19 crisis, on-line ordering had created this dynamic. At 6:45, we worried about having enough to go out because we only had a just a few diehearts on the boat. By 7AM we had about 25 customers, all of them on the boat for the first time, and none of them read my instructions for beginners. Still, we had a few seasoned hand, myself, Glen, the head mate, Ralphie had time to fish, and Pelican came out of the pilot house after we were anchored to collect a few fish.

We anchored near the tin cans, and waited out the current. We had a moderate bite until about 11AM. Prior to that, we pulled in a moderate number of porgies on a nearly slack tide (which was good for the beginners), but we were overwhelmed by small sea bass, sharks, and even a baby thresher which was released. But then the current picked up, and we found ourselves in what felt like a river in the harbor, with the water flowing powerfully past us. I started casting out up into the current emptying nearly my entire small spool, about 100 meters, and found fish. They were tide running porgies, being hooked on the run. At first, I thought I wasn't hitting the bottom, but I actually hooked porgies on the run, double header porgies, as a matter of fact, swimming as fast as they could. When I ran out of spool I hit the drag. Low and behold, I felt fish on the 4 ounce weight I was casting. I pulled them in and brought in a whopping double header!

With such a surprise, we casted out again, and bang, more fish in the current. In a 20 minutes, most of the best fisherman on the boat are casting out into the current, a great distance, catching hard hitting scup in the current, and pulling them in against the water. It was hard fishing, which required skill and a lot of fun. We ended up with smiles all about the boat and pulling in more than a 100 fish, or maybe in 200 fish, all which fought for hard in a white water that raged about the boat as much as a river. Finally, twirls of whirlpools formed about the stern of the boat, so quickly did the current pick up, that I had to switch from my lightest porgy killers sticks to my new United Composite GUSA 7ft 9 inches MEGA stick that is specified at 20-40 pound line and 1-5 ounce lures. This extra power let me pull in fish with a 6 ounce weight, at about 100 yards distance, and when matched with my low gear pen torque 12 reel, it had no troubles navigating even the height of the current. We never ran out of fish. We did, however, run out of time and we pulled up the anchor at 2:30PM and headed home, completely satisfied with our work for the day. Unfortunately, there are no pictures today as I decided to leave the camera at home. Besides, how many more pictures of fish do you need?

During 2012, when I first began to me seriously fish out of the boats on Emmons Avenue and Dooley Street, most of the nighttime fishing trips, and many of the day time ones as well, was manned by a young boy who was aptly named Little Antony. It so happens that we have so many Anthony's on the doc that we need to segregate them. We have Boss Tony, the owner, Pelican, the captain, and Little Ant, Anthong Van Utretch, who I affectionately call, "The Dutchman". Little Antony was commonly paired on night trips with an older, more experienced fellow by the name of Tommy. Tommy ran a commercial lumber yard by day and did some night Mate Work on the Marilyn Jean IV. He took credit for training Anthony, and also claimed to have a Korean Wife. I am not sure of either, but Anthony did learn a lot from Tommy, and absorbed everything he could from nearly anyone else who would teach him.

In short time, Anthony learned and practiced nearly every function on the boat. He worked with the anchor ropes continually. It is dangerous and physical work, that the captain calls for routinely. He built up strength, and stamina, and eventually absorbed more and more duties, working in all weather, day and night. In time, he made the job look easy, and passengers barely noticed the expertise that he functioned with, from shucking clams, to scaling fish, untangling lines, setting up rigs, straight through the customer service chain, and even learning about the engines.

One day, the first mate tells me, Anthony is going to be a father. Anthony is a young pup, and so was his girlfriend. This put a jolt into Anthony's thinking, and he was desperately trying to conjure up a future for himself where he could afford a family. He joined a few unions, and faded from the docks, which was, all in all, good for him. He needed the pay and benefits. But his heart was on the boats, and we would continually show up again, maturing into an adult man, while gaining more and more skills.

When the Brooklyn VI was sold, its main captain, Mike Ardolino, went into business for himself, settling on the new boat, the Hunter, a smaller boat which is marketed torwards big game fishing on the scale of a charter boat business, but with the flexibility of a regular party boat, carrying about 15 passengers at premium prices, regularly running with individual ticket sales. Mike was targeting the fishing market of people who view themselves as advanced fishermen going for the big show. And he largely succeeded in this market. And much of that success is because of the hard work of the Dutchman and Big Ralfie, who followed Anthony the Hunter to fish (which is not to understate the hard work of Mike , himself and other members of the Hunter team).

