Blame it on Rioja

Based on the five hours we spent with Richie trolling for striped bass and bluefish about a mile southeast of Montauk Point (where underwater shoals called “rips” rise up to within thirty feet of the surface and generate swells that churn the gut like a theme-park pendulum ride someone forgot to turn off), I can’t really see myself grabing a beer with the guy anytime soon.

Impatient, unfriendly, and visibly annoyed by even the slightest deviation from his explicit orders, Richie isn’t exactly a people person. But would I go out on the water with him again? Hell yes. Why? Because the man knows how to catch you some fish.

After work one night earlier this month, I joined two colleagues from Chanterelle, line cooks Devon Gilroy and Charles Imbelli, on a three-hour drive out to Montauk, Long Island, for a half day of fishing early the following morning.

Our adventure did not begin auspiciously. Devon’s bike was stolen while he was shopping for provisions earlier in the evening. The A/C in Charles’ car was on the fritz. The gravel lot outside Salivar’s (an all-nite dockside diner), where we chose to park when we arrived at Montauk Harbor at 3:45 am, was arguably the worst place on the entire East End to try to grab a couple of hours of sleep.

So you can imagine how pleasant it was to board “Dawn,” a 35-foot charter boat helmed by Captain Bob Tuma, two sleepless hours later. Captain Bob is an avuncular and tack-sharp 85 year old with over 50 years’ experience doing this sort of thing. Richie is Captain Bob’s first mate. Richie didn’t say much until it was time to drop our first line, about 45 minutes later.

We fished with a wire line and used only two types of lures all day, a six-inch feathered jig designed to look like a twirling squid in the water, and a long, skinny, bright reddish-orange silicone lure with a single hook near the bottom, designed to mimic an eel.

The first kind of lure, the jig, required constant, measured lateral snaps of the fishing rod (jigging) in order to be effective, and I am not sure Richie was ever satisfied with our renditions of this move; but collectively, we pulled in about five or six blues this way.

The second lure required no jigging but did call for a quiet mind. Richie informed us that, when we feel a tug, we have to wait a second or two and then start reeling; pull right away and you’ll lose your fish. God forbid you lost a fish because you got too excited and pulled too soon. Richie had little patience for this. “What are you doing?! Stop reeling! He’s gone! You lost him! You got nothing! Ah, jeez…gimme that rod!”

That skinny silicone eel proved an aquatic goldmine for us. We landed our best catches of the day in this way: six stripers and three more blues. Two of the stripers topped 20 pounds. I didn’t keep count, but I’m pretty sure that I pulled in the highest number of keepers overall; Devon and Charles, lucky dogs, landed those 20 lb.-plus striped bass (I’m not bitter, though). In each case, Richie knew right away that something significant was on the other end of the line, that it was time to kick up the engines a bit more.

“Bob,” he’d shout up to our captain in a rich baritone, “big fish, Bob.”

CAPTAIN BOB TUMA 631.668.2357
http://www.montauksportfishing.com/DAWN.htm

Photos:
Top, from left: ADM, Charles Imbelli, Devon Gilroy. Center: Our nemesis and savior, Richie. Bottom: The day’s catch.

Photos courtesy Charles Imbelli

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 7:56 pm and is filed under General, Tradition and Innovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.