The Thrill of the Catch and the Fight for the Seas

Hello everyone, this is George Scocca and you're listening to the New York Fishing Podcast brought to you by theNewYorkAnglercom, or NewYorkAnglercom, your secret spot online where you can find tons of information about what's happening in your local fishery each and every day. Today is August 16th. I did manage to get out and do some of my favorite fishing, which is fluke fishing. Right now I keep a boat up in the Nesquan. I fish most at a time in the sound. Well, in years past, anyhow, the last few years, it's been tough. I mean there's fluke, but it's been tough. You know, you really got to know what you're doing. You got to really work hard, and not that I'm not into working hard, I would rather be in an area where I know I got a really good shot at catching my bag limit and also catching a big fish. I was lucky enough to have my partner in another company, rob Pavlich. Many of you may know him. He helped run Nor'east and Nor'eastcom and Nor'east Saltwater for many, many years. We're still together in a different company. He invited me to go out to one of my favorite spots, which was introduced to me by Lep Leprechaun. People out of those of you that know him, he's probably one of the best fluke fishermen on all of Long Island, but in any case I love those grounds. You know fishing at South of Jones I don't want to choose which one. There's a lot of areas around there and I got to tell you it's really great fluke fishing. I mean, you know you're deep water fishing, you're fishing in 60, 70, 80 foot of water and you've got a shot at a big fish and there's a good number of keepers in there. I'm not sure I mean it's very much in line with Montauk. You've got a lot better shot at a double digit fish. You know there's no doubt about it because you hear of them being caught there. But this area, if you're not familiar with it, the flug fishing there is fantastic. It's off the charts, it really is, and it's been that way for quite a while. Hopefully it will stay that way. So, anyhow. So we go out, we run out, we go south to Jones and we had quite a day. I witnessed Rob catch his biggest fish so far. He's got a new boat and this is all new to him and he was good. He was really good at what he's doing and he caught a fish over five pounds, which was great, and we had a number of fish and we got back to the dock that we had to do. When I got back there, you know Lef was there with those of you that are familiar with some names on the website with Kevin, who is long cast, and they had a bang update, we've seen him out there. We were fishing right near him, but you know they kicked our butt but that's left. What are you gonna do? But Rob did a great job and we caught a lot of fish and I had a fantastic day. So then I had a trip that was planned again with the folks from NewYorkAnglercom those of you that aren't joining us and missing out on all this stuff and you know there's no Facebook BS, it's all just fun, so you know. So we I get this invite to go out on a charter with one of my favorite charter captains, captain Mike Beatty. You folks may know him. He's out on a North Fork. He's just a really good friend of mine. It's captain's table charters, you know. I mean we date back to when my brother was around back in the Northeast days, but I never really fished him. I didn't know him that well. So anyhow, it turns out that he's good friends with Lepp, and so over the last few years I've had the honor and pleasure and enjoyment of fishing, you know, with Mike, with Captain Mike, and so I got an invite from another New York angler member, snapperhead. It's pretty funny, that used to be my nickname years ago, but so anyhow. So he invites me to go on the strip and you know, it was this past Monday, it was August 14th, it was my wife's birthday and I was like the week before it was August 7th and it was my birthday, and she went and played pickleball and did her thing. So, you know, I got back to Matt snapperhead and I was like, you know what? It's my wife's birthday. Really don't think I should fish that day. And I'm like, give me a few minutes, let me think about it. I'll get back to you in about an hour. So I go, hey, barb, I go. Well, you know, what do you want to do on your birthday? Well, I'm gonna play pickleball and this one's gonna stop by and the auntie's coming home and I said, oh, okay, good, I'm gonna fish it. She's fine with that. I think she likes when I fish more than or as much as I like to fish. I think she just likes getting rid of me or maybe she does like to see me enjoy myself. So anyhow, we go out. We got quite a crew. We've got I don't know if you folks those of you may know Nader, who's the chef and he's also fishing here. It was my first time fishing with him and I kicked his butt, although he will deny that I did a big fish. I'm not sure I thought we totaled on the bag but I'm not sure. But I know I kicked his butt but in any case he was a good guy. When you fish with different people, flucan, you learn there