One of the things Mike was smart enough to do was to encourage and enable Anthony's passions to advance, and he brought Anthony up to the wheel house to captain the ship, and to learn the ropes of piloting a fishing vessel. Anthony had already taking the Captains classes and passed the exams, but needed hours behind the wheel. He has begun to rack up those hours on the Hunter. And this week, we got more hours as the captain of the Marilyn Jean IV, returning home full circle. And so, yet another Sheepshead Bay Captain has been minted, in the long tradition of the docks.

Sunday is usualy crowded on the boat and these Sundays, in the post COVID-19 apocalypse, the boats fill to max quickly and people are turned away at the dock because of restrictions. I went down to the boat on Sunday morning and decided to forgo arguing for a spot on the stern or the bow. For years, Doc fished on the bow of the boat. It is the hardest place to fish but it had several advantages for Doc to fish. First, the wind is breezy on the bow. That means that it is better for his stomach, which likes to get wheezy on the ocean. Secondly, nobody fishes there, so he has room to spread out. The wind also means he is not bothered by cigarette smoke and such, and it is comfortable. But other the years even the causal fisherman has come to notice me there, and catching fish. This is not because the bow generally produces, but because over the years, I have developed a little skill at catching fish in the bow of the boat. So now, they come to the bow and crowd me, especially on Sundays.

So on this Sunday, I conceded the bow and moved to the middle of the starboard side rail, smack in the middle of all the beginners. I thought it might be fun, and in the morning, it was fun. The fishermen about me were clueless and they tangled with each other pretty good. I worked with all the passangers, the married couple on my right, and the family of Mexicans on my left, including a young boy, and we got them all hooked up with fish and happy. In the meantime, I was somehow managing to squeeze around all the tangles and avoid the hanging lines, and pulled in a bucket of fish.

By the afternoon, the newbies were exhausted, leaning on the rails, getting fustrated with the increasing outgoing tide, tangled lines and soogy bait. They kept hanging their fishing line down the side of the boat. I was fishing through a spider web. It became all but impossible for me to continue to fish. So I learned a new lesson about the mid-ship fishing on Sundays... patiences

Fri 07 Aug 2020
This Friday we had overcast skies and light rain in the morning, which kept the crowds light. We hit the water not knowing what to expect, since the was a decent tropic storm earlier in the week. But when we made it out into lower New York Harbor, the fish were hungry, and in the morning I crushed the porgies, logging 21 fish over 15 inches. I made few new friends, especially Philip, which we quickly dubbed, King Philip. He was heading out for a fluke trip that was cancelled, so he grabbed a Porgy/Sea Bass trip instead and had a blast.

Everyone ended up with near limits of fish. 3 keeper Sea Bass made there way onto the boat. And we capped of the trip with an exciting run at a 26 inch Red Drum, by King Philip. It was a great great day at the rail. After stuggling with the fish, we took it in and meaasured it up, at 26 inches, it was one of the nicest catches of the season.

For those that have never had the experience, this is a picture of what it looks like when you stare into the water with wonderment, astonished about what you actually got on your hook, and knowing it is huge.

We had a bizarre night on August 3rd. The weather reports have been threatening us with a tropical storm for 3 days, but the hurricaine was downgraded toa tropical strong, and the weather keeps coming up cherries, sunny with light winds. Early in the evening the sky was blue and nearly cloudless. the weather report was for scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon, clearing out by evening. Instead we had blue skies and the evening boats headed to the Tin Cans to pull in fish and we were having a banner night. Buckets of porgies before 9:30PM. All the passengers and families were happy. I gave out a bit of Meclizine (Dramanine) to folks before pulling out of port. At 9:30PM, all hell broke loose. First we had a minor thunder bumper that passed but that blew off slthoguh it did blow us off the fish. Then the seas got rough, and the wind picked up. No more fish. The boat near us was caught up in particularly rough swells, and had to cut its anchor to get into Jamacina Bay safely. We followed them in, and the night ended a bit early. It was quite an adventure though, a few hundred feet off of Breezy Point

We finished up this weekend by burning into August, much as a continuaiton of July. Porgie life has been mostly large fish and buckets of them. This is one of the greatest porgie runs I'd ever witnesses, not because we have had endless fish, which is normal in the summer, but because the fish have been consistantly huge. I can honestly tell you that there is no need to run all the way to Montauk to get big fish. They have been right here in Jamacia Bay and at the tin cans, espeically at night when the gates of Hell seem to open up and we get Demon Scup, fish 17 inches and bigger, coming in on a current of cold deep water..

