Showing posts with label Long Island. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Long Island. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Friday, August 31, 2012
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Catching one of nature's finest predators
BY STEVE JANOSKI
As the boat headed toward deeper waters, I lay back on the bench, vainly trying to catch up on some of the hours of slumber I'd lost the previous night.
I would wake only briefly, lazily opening one eye when the mate, a large, tanned man with a moustache and waders, was pulling one of the fishing rods off of the ceiling in his never-ending chore of keeping the lines in the water.
We'd woken up at 2 a.m. to start this trip, and six of us drove from North Jersey to the town of Montauk, on the edge of Long Island, to take a charter boat out in the wee hours of a Monday morning.
Half a day later, we had caught our fair share of bluefish and striped bass when the captain, an older man whose white beard gave him a passing resemblance to Hemingway, asked us if we'd like to go out a little further in search of shark.
"They're biting," he told us.
As far as I know, there's only three types of sharks that swim in the waters around New Jersey that taste good when eaten: the thresher, the mako, and the legendary great white.
Some years ago I caught a massive blue shark, and fought him for 20 minutes before we figured out that once we landed him, he couldn't be taken home-and it's always better when you can eat what you've caught.
We agreed, and hoped that we'd be luckier this time around-an hour's ride later, we could barely see the outline of the land on the horizon.
Even at 15 miles off shore, the waters were calm; typically at that distance, boisterous waves smash the stern with enough force to make even the hardiest of souls seasick.
But this tranquil Atlantic made sleeping easier, and because shark fishing can sometimes be interminably tedious, most of us on the boat began nodding off in some fashion or another.
An hour went by before a cry from the boat's captain broke my slumber.
"It's a shark! He's got a mako on the far line!"
Instantly I was up, stumbling around the cabin bleary-eyed searching for my camera, and the back deck of the charter became a maelstrom of activity with the captain coming down from the bridge as the mate scrambled, preparing the harpoon and the "bang stick" (a special underwater firearm that employs a long tube and a shotgun shell) for their deadly work.
About 50 yards out, the mako somersaulted out of the water, a beautiful flash of blue and silver against the sky, before plummeting back down, drawing out the line on reel once again.
It took 10 minutes before the shark was able to be reeled in close enough for a gaff (a long pole with a steel hook on the end) to be used to hold the shark in place. A rope was then tied around the tail to better control its thrashes.
My father held the gaff while the mate lined up his shot; seconds later, with a swift movement, he launched the harpoon into the mako's side.
"I got him!" he yelled to the captain, and pulled the body of the harpoon away, leaving the head lodged above the shark's gills.
The captain then moved forward and, with a hard strike, punched the shark's head with the end of the bang stick. A loud crack was heard as the shell went off, and blood quickly began to flow into the water and lap the sides of the boat.
With that, the shark began its death rolls, and the rage leaked out of it with every ounce of blood that spilled into the ocean.
Eventually, it would be strung up by the tail to ensure that it was completely dead before bringing the six-foot, 125 pound mako (along with its jagged, intimidating teeth) on board.
As I leaned over the side of the boat, I stared into its black poker chip eyes.
When the boat would dip to the side, the shark would be submerged again, and its lungs would flex to life and the eyes would momentarily stir, only to flatten out again as the oxygen left its system.
It was, indeed, an unequivocal triumph over one of the sea's consummate killers.
As the boat headed toward deeper waters, I lay back on the bench, vainly trying to catch up on some of the hours of slumber I'd lost the previous night.
I would wake only briefly, lazily opening one eye when the mate, a large, tanned man with a moustache and waders, was pulling one of the fishing rods off of the ceiling in his never-ending chore of keeping the lines in the water.
We'd woken up at 2 a.m. to start this trip, and six of us drove from North Jersey to the town of Montauk, on the edge of Long Island, to take a charter boat out in the wee hours of a Monday morning.
Half a day later, we had caught our fair share of bluefish and striped bass when the captain, an older man whose white beard gave him a passing resemblance to Hemingway, asked us if we'd like to go out a little further in search of shark.
"They're biting," he told us.
As far as I know, there's only three types of sharks that swim in the waters around New Jersey that taste good when eaten: the thresher, the mako, and the legendary great white.
Some years ago I caught a massive blue shark, and fought him for 20 minutes before we figured out that once we landed him, he couldn't be taken home-and it's always better when you can eat what you've caught.
We agreed, and hoped that we'd be luckier this time around-an hour's ride later, we could barely see the outline of the land on the horizon.
Even at 15 miles off shore, the waters were calm; typically at that distance, boisterous waves smash the stern with enough force to make even the hardiest of souls seasick.