are so many different ways to catch Fluc and many people, through my very good friend, john Skinner, has introduced people to this bulk tailing kind of gulp thing. Not that he introduced the gulp and bulk tailing, but he did make it very popular To the point that people think that's the only way now that they can catch fish. They don't realize there's so many different factors that go into fluk fishing that there are days where and this happened to have been one of those days where they are not biting that bottom bucktail, that bucktail on. Some days they just don't do it. So you know, maybe you shouldn't be using one, or maybe you should be using a different type of a rig, but anyhow. So let me get back to the fishing. So we get there, everybody's great. We get out, we set up and you know we're catching right away a couple of shorts, we get a keeper and Kat and Mike says you know, I got this blue teaser that. You know, work always works for me in this particular area. I'm like give me that suck. I didn't wait a second. So I get this blue teaser, I put it on, I go oh, I know what I had. I had a gulp sand eel and I've had these freaking things forever and I gotta tell you they never produced a thing. But wow, did they work, combined with this particular blue teaser. So I dropped down first drop. I dropped down, bang. I hooked up fishes over six pounds, mike, I'm loving Montauk. So the longer, the shorter it was. We had a great day. I had as many you know I limited out and if I was in some kind of a fishing tournament for heavy weight, wow, man, I mean, for those four fish I was over 15, 18, maybe 20 pounds. But again, you know, almost every fish I had was on the teaser. So that told me that the bucktail really wasn't working that well, I switched to a white ball, which I learned, actually from let, and they kind of started hitting on those. But I tell you why, folks, if you get a shot to get out there, you know you got a short window, you got a couple of weeks left, but it's gonna finish strong. I mean, these fish were on the chew and they were there in good numbers. So I would recommend you getting out and doing what you gotta do before the window closes and we're all dreaming about next year. So I wanna touch base on one thing that's always on my minds. It's not something I've discussed on this podcast. I do a lot of writing about it on NewYorkAnglercom but it's this industrialization of our coast which we're seeing. I'd like to say that it's unbelievable to me that we are allowing this to happen, because we are, you know, in New Jersey. They all held hands up and down the beach. They got a little bit of coverage, but if we could have had hands from Jersey up to Maine, where we all know everyone, no one wants this. No one wants this. The government wants it, but no one involved in anything from owning a home on the beach. You're a millionaire, you don't wanna look at the things. If you're a environmentalist, you have to care about all the wildlife we're killing. I mean they just approved a wind farm, upstate New York, that they estimate it's gonna kill 87 bald eagles. Now think about that. You know how long and how much money we spent to bring these eagles back. And now we're talking about that's. I mean, look, we all know their numbers are crazy, so, but that's a lot of eagles. So to get back to this, I don't wanna spend too much time on this because it's never ending. It just doesn't end. From the cables to the electrification, to current, to wind, to birds, to piping plovers, to dolphin, to, I mean, every kind of mammal, sea turtles all these things are being affected by what's happening and no one's doing anything about it. I know that every person listening to this, every single one, is opposed to it. No one could wanna have to break that inlet, head it for an overnight or a head it out early in the morning and have to deal and see industry in our oceans when we don't need it. We don't have to have it and it doesn't work. But again, I don't wanna get into that whole piece of it, because it'll go on forever and ever. But what I do wanna mention is you know this week was a tough week. We lost three whales this week, three whales that have been entertaining beachgoers along the South Shore, long Island and New Jersey since the bunker have arrived, which has been five to six years now. These whales were known. You know every whale has certain markings, whether it be on their tail or whatever, but these whales have been known to be seen feeding. We've probably seen them in drone footage or in video, and they're floating up on the beach dead. I want you to think about the last time you heard about a whale that was found on a beach dead this time of year. Think about it. It never happened. It doesn't happen. It's never happened before. Well, the day I went fishing with Rob oh no, I went I also went with Pete one day and on the way back he pointed out to me. I pointed to a survey ship and showed how it was hitting that area. If you look at the law, go, you go to myanglercom. I