Scales and Tales

If you are wondering whether it might still be worthwile to get out this weekend despite the cold, be assured there are still some fish around. Blackfishing was solid the past few days on the North Shore out of both Huntington and Port Jefferson. There has also been some solid blackfish action out of Shinnecock, and stripers are still hitting at Shinnecock Inlet, Moriches Inlet and under the Robert Moses Bridge in Fire Island Inlet.

To the west, ling have been runing large and plentiful for the Capt. Lou fleet in Freeport, and the Super Hawk in Point Lookout. Further west, Sheepshead Bay anglers are still scoring with a few stripers and blues, in additon to blackfish and ling, at 17 Fathoms. A few schoolie stripers are also being pulled from around the Wantagh Bridges, Meadowbrook Bridges, Fundy Bridge and Atlantic Beach Bridge, mostly on Bass Assains but also on clams and eels.

Out at Montauk, the charter fleet continues to pound blackfish and stripers, while the open boats are targeting the bass, too. Live herring has been the key to scoring with the stripers, although some days still see a little bit of diamond jigging.

On the hunting front, young Katie Fitzharris, 15, got to enjoy the great feeling of accomplishment that comes with taking your first firearms deer. Hunting with her dad, Mike Fitzharris, in Harpersfield Town of Delaware County on November 15, the junior hunter downed a 130-pound, one-horned spike. No monsters to speak of locally, but plenty of solid six- and eight-point bucks have been weighed in the past two weeks.

If you are still looking for a holiday gift with an outdoors theme, check out my new Long Island's Best Fishing 2009 Calendar. It covers both saltwater and freshwater fishing from Brooklyn to Montauk and Orient Points with super photos, best bets on where to go and what to try for each month, plus plenty of tips for everything from trout, largemouth bass and walleye, to porgies, blackfish, codfish, fluke, stripers, weakfish, blues and more. The calendar is available now in local tackle shops, or on-line at www.outdoortom.com.

LONG ISLAND SOUND BLACKFISHING IS HOT FROM WEST TO EAST

It would be hard to imagine Long Island Sound blackfishing getting any better than it is right now. From west to east, anglers are reporting a ton of success with some really impressive fish. The open boat Island Current in City Island has bailed big blacks over the past week, as has Huntington's Noli Elieen and James Joseph, Port Jefferson's Osprey IV and Celtic Quest, and the Prime Time III and Orient Star at the far end of the North Fork. The Peconic Star, out of Greenport, has also done well.

Most of these boats saw top blackfish weigh in at 8 to 9 pounds, but the real monster this week was a 13.75-pound bulldog decked aboard the James Joseph by George Pesce of Lindenhurst. An 11-pounder was hauled aboard the Osprey IV last week.

On Tuesday, the Captain Bob in Mattituck ran across to the Conneticut side to work a virgin wreck, according to Captain Bob Ceglowski, and the fishing was fantastic.

"It was the best I've seen in 30 years," claimed Ceglowski. "We limited out all 28 anglers with blackfish by 11: 30 a.m., and creeled 30 keeper sea bass, too. People were tossing back 4-pound blacks in the hopes of keeping something bigger. Just about every fish we took home weighed 4.5 pounds or greater."

All told, seven blackfish over 9 pounds hit the deck, the largest being a 9.75-pound pool winner. Tomorrow's trip (Friday) is already sold out. No doubt, word travels fast when the bite is good.

Be aware that some open boats are now sailing a reduced schedule, so call ahead and check the sailing times before heading out. It's also a good idea to call just in case a boat is already booked full.

With the bluefish hitting fast and furious last weekend aboard the Captain Bob V out of Mattituck (captbobfishingfleet.com,) there were plenty of fishing tips to go around. A few of my favorites:

Captain Bob Ceglowski: "Diamond jigging for bluefish is a team effort. When a party boat passes through a school of choppers, all the jigs in the water appear to be a large school of baitfish. The harder everyone works to keep thier jigs active, the better the fish stay with the boat. When we get a good, hard-working group at the rail, the fish actually follow the boat as we drift. Even if you don't have a fish on, keep working hard. It's all the flashing in the water that gets the blues fired-up. Think team first and you'll get plenty of hook-ups. Four-ounce AVA daimond jigs are the standard lure here at this point in the season."

Mate Dave Meyers: "I like to use hammered spoons and jigs for blues instead of jigs with a smooth finish. The scattered reflections from these lures look more natural in the water, close to the flash of real baitfish. The stripers really seem to notice the difference."

Chris Palermo: "I have my own boat but I still like to come out on open boats. It lets you try new areas, fish for species you might not usually catch from your home port, plus you meet a lot of fun people on these trips. I go as much for the atmosphere as for the action. I love the Captain Bob fleet but also fish out of Captree on the Laura Lee, out of Montauk on the Viking, and on a few other boats as well."