Additionally, I am reminded, especially with the Sunday morning trip, that one doen't need a bunch of fancy equiptment to catch a bucket or two of porgies. It is not unusually for me, with all my fancy gear, and fancy casting, to get out fished by a boat rod holder fishing for the first time. This big guy here, we smart enough to take advice from the crew and fill his full limit of Porgies for the day, and wasn't cheated a fish.

The fishing weekend begins tonight and the porgie fishing has been up and down. It was sluggish until the tide changed. Then I was able to pick a few fish up at the Atlantic wreck and I enoughage the rest of the boat to join the feed. The result was ending the night with lots of smiles and I pulled in a modest 11 fish on miss matched gear, so I was happy.

Fishing on the party boats is best on Friday's. The crowd is usually enthusiastic but light. Mates are feeling friendly and the captain, because he is setting himself up for the heavy weekend, is usually willing to take extra risks to find new fertile fishing grounds, so that he can fill up the boat with fish for the weekend passangers. The overall result is usually a happy trip.

This Friday we set out with a light crowd on the Marilyn Jean V with about 30 passangers. The boats capacity is about 95 passangers or more. Our mates were Rojas and Ole grizzily Frankie. The morning it rained and the weather was a bit rough so the captain tried his luck about Jamacia Bay and we hit Porgies hard. I connected with an old firend, Anthony Van Utrecht, who was a young pup when I first met him, but has grown into a full man, and gentle father. He mates and captains for the Hunter now, and we rarely get to fish together, but this is FRIDAY, so things that otherwsie can't happen, turn out to be possible on Fridays.

After tooling about Jamacia, we steamed off to the Atlantic Reef. The captain of the Marilyn Jean, Pelican, wanted to see how things looked, and Anthony is in need of hours at the pilots wheel for his certification as a captain, so blowing an hour or more on the travel to the reefs where a good investment. The Atlantic Reef was a dog house (all sharks), so we pushed forward to the McAllister Reef, which produced well for us. We had a full ecosystem of fish to try for, Scup, Sea Bass, Spanish Mackerel, Fluke, and Puffers all showed up on the decks today. Acrobatic mackerel did aerial shows on the sufrace, flipping out of the water, seemingly for the fun of it. I had a Guyanese family sharing the stern with me. The fellow closet to me was a COVID-19 survivor who had spent 3 weeks on a ventilator. They are Indian Guyanese. And he was happy to be alive and to be out on the water. I like the Guyanese people. They are calm, and friendly, and he used WD40 on his bait, which, while cancerous, is very effective at attracting fish, and essentially turned off my fish as he pulled in buckets of Porgies.

In all seriousness, despite that they come from the, "Kill Everything" school of fishing and loved sand sharks, they seriously kicked ass at the rail and went home with coolers of fish!

This fellow further down the starboard side woke up to find himself with a most improbable double header Spanish Mackerel Delight on his line. This was very cool, and these fish eat well.

So what do you do in NYC when the theaters are all still closed and no jazz Clubs are open? You head for the Jersey Shore and do some fishing. I packed up 4 rods, a cooler, kosher fried chicken, and some tackle and took the 11:07PM train to Bellmar, which arrived at the docks at 1:05AM. I went to the boat and tossed my gear on the deck, then followed the dock to the beautiful bar and dining facilities that was still roaring like the 1920's. I had a few beers, and at 3:00AM walked down the beach, which was quite busy with walkers on the boardwalk. It's a nice little beach, nothing like Coney, Island, but clean, and well maintained, and the police station is right on the boardwalk.

I turned around, headed back to the docks and stopped at the 24/7 7-11, picked up some water and soda, and headed back to the Bellmar Princess which is the boat I was booked for. To my surprise, there was already dozens of people jockeying about for the best spots on a variety of the boats. I nodded out for about 2 hours when a mate showed up at the boat about 5:30AM. We exchanged greetings and I took a choice spot on the stern of the boat, in the starboard corner. By 7:30AM the boat was decently packed, within the COVID-19 regulations. The boat was scheduled for blue fishing, and a Mexican family boarded the boat with young children and loaded with jigs with treble hooks. They caught a lot of blue fish, but children and treble hooks is a deadly combination. Sure enough, a 2 year old daughter got a treble hook in her hand which the mates needed to cut into pieces to remove from her hand. It is extremely stupid to allow children on the deck with swinging jigs, especially treble hooks, and this situation could easily been much worst, and it wasn't pretty to begin with to hear the child screaming and the mates gathers around her trying to remain calm until the situation, fortunately, resolved. The Mate on the Bellmar Pricess, Billy, is an experienced old salt dog and experienced handling hook injuries with the skill of a nurse. He is the reason I return to this boat again and again.