only post things that I know or fact, because a lot of times if you go on Facebook, you know people mean well, but they hear something for the first time. They don't realize it was posted the day before. Every single thing that I write, I check and fact check as well as I can. Obviously some things may fall through, but I can tell you right now the ship was working the area that killed this latest whale, there is no doubt about it, the whale that was putting on a show for beachgoers. That whale is dead Because of those survey ships. Now somebody's going to tell you oh, wasn't that was this, it was a virus, it was a boat strike. That's the one they love, boat strike. But what they don't tell you is from the pounding butt of the surveys and the sounds emitted from the surveys they send the whales into a state where they're in panic. They don't know what they're doing and that's why boat strikes would be up. But that whale, what strike? And that thing it was in? You know it was less than a hundred yards from the beach. There were no big boats in there. And where are the results? We've yet to hear about them. So look, I'm going to end it here. But you know this is. I am so disappointed in how people have given up. Where are the advocates? Where is everyone on? This? Is New Jersey, the only state that's fighting this. They actually have lawsuits in place. Where are we? Where's the rest of the coast? We need to organize. If we organized, we could at least slow it down. But the problem is this is not left. This is not right. Everybody thinks it's left. If it was left so far left, where's Greenpeace? It's not. It's left and it's right. I'm a registered Republican, but I'm not an idiot. This didn't happen when Joe Biden came into office. This should have been planned for years through the Trump administration starting a new Obama administration. Actually, the Bush administration was the first one to talk about it. So it's not left, it's not right. They want it for the money. It's all about money. Everything is about money, and it saddens me to the core to think that we are allowing this to happen to our oceans and our shoreline. We stopped the showroom. We long out on this. We stopped a five billion dollar building that was built already. I mean, yeah, are we paying for it? Yeah, but we did stop it. No one said we could. So I'm hoping somebody's gonna unite everyone. Someone needs to do it. I mean, I know I can't handle it. I got too much going on. Nor do. I feel I have that capability, but we do need to organize. I would help, I would be part of it, I would provide whatever they need. I may even do a podcast about it, because every day it's something else. I mean, yesterday one of those turbines went on fire over in somewhere in England, block Island. The rates they're announcing the rates are going up. I mean you know it's every day. Every day I wake up. You know I got all these Google alerts sent and all these different things, and every single day it's another story and it's not good and we're not doing anything about it. Okay, so much for that rant. So you know I do a lot of fishing. I enjoy fishing, I love fishing and you know I'd like to see long Islanders and New Yorkers become a part of fishing. And then you know, you start to see that some of these people you bring in they just don't get it, they just don't care and maybe they'd be better off not even fishing. And I'll give you an example of that. Today I got I get, like you know, I mean it goes out once every couple of weeks it's a report from the DEC on busts. You know that occurred and it's not just, you know they don't just handle fishing, they handle everything you know. So anything environmental, you know also hunting, obviously. I mean they do a lot, but it's hard to believe, like in one week. So I'm gonna give you a little rundown of what I got today. So on July 20th there was a board boated and they found over a hundred illegal fish. On July 22nd there was a another boat which was stopped and it was boarded, and they too were over the limit on just about every single thing you could think of. Then we have one on July 23rd. These police, the DEC officers, ended up having to chase these guys down because they, like, ran away, and when they caught them they find them with 24 fluke, with only two being of legal size. Now, these people shouldn't be fishing, they should be locked up. They make us all look bad. I'm gonna give you another real moron. They don't mention names, but I mean this guy's a moron, so he goes out, he, she, who knows. You know I don't wanna be accused of being anything, I'm not a sexist, could be a woman probably is come to pick about it. Anyhow, on July 26th, dec boards a vessel in Huntington Harbor and they're looking. You know, they ask if he's got any fish on board. Of course he's got no fish. And they go looking through the boat and all of a sudden, bam, there it is a 44 inch striped bass that they got like stopped somewhere, like they're not gonna find it. So you know, it's people like this