Bill Addesso: "I do pretty well with stripers on these bluefish trips. One key is to work your jig a little slower than you might if you wanted to excite the blues. I like to let my jig settle to the bottom and then leave it there for a minute or two so I get a little scope in the line. That way, the lure stays near the bottom and in the striper's strike zone for a few extra feet on the retrieve. I usually try this after I've caught my share of blues."

Captain Bob Ceglowski: "If you think we might try for porgies or sea bass in addition to blues and stripers, like we do on our wreck trips, bring along two rods. Rig one up for jigging blues and bass, the other for bottom fishing."

According to Captain Paul Risi from the Captree open boat, Tradewinds II (www.tradewindsfishing.com,) bottom fishing has picked up inside Great South Bay and south of Fire Island Inlet. Porgies have offered most of the action inside the bay while sea bass dominate the near shore ocean wrecks. Further offshore, in 100+ depths, ling are now plentiful and a few cod and pollack have been keeping anglers on their toes.

"The bottom fishing isn't on fire quite yet," said Rusi, "but it is pretty good and it's an interesting game because you never know what you'll hook next."

Several reports have filtered in over the past few days regarding some very solid porgy fishing out of Port Jefferson. When the weather allows, the bite has been very strong in 18 to 30 feet of water off Cranes Neck. Just as impressive, however, has been the action with scup to 16 inches inside Port Jefferson Harbor. Set up in 12 to 18 feet of water, and chum lightly to keep the fish excited. Sandworms, clams and strips of squid have all accounted for good catches. If you are feeling sporty, you can also tempt the harbor fish on spinning gear with a three-inch, white, curly-tailed grub tipped with a thin strip of squid.

While fishing on the open boat, Captain Bob V (captbobfishingfleet.com,) out of Mattituck on Saturday, Captain Bob Ceglowski and I got to talking about eating bluefish. I’m not a huge fan, but there have been times I’ve enjoyed them baked, cooked on the grill, or served as ceviche (raw fish in lime juice, the lime actually cooks the fish). My favorite way of eating them is smoked, which seems to work especially well with smaller blues ranging from large snappers to small cocktails of two or three pounds.

Captain Ceglowski noted that this year has seen a relatively tasty crop of bluefish in the Eastern reaches of Long Island Sound. “These blues,” he stated, “have been feeding on butterfish and don’t taste as oily as when they feed on bunker.”

Ceglowski suggested anglers give these fish a try, adding that their flesh this year is both whiter in appearance and more mild in taste than usual.

His suggested recipe:

“Put the fillet on a sheet of foil. Take a little Parmesan cheese, basil and garlic, plus a load of sliced tomatoes, and pile it all on top of the fillet. Fold the foil into a pouch and place it on the grill for 20 minutes."

My favorite recipe is to dip each fillet in mayonnaise, then dip it in seasoned bread crumbs. Place the fillets in the oven and bake at 350 until the crumbs are brown and the flesh appears ready to flake. At that point, raise the heat to broil and toast the bread crumb coating. This recipe works with just about any kind of fish.

Frank Mundus was never at a loss for words, but he didn't just shoot from the lip when it came to technique, gear and battling the big ones. He sized-up his interviewers. If he believed you were serious about learning, he offered some gems. If not, he just recounted the stories that everyone wanted to hear. Here, he continues the Monster Sharks, 101 interview.

"In terms of hooks, I'm partial to the Jap hook for big sharks. (Editor's Note: I believe here Mundus was referring to circle hooks.) That's because it hooks nine out of ten fish in the jaw and it's three times as strong as local hooks. It's shape makes it slide up from the fish's throat or belly when you set the hook and it catches in the jaw. This makes it easier to tag and release the fish. If a fish is hooked in the jaw, it should go back. If it's hooked in the belly, keep it and use it for chum. I don't care what you say about cutting the line and leaving the hook in a fish's gullet. Those fish that are hooked deep, they don't survive well. Take them home and use them for bait or chum rather than waste them. They'll just die days or weeks later so it's better to at least use them.

"Once you get a big shark on the line, you've got to work fast. We had seven sharks over a thousand pounds and every one we whipped hard and fast. The longer that fish is on the line, the better its chance of getting away. We whipped that 1080-lb. mako in an hour-and-twenty minutes. With Peter Benchley on the boat for the American Sportsman, we whipped a 200-lb. swordfish in eleven minutes - of course, we spent a half-hour holding onto him with the gaff, but we had him to the boat in less than quarter of an hour.

"How do you get a big fish up so fast? We'll, one thing's for sure, you can't out-muscle him. You have to pressure him, but with the proper amount of pressure. Don't walk them around the boat, don't idle. These fish know how to swim, if you take it easy, they'll keep swimming for ten hours! What you have to do is apply steady, constant pressure. Do it right and you can whip any fish.