Despite the hysterics, I had a good time using my new stick, a Hercules Seeker, outfitted by Michael Chow. It was the first time I had used it and it has a new Fuji Painted seat holderi, in a blue design. I fitted it with my faster Torque 12 Star drag, and the reel didn't sit well in the housing. It got loose with a fish on, which could be disturbing. Bill brought over a pipe pliers and tightened the reel to the seat. I will need to look at this more closely. It seems that the paint is interfering with the seating's. I'll see what happens going forward. I still took in 4 blue fish and dropped many more. This boat is high off the water and this new rod has a lot of spring in it. Blues popped off and the pole recoiled twice before I finally started to learn the pole and get things under control.

The boat had a lot of blue fish, some Spanish mackerel, albacore, and then we switched off to bottom fishing. That is a skill I know well, and I hit multiple Black Sea bass, and a very nice ling. Overall, I had a lovely take and my bottom fishing was the envy of the boat. I shared a few fish which soothed ruffled feathers, and then we headed home.

Bellmar's party boats dock in the Shark River estuary, and when I arrived at the docks, it was high tide, the water level almost up to the dock. I'd never seen that before and it seems like a guaranteed way to get flooding. The piers at Sheepshead Bay are several feet above the average high tide and you need to step down the stairs to reach the boat. It makes it a little harder to get on the boat, but it is much safer for the community, which will suffer from periodic flooding. The boats are also backed into the dock, a difficult maneuver in my eyes, but it makes boarding very easy. The estuary is behind 3 draw bridges and when the boats leave in the morning, they do so in a parade, until there reach the open ocean. Along the parade route are many homes, and fancy edifices, and lot of small boats enjoying the water. Check out the morning parade out of Bellmar:

There also seems to be a ritual parade of dogs at the Dock in the morning. I've seen this before, and it seems almost like a fishing dock tradition that the local dog walkers can bring there dogs to the docks in the morning and Fido get a treat.

Overall, this was a terrific Sunday trip, and much better than the zoo that exists on Sheepshead Bay. Conversation was easy, and drinking was moderated. The Cabin on the Miss Bellmar is enormous and air conditioned. More than a few passengers spent there day cooling off, and even sleeping in the cabin. The upper deck is a lounging area and some children were up there, with mom, kids, and young adults sunning themselves. While all that was going on, the boat was sailing in the Klondikes, and we were clobbering the blue fish. Over 100 Blues come on the boat. And even the captain was impressed with the fish.

At about 3PM we arrived back in port. I grabbed my gear and ran off to the railroad station. At about 3:40PM, the train arrived and at about 5:50, I was at Penn Station. I looked at my watched and realized I could take a cab from Penn Station, directly to Pier 6 on Emmons Avenue, and enjoy an additional night of fishing. And I did just that. We hailed a cab, and headed through the tunnel, up the Prospect, and down Ocean Avenue to reach the docks at 6:41PM, more than 15 minutes before the Marilyn Jean IV was ready to pull out for its night trip. That night trip itself one one for the ages.

So when I arrived back at Penn Station in Manhattan, the time was about 5:30PM and I had relized that if I hop in a cab, I could make the Sunday Night trip on the Marilyn Jean fleet. I got out on the 8th Avenue exit, carrying a small cooler of fish, 4 fishing poles and a messanger bag full of gear. At that point, I was fairly loaded and tried to find a cab with enough room to handle my poles. This wasn't easy and the city taxi attendent at railroad station was of little help. In fact, he gave away the cab I needed. Finally he fished out a cab that could take my gear. The problem is that the poles are long and the cabs now have plastic divders to protect drivers from COVID-19 (More Bullsht).

