For Men Only

Many of y'all women blogger folk (who see this page at 2am for some reason) want to visit NY for the shows, the buildings, the zoos, the statue of liberty, the subway, the celebrities, lights, whatever. For a lot of us men, NY is not on our bucket list, or on any one of our lists. Maybe on a list of places never to go---unless we need a good doctor or something.... Why? Lots of people, lot of hustle, lots of noise, cramped spaces, left wing tree huggers, vegetarians, 63 different languages, living costs, heavy traffic, no country stations, etc...
I work in inner city Queens at a Primary Care hispanic serving clinic, and at the end of the day all I want is open spaces and some good music for this dad gum traffic......so I thought...I found heaven the other day--and like is usual for me, not where most guys would think.
We live just a block from Long Island Sound, 18 miles from Manhatten. Guess what? I finally booked that Striped Bass to die for trip. Long Island holds all the records for Striped Bass and fish commonly hit 40 lbs and up, making it like fishing for small children. I had been trying to find a decent time to go for a year, but school was always in the way. I finally quit making excuses.
I got to the marina at 5:30pm, Joby showed me how the boat worked, and we proceeded out amongst the floating sailboats (hundreds of them) to catch some bunker for bait. Joby tosses a twelve foot net with precision using the new hi-tech soanr at 10 foot depths. We ended up with about 10 bunker about 10-12 inches long. When your bait pushes almost a foot long, your imagination begins to wander, kind of scarry...We headed over to some rocks across from the harbour at hempstead point, I missed a huge one on a top water that had me sweating with palpitations and shortness of breath.
We then headed over to Sand's Point about 200 ft offshore where we anchored. Joby pulled out the bait, hooked it behind the back dorsal fin, and let it swim off with the 60 pound line. It is spooky because your bait fights hard enough for satisfaction, and as the bait surfaces about 50 yards out it starts splashing, and that's when it all begins. When the first fish took drag out like it wasn't set, my eyes were dilating, palms sweating, I started to whoop and hollar. I set the hook as hard as I could, and he set me right back, just taking drag. I reeled him in a foot or two, he took more drag, then me, then him. After 10 minutes and about 200 calories later, the sun having set, the fish surfaced near the end of the boat, and after fishing my whole life in TX for these monsters, I finally saw one close up. Joby did the netting, and there he was. He mumbled, "A good one. About average, but not bad for your first."
Normally us men when we take fishing pictures, we try to hold the fish out to make it look bigger. Uh, not needed for these, plus you get tired just holdin' the cotton pickin' things. We used about 4 inch cut pieces of bait and caught another 18 pounder and a smaller 14 pounder. They call 14 pounders small. Twenty eight inches is the keeper size. We kept the first one and the filets ended up being 5 lbs and 18 inches long, good for several night's gourmet eating.
It was now dark, around 9:30pm and the lights of the capital of the world lighting up the horizon background, the brooklyn bridge beaming off in the distance. I was glad I was as far from it as I was, but that it was still out there somewhere. It was a great trip and it is amazing how just holding one of those big stripers changes everything for some reason. So for you fishermen who have no good reason to visit NY, this is definitely one you need to put on your bucket list. Leave your wife in manhatten and come fish the capitol of the world!