"Believe it or not, you don't need real heavy gear to beat a big shark. In fact, you've got to match the gear as much to the angler as to the fish. You can't hand most ladies or even small men an 80-lb. stand-up outfit, it's just too big for them to handle comfortably. They'd be better off with 30- or 50-lb. gear. Just keep in mind that you have to apply steady, constant pressure and this gear is fine. I can honestly say that we've never been licked on 50-lb. gear. Never had a fish out-fight us on 50. We had one on for seven hours once, only lost it after the wire leader let go.

"With steady, constant pressure, you can lift anything on a 50-lb. setup. We once had a giant tuna die on us, sank right down to the bottom. We were in a rowboat back then and I hand-lined that fish all the way up - all 700 lbs. of him. I raised that fish with my fingers, inch-by-slow-painful-inch on 50-lb. test.

"Slow, steady pressure. That's what you've always got to keep in mind when the big one grabs your bait."

● Check back, more Mundus to come with his thoughts on "Jaws," shark mania, how he caught his giant great white, and changes in shark catches over the years.

Several private boaters I've spoken with in recent days have mentioned super action with false albacore at Montauk Point. A few have also noted solid catches of albies at Gardiners Island and Plum Island. The action has been on any moving water, but best between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.

Some of the false albacore caught and released have been quite large, with many in the 7- to 8-pound class and at least a few topping 10 pounds. As you might expect, Deadly Dicks, small, white, soft-plastic grubs and bright white or silver streamer patterns have accounted for much of the action.

One tip: It can be difficult to chase the schools and get in an advantageous casting position without putting down surfacing fish. In the long run, it's often best to cut your engine, take a good look around, and identify the major lanes that pods of false albacore are using (often you can see these slicks on the surface). Get in one of the lanes and drift or idle, nudging the engine into gear just enough to stay in the lane. Give it a few minutes and you'll soon have the the fish swimming toward your boat without sounding.

Keep in mind, too, that a little courtesy between skippers can go a long way toward keeping everyone sane in the midst of all the surface mayhem. There's plenty of water on the East End, no need to crowd.

He had been called the pioneer of shark fishing, the last of the Great White Hunters and The Monster Man. You may have thought of him as “Quint,” the salty charter boat captain from the movie, “Jaws,” who was eventually bested by the biggest mechanical shark of all time. He still holds the world record for landing the largest fish of any type ever take with a rod and reel – a great white shark that tipped the scales at over 3,400 pounds. Through it all, he has easily been Long Island’s most famous, and most controversial, fisherman.

In July 1951, Frank Mundus moved his charter boat from Brielle, NJ, to Montauk Point, NY, and began fishing for shark – considered a “trash fish” at the time. Offshore fishing has never been the same. Single-handedly, he created an industry. Some have called it an atrocity. Others have admired him for his courage and innovation.

Over the years he’s been quoted, mis-quoted, respected and cursed at. It all depends on who you ask. He’s been called illiterate, yet he’s written a book. His pranks at Montauk are legendary, but when spoken to on a serious note he seemed to sail on an even keel. All along, he claimed to have had fun.

Frank Mundus passed away on September 10, at the age of 82, from complications of a heart attack he suffered after returning to his Hawaii home from a fishing trip in Montauk, NY. With his passing, one of the most interesting and entertaining fishing personalities of all time slips into the deep blue beyond.

Simply bring up the name Frank Mundus at your local watering hole or dockside gathering place and eyebrows are sure to rise. It seems every fisherman who's ever come in contact with this salty skipper has a different story to tell. Most are entertaining, some are downright funny, others are scary or even nasty. In reality, the majority are second-hand accounts and, much like the man himself, it's anyone's guess at to how much is fact and how much is legend.

Say what you will about his fishing techniques, brashness, and ability to spin a tale, this much is certain: It was Mundus at the helm of the Cricket II when the first rod and reel mako to top 1,000 lbs. was dragged back to port; it was Mundus at the helm as six more sharks of 1,000 lbs. or more visited the dock; and it was Mundus at the helm when the largest rod and reel shark of all time, a 3,400 lb. great white, was hoisted ashore for a visit to the taxidermist. Still, it is his alleged role as the model for Peter Benchley's character "Quint" in the book and movie, Jaws, for which he may be best known by the general public. Few recognize that, in his later years, Mundus was actually an advocate for shark conservation.

I was fortunate enough to interview Mundus several times over the years. I’ll try to post excerpts from some of those sessions over the next few days, so be sure to check back. The following is from an interview about what it takes to hook and land a monster shark. Mundus was just a few weeks shy of his 70th, birthday at the time, recently “retired” and living in Hawaii. I noted in my notes that he was still “as verbal and vibrant as ever.”