I hopped into the cab and a West Indian fellow was driving and he asked me the address, and I told him Peir 6 and Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn. He couldn't find it on Google and he couldn't spell Emmons, and I got flustered because the clock was ticking. We came to an agreement of $60 for the ride, including the tip, cash, and told him to just drive downtown, and use your eyes, and brain and forget about the damn GPS. He did so, and we finally hit the West Side Highway, and took the Battery Tunnel. We negotiation about the route, and settled on the Prospect Expressway and taking Ocean Parkway to Avenue N, and then into Ocean Avenue. Ocean Avenue, with the damn 25 mile an hour speed limit was the slowest part of this. Getting from Kings Highway to Emmons was a major difficulty. Meanwhile, the driver and I chatted quite a bit and finnaly when we arrived, with 20 minutes to spare, we were friends, I paid him his $60 cash, and we hugged, and I got on the boat.

I wanted to tell them all about my exciting adventures in New Jersey, but frankly, nobody was interested. But Ralf came stacked with bait, which was nice. Then Mikey showed up. Jessica and Louie, two more regulars, showed up at the boat, and a fellow named George, another semi-regular. So we settled into the boat, and Pelican, the Marilyn Jean Captain, set us a sail to the tin can grounds. When we stopped on the spot and we immediately started hooking up with big vampire porgies on shrimp. These fish were pushing 14-16 inches, and biting hard. Lead by Rafeal, we had them in a frenzy for the next 4 hours, and loaded up with a huge quantity of dinner plate sized porgies. We had them hitting on shrimp and worms, and then as the nigh wore on, they got a little finicky and would only take worms. To cap off the night Rafeal pulled in the largest Porgy Double Header I had ever seen. He wouldn't let me take a good clean picture of it. But we had a streak going of 4 of my last MJ trips, we kept hitting the biggest scup I had ever seen, night after night, going from 17 inches, to 18 inches, to 20 inches, and Ralf continues this street with TWO 20+ inches, the biggest being about 22 inches. This was the best photograph I could get of it, because it disappeared into the buckets.

We limited out the boat, and finally sailed home in triumph on the biggest Porgy Night I have ever seen. We could have fed the homeless.

There are several kinds of fishing that one can participate in from surf fishing to long range bottom fishing. One of the most popular types, especially on the party boat circuit, is wreck fishing or reef fishing. The New York Bight, before European settlement and the industrial revolution, was largely a sloping mud plain carved out with a large canyon by the Hudson River, and lined with barrier islands. The continental self is relatively far from New York Harbor, unlike on the West Coast, and we have a distinctive inshore fishery in waters less than 80 feet. In addition, we have water that is cold in winter. This gives the fishery lots of natural structure, boulders from the Hudson Rivers breakthrough of the narrows, and rocky shores on the Long Island north shore in the sound, and numerous rocky islands in and around the harbor, such as Ellis Island, and Liberty Island, most of which is not gone because of activity about the harbor. Little of the natural waterfront remains. What you see is largely an artificial of a construction as artificial as Central Park. Jamaica Bay was largely a swamp, or a salt water marsh, not much different than the New Jersey Meadowlands. Rockaway Peninsula extended no further than where the Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge stands currently. Coney Island was largely exposed to the open ocean, which made it dangerous. In addition, other barrier islands existed which we still see traces of today. But now, Jamaica Bay is a swallow bay, with deep pits dug out around JFK airport. Channels are dug through it and it has small islands. Natural reefs about New York existed, but were not a dominant feature of the Bight. The major exception to this was the shallow water oyster beds that formed reefs throughout Brooklyn and Long Island. At one time Brooklyn was the leading oyser exporter of the world and the many small barrier islands about the south shore supported billions of oysters in oyster reefs.

In order to sustain a fishery and to provide fish habitat, the city and states of New York and New Jersey have created a number of artificial reefs all around the waters of Long Island, and up and down the New Jersey Shore. The artificial projects are well documented and provide safe havens for recreational fishing boats, and scuba divers. In addition to the reefs, there are a large number and historically interesting ship wrecks through out the area. Intelligence of these wrecks, from small fishing vessels to large commercial ships, are tightly held by fishing captains and the sharing and holding of this intelligence looks much like a war. Today, with GPS identification of fishing vessels and tracing of there movements, much of this discovery and intelligence is an open book. You can follow hot spots on GPS marine maps around the web. Still, the knowledge of a good piece of fishing bottom is a treasure to be shared carefully among captains.