But this tranquil Atlantic made sleeping easier, and because shark fishing can sometimes be interminably tedious, most of us on the boat began nodding off in some fashion or another.
An hour went by before a cry from the boat's captain broke my slumber.
"It's a shark! He's got a mako on the far line!"
Instantly I was up, stumbling around the cabin bleary-eyed searching for my camera, and the back deck of the charter became a maelstrom of activity with the captain coming down from the bridge as the mate scrambled, preparing the harpoon and the "bang stick" (a special underwater firearm that employs a long tube and a shotgun shell) for their deadly work.
About 50 yards out, the mako somersaulted out of the water, a beautiful flash of blue and silver against the sky, before plummeting back down, drawing out the line on reel once again.
It took 10 minutes before the shark was able to be reeled in close enough for a gaff (a long pole with a steel hook on the end) to be used to hold the shark in place. A rope was then tied around the tail to better control its thrashes.
My father held the gaff while the mate lined up his shot; seconds later, with a swift movement, he launched the harpoon into the mako's side.
"I got him!" he yelled to the captain, and pulled the body of the harpoon away, leaving the head lodged above the shark's gills.
The captain then moved forward and, with a hard strike, punched the shark's head with the end of the bang stick. A loud crack was heard as the shell went off, and blood quickly began to flow into the water and lap the sides of the boat.
With that, the shark began its death rolls, and the rage leaked out of it with every ounce of blood that spilled into the ocean.
Eventually, it would be strung up by the tail to ensure that it was completely dead before bringing the six-foot, 125 pound mako (along with its jagged, intimidating teeth) on board.
As I leaned over the side of the boat, I stared into its black poker chip eyes.
When the boat would dip to the side, the shark would be submerged again, and its lungs would flex to life and the eyes would momentarily stir, only to flatten out again as the oxygen left its system.
It was, indeed, an unequivocal triumph over one of the sea's consummate killers.
Monday, October 25, 2010
The bold man and the sea
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The older I get, the more I am convinced that one day, I want to live near the ocean. This feeling, which tends to come on harder in the summer, struck me again this weekend as I was down in Long Branch for a friend’s wedding.
Long Branch is no prize of a city, and seems to mirror other shore towns that were once beautiful retreats but have fallen into disrepair as the years catapult by.
But standing on the ninth floor of a high rise hotel overlooking the sea, I was again enthralled with watching the waves roll in as the fishing boats lined the farthest piece of the horizon. The salt curled off the water and permeated the air, and again I thought to myself, I could certainly live next to this.
It’s there every summer when I go out to Long Island on an annual shark-fishing trip, driving through the small coastal communities to the marinas filled with eager boats in the cold early morning, swaying as they face down the great expanse of the Atlantic.
When I was a young kid, I read all of the stories that began in “Treasure Island” fashion, stories that invariably began with a naïve boy running off to the seas and landing squarely in the middle of great adventure, pirates, and daring conquests.
When I got into my college years as an English major, I read all of the stories and essays of the early American Transcendentalists like Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed their stories, I could not identify with the writers themselves— Emerson seemed like a hopeless idealist, Thoreau struck me as a bit of a Nancy, and Hawthorne like a suicide case.
One writer stood out when my professor described him, however, and that was Herman Melville, the famous author of the novel “Moby Dick.”
Melville had left home at 21 for a great brawling lifestyle on the high seas, and his writings reflect his wandering spirit, which seems a sharp departure from the other writers of that time.
My professor described him as a man more inclined to a fight than to weep, more likely to jump on a outgoing ship than surround himself with the solitude of the woods.
It was his time on the ocean, I’d wager, that made him a little more hard, a little tougher than his compatriots; I don’t believe it possible to spend your life on the groaning deck of a wooden ship in the nineteenth century and not, at the very least, be sure of yourself.
Although it may be a good thing that life isn’t as hazardous now as it was in Melville’s time, I do believe it a shame that as people, we’ve lost touch with the ocean.
Back in Melville’s time, if you wanted to travel anywhere from America, a ship was the only way to do it.
Average people had to steel themselves to the possibility that these voyages were lengthy and dangerous, and the chances of some disaster happening were decent.
This has all changed with the airplane, which has allowed travelers to cross thousands of miles while feeling as if they never left their living room.
This is much different than being in an uncomfortably small vessel in the middle of the ocean, and feeling with every rocking wave the power that you don’t have over whether your life continues or not. It is sobering and humbling, and makes me further admire the seafaring men.
And as I stood on that balcony, cigarette smoke mixing with the salty air, I thought for a moment that I wouldn’t mind if I had been born back then, and that that kind life would have suited me better than this one.
It’s a fleeting thought, of course, one that might fade quickly after a day on the water. But I do still wonder.
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