that make it bad for everybody and they make us look bad, and I don't believe that they are the majority. Now, the one thing that I liked, that I I mean I like them all Anybody who's breaking the law should be busted. I mean, I'm the kind of guy where we get a fish on board a fluke and it's like right on the line. I'm always nervous. I mean they say if it's on the line, you're dying. So we'll keep that fish. But it's always in the back of my head. You know what happens, like if it shrinks or something you know. I don't know if it does, but what happens if it does? So but anyhow, so this one I really liked. So this was August 2nd, just a couple of weeks ago. We had a bunch of few offices that got word about a market out in Montauk that was selling illegal blackfish. They went there and, sure enough, they found a load of sea bass that were illegal and untagged blackfish. So you know, I have to say I get this thing like every couple of weeks for the latest, or maybe once a month, I'm not sure. But for the last number of years and this year they have never, I've never seen so many people busted, you know, on these type of regulations. Now, could that be playing into the fact that they want to hire more and use the potential sword, license money with it? I don't know. But all I know is I tell you there's a lot more people out there that are breaking the rules. Are they doing that because they feel tightened and squeezed? I don't know. But whatever it is, there is no excuse. You know, the law's the law, no matter how much you hate it. And yeah, I know I've spoken to those guys and I know those guys. Well, I'm gonna keep this and I'm gonna do that until somebody does this and you know what the law is the law. You don't like it, then don't fish. I mean, that's literally what it is. So, yeah, so that was this. That was just for a couple of weeks. So imagine what's going on each and every day. I would think I'd like to think it's not that bad. I know it's not that bad here because there's somebody fishing where I am, out in, out in Smithtown Bay. It's very, very few, so I doubt they're keeping anything. I doubt they're catching anything under over the limit. So, but there are people out there. Do they know? These people? Sure as heck knew, I mean, one was running away, the other one was selling them, the other guy had a hundred fish. So these people know that they're breaking the law and I feel they make it. I mean, look, they make us all look bad. They should be processed or prosecuted, rather, you know, to the fullest extent of the law. That is truly what I believe. So I mean that about wraps it up for this episode, folks. I just wanted to touch base. I'll probably do a couple more of these, but I do advise you to get out and, you know, cash in on that stripe, stripe-ass, on the fluke fishery while it's here, because I'm telling you there are a lot of fish, there are a lot of keepies and I do believe, like this is a perfect time for you to get that big double-digit fish, the one we're all looking for and the one you want to catch, before they outlaw you from keeping it Kind of like me. I never got that 50 pound bass. Not that I want to kill a 50 pound bass. I'm tired of you people emailing me calling me a bass killer. You don't know anything about me. Trust me, the people at Fisherville they would. They laugh when I tell them what you say. My point is we should be allowed to. I don't feel that a 50 pound bass is more important than three 30 pound bass. I'm sorry, a 50 pound bass, you don't have too much more to live, so, but anyhow, I want to save them all. I want to save the 50s, the 30s, the 20s, but at the same time, I want everything to be fair and I don't want to be treated as second-class citizens, as we almost always are. But again, you know, we're anglers, we're the stewards of the sea here, we're the people that really know what's going on and it's up to us whether or not all of our fisheries are gonna survive. That's the bottom line. So until next time, folks get out there oh, I always forget this Subscribe to this thing. All you have to do is I'm not sure, honestly, but subscribe to the podcast and then you'll get a notification each and every time that there's a new one. So until next time, get out there, cash in on some fishing. We're headed for the higher sea bass limit. Actually, we're at that higher sea bass limit? Oh, no, we're not. That's not gonna be until September or something. But anyway, check my website on that, because there's so many right, I can't remember everything. So just be sure to get in on some fishing. Stop by to NewYorkAnglercom, where you can meet and ask questions to some of the best anglers there are, not only in New York but on the entire East Coast. So thanks again, all for listening. Please tell your friends about the podcast and feel free to email me if there's a subject you want me to discuss, and I'd like to give a shout out to all my moderators over at MyAnglercom for doing a great job that they're doing. So until next time, tight lines.