Artificial Reefs are created by artificial debris such as old subway cars, construction material, and even ship wrecks. The scientific merit of these reefs have been debated but there attraction to the fish that we target for recreational fishing is impossible to deny. The reefs consistently produce scup, black sea bass, cod, and fluke. A boat of 90 fisherman can fill up buckets on the long island reefs, and the Rockaway Reef, which is the one closest to Sheepshead Bay and New York City, is very crowded on a weekend. When other spots to fish fail, the Rockaway Reef is usually a safe bet for captains to allow there passangers to fill up before heading home. Reefs to the further east are less easy to reach and often have more action. I think I have never fished the reefs about Fire Island.

This Friday, July 24th, 2020, we motored over to the distant McAllister grounds to see what was on the reef. There was a prediction for a chance of rain, and as we swung about Breezy Point and headed east along the Long Island shore, skies got continually threatening. It was a light crowd on the boat, perhaps 25 people, small enough to become familiar with each fisherman. A few of the regulars where on the boat, including Glen. The first mate, Rafeal, and myself, settled in to the starboard side of the boat near the stern. The captain and crew were determined to catch some fish today, since the crowd was light and it was likely for the boat to be anchored up. It took over an hour to cruise to McAllister, and when we did, the sky grew ominous, but we settled in anyway, with now expectations for it to rain.

The fishing was excellent. I pulled in more scup than I could count, more than 2 buckets. We then worked on Fluke. I limited out on the Fluke with 3 keepers and 4 shorts. As we continued to pull in fish, a man lost his fishing pole in the rain. He leaped after it, and ended up on the worng side of the rail, hanging on for dear life with the surf and the rain pounding on him. His buddy pulled him back onto the boat. This was the closest I'd seen anyone come to ending up in the water. Meanwhile, a would be hero yelled man over board, and ran through the cabin, and naturally enough, with all the water, he slipped and injured his knee. He spent the rest of the day with ice on his knee, killing his fishing day. The captain missed the entire event, since he was on the far side of the boat, but the mates were on it right away. This entire event reminds me to state some rules:

1. Don't run on the boat for any reason ever.
2. Never reach over the rail. You can end up in the water.
3. Leave the mates to handle all and any emergencies.
4. Be safe on the boat, always.
5. Mates and crew are trained for emergencies and have procedures to follow. If necessary, they can reach the Coast Guard. You are not trained, so stay out of the way and follow instructions.

People ask me all the time why is it that I spend so much time fishing. It is not obvious to them, and I've given this thought over many years, and I've drawn some conclusions. It seems that fishing particularly is psychologically healthy for men. Women can enjoy it, but men seem to be hard wired to the hunting and gathering process is a way that women rarely are. I know that this is considered heresy in the intolerant environment which we currently live under which we are asked ignore the some thousands of differences between the anatomy and physiology between the genders, in order to reach political goals. And regardless of solid hard science that exposes neurological differences between the genders, I'm sure that my observation that men enjoy fishing more than women will be attributed to some kind of bigotry.

Regardless of the culture wars, it seems that men get more out of fishing than do women, although both genders can benefit from the process of fishing, and can learn important life lessons from the experience. The fishing experience causes people to settle their minds, and to focus on the task in front of them. It forces them to curb there anxieties, and to be patient. Focus and patiences are the two great gifts of fishing. Every cast is a chance to learn a little bit more. You have to subtly adapt in a catatonic like state which leads to an epiphany of minute actions that lead to catching a fish. And if you do things well, you can be rewarded with a fish..or even a bucket of fish.

I was reminded of this last night when I went out on a night trip on the Marilyn Jean V, captained by Frankie and accompanied by the two night time mates, Alex and Julian. We had 41 people on the boat last night, making more than enough room to social distance and maintain WUHAN-19 Coronas SAR2 viral disease protocols. To my left was an older gentleman, who was struggling with a boat rod. And to the right was two gentlemen guzzling Henesy and catching Scup.

The gentleman on my left had a profound tremor in his left hand. He was out with some friends, and we were all at the rail in the stern of the boat. His tremor was so pronounced, that he had trouble holding the reel steady, and this resulted in a large number of minor tangles in his reel. And after each tangle, he patiently loosened the reel, untangled the mono filament, set up his bait and rig and casted out again. This went on most of the night and we talked. Evidently he had a spinal injury that gave rise to the tremors, but he just fished right through it with a minimal fuss. And then, to my surprise, late in the night, he caught a porgy and brought it up. He was damn happy, and it was the fruit of nearly an entire nights work. And it reminded me that patiences is a critical trait to success in all matters of life, not just at the rail.

