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.