MY FISH STORIES SUPPORTED BY MY OWN PICTURES

This was the first time that I worked a scanner program on another computer. I was able to load them on a 2MB floppy and transfer it onto my computer. I used photosuite 3 to crop to save space and expediate uploading.

The pictures represent: my father holding my brothers 4 l/4 pound snowshoe flounder, I am 12 years old holding my 7 l/2 pound doormat fluke, I am holding a 5 lb. plus tea wreck blackfish, my friend Richard M. holding a Montauk sea flounder, a picture taken,developed and printed by my brother of the 6 and 5 pound doormat fluke that me and my father caught, the front of my glastron boat, and finally a bushell basket full of flounders caught off Gardiners Island not far from 3 mile harbor(camera was a WERRA with a tessar lens-it took great pictures)

AND ONCE UPON A NORTHERN SCUP(PORGY)

I I did not get a chance to do much fishing for these fish, but pound for pound against the other fish I mentioned, you could not beat the fight these fish gave on a fishing rod. Small porgies are called "sand porgies". You could catch a lot of these in Oyster Bay. I also caught them in Seaford. Better size porgies were found in Peconic Bay. The largest were sea porgies at about 2 plus or better pounds. The best size that I ever found was off of Crane Neck Point outside of Stoney Brook one August. Before the wind came up forcing us to return to harbor, we had caught 4- 4 l/4 pounders. Various species of porgy run along the east coast. The porgy is supposed to be good eating but I never had the opportunity to try them.

AND ONCE UPON A WINTER FLOUNDER

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I spoke alittle about the winter flounder in my earlier posts. A very small one is called a postage stamp. Two to 3 15/16 lbs fish are called sea flounder. 4 pounds and up are called snowshoes. My brother holds the family record at 4 l/4 pounds, a honest to goodness showshoe. It was caught in an area that was known as the "home of the miniature showshoes"; Stoney Brook, Long Island. Usually you would have the chance of catching a snowshoe in the spring, but this one was caught in the fall. At the moment he caught the fish, I had one that I could feel on my line that was at least equal to or larger in weight. I lost it; my brother saw it and said it was huge. I mentioned in a earlier post about the diet of these fish on the north shore of Long Island.
The fish in Seaford ate clams, grass shrimp and seaweed. A nice fish to catch and eat.

AND ONCE UPON A WINTER TAUTOG

Tautog around the Long Island area were called BLACKFISH. During the fall, they would be around rocky areas. During the spring, you would find them almost anywere they wanted to be. It was not unusual to catch them along with winter flounder in the Sunken Meadow Bay area of the north shore of Long Island Sound in the spring. The best fishing I ever had with these fish was in the spring outside of Jones Inlet at a place called the tea wreck. My father caught the largest in my family, a 7 l/2 pounder. I had bites of larger ones at various fishing spots around the island. In the fall, they liked to eat fiddler and green crabs. In the spring they would eat anything you used for the flounders. I read once that the apathrodesiac bait for these fish was conch or scungeilli. One time a fisherman gave us some conch. We used it on the tea wreck. The blackfish smashed our lines to get a taste of it. This was a great fish to catch. The flesh is milk white and taste somewhat like winter flounder. Blackfish is in the wrasse family of fishes. Note that one of the pictures feature some fluke caught with some blackfish.

The Sandeel(DEDICATED TO CHARLES NOVEMBER)

This segment of this blog is dedicated to my late cousin, CHARLES NOVEMBER.


My acquaintance with the sandeel came from my cousin Charlie's advocation of using this baitfish to catch summer flounder(fluke). The fishing station in Seaford, Long Island which was my main base began to carry the item. Boy do those fluke like those sandeels. The only time that I ever saw sandeels swimming in the thousands was in Long Island Sound out of Stoney Brook Harbor which is part of the north shore of Long Island. Fluke were not the only flounder that would eat them. In fact, when I caught fish from various ports around Long Island, those that I kept to clean would be the ones that ended up for dissection of their stomachs to see what they were eating. I never found a sandeel in a fluke's stomach. Fluke on the south shore of Long Island liked to eat grass shrimp. While I did catch some fluke in Stoney Brook Harbor, we also had some great winter flounder fishing in that area particulaly in the sound. The winter flounder had a very small mouth but you would not no so with the dozens of sandeels that I would find in their stomachs. The winter flounder from Stoney Brook had the best tasting flesh due in fact to their voracious appetite for sandeels. A few years back, I read that fluke were being farm raised in the northeast to supply the japanese with sushi grade fish. I called and suggested to the owners to feed their home grown fish sandeels. Whether they did this or not, I do not know.

Summer Flounder Camouflage

I was fortunate enough to find two pictures on the net on the camouflage abilities of the summer flounder that I mentioned in my previous post.

A Few Pictures of the Summer Flounder

The first picture shows the top of the fish. It has camaflouged itself with its pigment to look like the bottom of which it had been swimming over. It was probably a rocky bottom. It is really something when you catch one of these fish and you see it coming up to the surface in the water as you get your landing net ready. More so if it is a very large one usually called a "doormat". The second picture is that of a "doormat fluke" or summer flounder.