The two gentlemen on my right also had a very rewarding day. For the last 3 trips, we have pulled up progressively larger pool winning Porgies. I hooked one 17 inches. Last night we had one 18 inches long. Tonight, these fellows on my right pulled in a porgy nearly 20 inches long. It was one of the largest Porgies I'd ever seen pulled from our inshore boating and fishing. They enjoyed it very much and had a few belts of liquor and caught even more fish.

Cow Nose Rays are huge venomous Rays that we never bring on the boat. I avoid them but customers enjoy the fight. This Friday I got out on a terrific day trip, and fished through a morning rain with a light crowd on the Marylin Jean. We had new friends from Orange County, and Queens. And everyone had a great time. Friday mornings are often wonderful trips. The boat is usually light and crowds happy. These guys had a great time and I pulled in my limit. We had Weak Fish, Rays, Porgies and Sea Bass. The Sun came out by 10AM and the weather was cool and breezy on the sea, even though we spent most of the morning inshore in Jamacia Bay.

With the clam shortage, bait has been a constant problem in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdown, I picked up blood worms from Stellas Maris at $13 a dozen, and Shrimp, which from the bait shop is $6 a pound and $8 a pound on the boat. Porgies have proven to love the shrimp. It just can't be denied. Without the extra bait, one is left with the Free Clam Bellies.

Clams Bellies catch great fish, but destroy your hands since it is liquefied goop in a stew of digestive enzymes. It is also very difficult to get on the hook without practice. The fish do love it though. But at a dollar a fish for worms, this can get expensive quickly.

As the weekend rolled in, fishing continued at a workman's steady pace with lots of happy patrons on the docks. Saturday night nearly everyone on the in the bay limited out at the tin cans. This is an area of fishing at the mouth of the harbor just south of the Breezy Point Jetty. On Sunday the heat war war beating down, but the fish cam up along the Rockaway Reef. I personaly didn't do so well. Sometimes it just seems I have a bad day for inexplicitable reasons, may it be tiredness, or a bad match for equiptment. But the boat filled up on a stready beat of porgy, with some triggers and sea bass in the mix. Everyone walked off the boat with smiles.

Besides that the nights have been unsually beautiful, fishing has been mostly very hot on the Evening and Night trips around the New York blight. It seems that we have had more than our normal amount of boozing on the boats, a response to people trying to find outlets post the COVID-19 lockdown. Weekend trips have been very unruley. Weekday trips have been more managable. Porgy fishing has turned on and at times we have had buckets of fish. I spent a great deal of time thinking about my Porgy fishing gear and it has performed wonderfully. The results have been not just great catches, but huge Fish.

July 2020 Fishing Picks!

Friday morning of the 4th of July Weekend and for a change of pace we decided to do a little Jigging out of Sheephead Bay for Blue Fish. We headed out to the Lady Flamingo. This boat is docked off of Knap Street behind the UA movie theater on the Gerritsen Creek. The ride out to the fish grounds give a unique view of the fishing village of Gerritseon, coming out of Brooklyn and into Jamacia Bay. At one time the Borough was riddled with these salt water creeks and marshes, but today we are down to a few. You see plenty of public and private boat slips allong the shore and the Snowy Egrets and water Fowl.

I took this trip largely to give my United Graphite GUSA RUSX79MEGA 20-40Lb rated fast stick a work out. I set it up with a Penn Torque 12 refitted to a low ration vesa gear to be slow 4.8:1, loaded with 30 pound Braid at about 10 foot of 30 pound top shot of Flourocarbon. We were jigging with 3-4 ounce gold and silver Jigs.

I had a back up rod with me, my Shimano Terarmar Inhore Series TMC-E70MH designed for 20-50lb power pro with a lure weight of 1-4ounces, and a medium action. I had 20+ foot of 30lb flouro top shot and outfited with a standard Penn Fathom 12 with a 6:2 ration on 40 pound braid and the 20 ft of topshot.

The GUSA set up didn't perform well. It didn't seem to like the jigs, and the slow speed reel didn't help. Most often my fishing problem is to slow down the hook and not rip the hook out of the fishes mouth. So I lowered the speed of this torque. But this doesn't work well with Jigging and it works less well, with such a small top shot. And the graphit stick seems to absorb the bounce, slowly the jigging motion of the artificial bait. It casted, if not even out casted, everything on the boat, but the jigging motion just wasn't there. The jig pulled in from the bottom like a dead fish or a lead weight. The back up Shimono stick did much better and I pulled in a few snappers when I changed sticks.