Frank Mundus: Monster Sharks 101

“Yea, it's me. Still here and still kicking. Only now I'm hip deep in pineapples instead of knee deep in sharks. Currently, I'm not doing much fishing at all but there's a guy gonna take the Cricket II from North Carolina to Australia for a few months in the hopes of setting up some charters for great whites. I'll probably go along and check things out for a while, then head on back here to my farm.

"Anyway, as to catching monster sharks, it's the same wherever you go - especially with makos and great whites. While most anglers are busy worrying about what tackle they need to catch these monsters, they'd be better-off watching the sharks and learning a little bit about their habits. I mean, there are some sharks that are hungry and ready to eat and others that you need to make hungry. If you can't tell the difference, chances are you're not going to hook up.

"Take that giant mako you see swimming or gliding out in your slick. Fishermen all the time complain that they see big sharks but can't get them to bite. You've got to know right off the bat that this fish isn't hungry if you're going to have a chance to make him want to eat. Your first tip-off sometimes comes when the fish is still way out from the boat. You see a big mako or great white swim though a school of birds sitting on the water and they don't get up and fly away, that's a fish gonna be hard to catch. You see, the birds know he isn't hungry. They can tell - just like an antelope in Africa can tell if a lion is ready to eat. If, on the other hand, all the birds get up and fly, than you've got a hungry customer on your hands.

"So, let's say you've got the swimmer or cruiser out in the slick, the big mako or great white that doesn't want to eat. You'll be able to tell this fish because he kind of glides, he doesn't look busy or overly interested. You'll notice his tail moves slowly from side to side as he swims in no apparent hurry. You've got to get a bait out to this fish fast because it may make only one pass and then disappear forever. In other words, you've only got a limited amount of time to interest this fish. To get this fish going, you've got to treat it like a kitten.

"Ever play with a kitten and a ball of yarn? The first time you toss the end of the string at the kitten, it gives you that 'so what?' look. The second time you toss the end of the string near it you can see a look of interest. Try it again and his muscles tighten. One more time and he'll pounce after it like there's no tomorrow. Now he's got to have it and you can make him pretty mad if you keep taking it away. That's what you've got to do with a shark that isn't hungry. You've got to tell him he can't have the bait. Toss the bait out to that fish and the second he looks at it, take it away. Now do it again. This time he'll swim in a circle and make a half-assed move at it. Take it away again and again. Pretty soon, he's madder than hell and he's just got to have it. Keep watching, you'll know when he's mad enough to take that bait for real. Believe it or not, this is what we had to do to entice that 3,400-lb. great white we caught. That fish had no need for our baits, he was putting bite marks the size of a peach basket in that floating whale carcass. What's he want with a little bait unless you make him mad?

"Now, did you know that there's a pecking order to big sharks? Sure is. I've seen it many a time but the best example was again with that giant great white. We had six huge sharks stacked up under that whale, you could see them on the graph, but we mostly saw them one at a time. They were stacked up like air planes in a holding pattern just waiting to land. They were big sharks, too. Frank Braddick, Jr., hooked a big tiger or something and lost it and we hooked and lost a monster that must have been about 2,000 lbs. before we tied into that giant.

"Anyway, these sharks, they had a real pecking order. Each fish was allowed by the other fish to come up to that whale and spend a half-hour by itself. If it stayed around the carcass too long, another shark would come up and physically push him away. It's interesting to note, too, that the pecking order doesn't have to be based on size. It's simply an order. This one goes, then that one, then the next. Exactly how the order is determined, first come first served, aggressiveness, I'm not sure. But I know it simply isn't based on size. Anyway, if you happen to be sitting over a pack of these monsters, you might not want to bait the first one you see. You might want to wait a bit because you never know how big is the next one. It also means you have a limited time to get the one you want or you have to wait until it has another turn - if it gets another turn.

"Here's another tip that will clue you in to the presence of a big great white or mako in the area: if the blue sharks are thick under your boat and they suddenly clear out, get ready. That big one may be only five or ten minutes away from showing in your slick. Set up your heavy tackle now, before you see him."

● Check back for advice from the late Frank Mundus on how to whip the the biggest sharks.

According to Chet Wilcox at B & B Bait and Tackle in Center Moriches, a few hefty stripers have shown in recent days at the mouth of Moriches Inlet. Several fish in the 40" - to 42" class have been caught - a few have also been released. Most have fallen to pencil poppers worked across the bar outside of the inlet. Be careful if you prospect in this area. The outer bar at Moriches can be nasty if the wind pushes against the tide.

If you like to haul you bass from the suds, take this as a hint to bucktail the inlet after dark, or work large surface poppers at dawn and dusk on the open beach to the east and west of the inlet.