I learned something and still came home with a few fish. A few folks on the boat came home with a nice cooler full of blues. A Cobia was caught on the back of the boat. It is a fun trip and I will be collecting my "data" on my trip and rethinking my jigging technique and try it again.

I had a chance to take a rare Sunday half day afternoon trip on the Marylin Jean IV run by Captain Boss Tony. The weather was fabulous. It was a lovely crowd hitting on the porgies. The great thing about these half day trips is that you get a chance to fish with other fishermen who you might not normally run into on the boat. You see folks who have families killing a Sunday afternoon. You meet a few brothers or friends looking for a low commitment and fun afternoon. It is a low stress and highly fun afternoon.

Both Day and Night fishing has been terrific at times this week. On the Marylin Jean V we had a truely wonderful groups coming down to the docks to fish. At other times, it seems that the boat has become a booze cruise, and routy. The boat has moved from Striped Bass and Blues to Porgy fishing at night. When the fish have been on, we are getting some of the largest fish I've seen in the local waters. When they aren't there, we are doing a lot of work to bring home a catch.

At times, we've had excellent clients hitting the boat. Here are a number of folks having fun on the Marilyn Jean V, which I have mostly been fishing both day and night.

• At 7AM the Ocean Eagle and the MJV leave for Porgies - full day 7AM to 3PM. The Ocean Eagle alternates with Fluking, see their schedule. The Hunter is limited passanger Fluking 7Am to 3PM.
• 8AM the Marilyn Jean IV is half day Porgy Fishing. 8AM to 1PM
• 9AM Captain Dave is Flukings 9AM to 4PM
• 2PM MJIV from 2PM to 6PM
• 5PM: Capt Dave Striped Bass & Porgies 5pm - 10pm
• 6PM - The Hunter from 6PM-11PM for Blues and Bass
• 7PM - MJV for Night Time porgies
• 9PM - Friday and Saturday Night - 9PM to 4AM

Summer 2020 Fishing Picks!

This has been a most unusual winter of fishing in New York. The Blackfish season came and went rather quietly, and then we hit Cod and Ling. The Cod fishing has beem rather exceptoinal and the Ocean Eagle has been pounding Cod all winter, as has been Cpt Dave and the Marilyn Jean. The Ocean Eagle has fit cod on the regular 7AM to 4PM runs. The Captain Dave has had several 18 hour trips off shore which has reculted in piles of fish. The Marily Jean has focused on Ling and has been able to keep a regular flow to its customers. Meanwhile, the boats have been steadily catching all winter long, as long as the weather has held up.

Earlier in the winter, the Ocean Eagle pounded Backfish, which is very much the strongest part of their boating experience. Geoff and greg are world class Black Fish specialist. Greg has an encyclopedia of blackfish wrecks and spots, with intimate knowledge of just about the entire NY/NJ Blight. This winter that knowledge base was puit to good use for his clients, those lucky enough to fish with him. Everyone took home prized fish.

On a sad note, one of the oldest and highest rated fishing boats out of Sheepshead Bay has been retired from the fleet. The Brooklyn V Bass and Blues boat, which is famous for its off shore adventures, has been sold and is gone from the bay. It is sad to see this boat leave and it makes a hole in fleet. Fortunately, both the Marilyn Jean V and the Hunter are filling in some of the vacancy. Additionally, the Ocean Eagle had new engines installed about a year ago, and it is more than capable of picking up some the slack. They have a new mate, Chris, who is wonderful with clients and makes everything pleasant. The Captain Dave has been largely handed to the next generation, and Paul Paris is an expert seaman, with fishing in his veins. Additionally the MJ IV is having it's engines completely overhauled. In some regards, the fleet is in the best shape it has been in for years, and folks should come down and hop a ride.

The fishery in Jamacia Bay is often underated. Much of the bay is under the jurisdiction of the Gateway National Park, which has brought an interesting degree of strife between Brooklyn fishermen, and the National Parks Department. Most of the shore line is closed to comericial fishing, but the waters are all open. Overall, the conservation efforts around the bay has been good for fish. We've seen a run of weakfish and herring this year, and the striped bass are always exciting. This fall, the bay produced some nice porgies and other bottom fish. Even the Kayakers have been out.

Fall 2019 Jamaica Bay Fishing