June 23rd
A bucket of clams, and a few rigs.... We dropped down and had instant head shakes and pokes at the bait. One by one we reeled up on some nice sized Black Sea Bass, hand over fist filling up the box and easily limiting out. I had the hot rod of the day, and just couldn't keep them off me, but JJ came up big with a nice sized knucklehead for the win. Uncle Steven did a great job hustling up his share of keepers and keeping the crew in stitches, with play by play commentary.
Not being greedy we decide to pull up anchor and try our luck on the bunker schools which were everywhere and as big as football fields. JJ threw the treble hook at the huge black swarms crashing the surface, and live lined a few on the outside hoping the Stripers were under them somewhere, but no luck.
Only planning on being out for a few hours to catch some sun, we ran down the beach to the mouth of the inlet and gave the fluking a shot. A few short drifts, turned up no keepers but plenty of shorts as we decide to call it a day, head back, clean up and settle in for our Mako BBQ with good friends, family and Uncle Capt. Big Johns Birthday.
Sometimes, these short half day trips, with no pressure turn out to be some of the best days....
Any day on the salt is a great day, but being around friends, and family with the sun on your face, cold beer in your hand, and my briar pipe in my teeth, force me to remember whats important.... Enjoying life for the now, and never letting the good be swept away by the tide of the bad.
Happy Birthday Uncle John.
-Marco
June 21st 2012
Mako! Mako! Mako! Those were the last words I remember, all the other details are a blur.
Every shark trip starts the same, with 3 days of preparation. Humping 5, 20 gallon barrels of fuel down to the boat, hunting down bluefish in the bay till the wee hours of the night, tying wire leaders, frequent trips to Rip Some Lip Tackle, studying charts and water temps, and giving the boat a good once over.
Come the night before and we're all damn near exhausted already, but sleep is a futile attempt when you have shark on the brain.
It was 3:45am and my alarm clock started to sing, time to fish! Amazing how I can never drag myself outta bed for work, but on 4hrs sleep I could leap from my slumber to go fishing. John John and Big John were already awake and loading the truck and In 10 mins we were on our way.
The morning air was thick with summers heated humidity and the sun hadn't come up, as we set sail 30 miles South East on our charted course.
By 5:30 we dumped our first pot of chum over the gunnel and set our drift to the wind. It wasn't long before the Blue Sharks showed up and set the reels a whizzing. JJ got him to the boat, cutting the leader and setting him free. By that time the chum pot had spread a nice chunk slick behind the boat and the Gorilla Bluefish started chomping at anything we threw down. In wait we threw some light tackle over the side and wrangled a few extra Bluefish into the box for bait. I was on the chum grinder working the ladle pot when a fin surfaced about 30 yards behind the boat. Mako in the slick! Continuing to work the pot, sadly no lines rang out.
By that time all the fair weather folks started showing up, and with that comes trouble, lack of knowledge or courtesy resulted in 5 boats running right through our slick. That was enough, one fish ran off, the chum bucket running out fast and other boats cutting off our slick gave us plenty of reason to pull in and move.
Still early in the day we ran another 7 miles east to our secondary spot and found 2 other boats sitting right on our spot, discouraged but not defeated we set up 2 miles south and started in again on the chum grinder, chunking and pot shaking.... Working feverishly in the mid days heat, we lost track of the rods till one went reeling off in a fury. FISH ON! We had been set up and working the water all of 30 minutes when the reel started whizzing. I jumped on my TLD, just as JJ yelled....MAKO!
Only this time he was on the hook and jumping straight out of the water. I worked him and he worked me, spooling out line and trying to break free, every bit of line I took in, he took back. A constant tug of war took place, as Big John got the boat in gear and worked his magic on the wheel keeping him from landing in the boat with every jump.
With both the fish and I tired, JJ took the rod as I prepared the harpoon, but this shark wasn't done, he ran another 3 times on JJ before we finally wore him down and were able to get our hands on the wire leader. JJ opted for the flying gaff, and stuck him perfectly behind the gills, as we frantically secured a tail rope. Not an easy task for a 3 man crew but everyone knew their role and played them well.
With tail rope cleated, it was officially our shark to claim, and time to celebrate! We worked 3 days, in constant preparation to be able to hang this fish on the gunnel, and with great smiles we set sail for home. Grinning ear to earn and constant elation we pointed our vessel North West and headed for port, cracked a beer and laid back happily exhausted.
Special Thanks to My Big Brother James, for getting me into this great sport, I don't know if his methods of teaching/yelling at me are all that, but his voice in my head "square up to the fish, reel down on him, don't square reel!" paid off in getting our first big Mako to the boat.
Big John Orena, Thank you for putting up with us 2 idiots, getting up early to cook, prepare lunch, run the boat and always getting us home safe. Thanks Capt!
And a Huge Thanks to Mike "Archie Bunker" Falco at Rip Some Lip Tackle in Freeport NY for the constant, motivation, advice, slimy bunker and great service. Without a good tackle shop with knowledgeable owners fishing would be a lot harder of a task then it already is. Enjoy the Steaks!!!
-Never say Die...Marco
June 8th 2012
Yesterday was our maiden sharking voyage of 2012 aboard our 26 Center Console "Banished", We set out of Jones inlet due 31 miles south of the inlet over some natural pieces 3 miles east of the HA buoy...The crew consisted of Big John"pops", Uncle Steven Milano, Capt. JJ"me" and first mate Marco who did a hell of a job handling these big fish... We started our slick around 7 am and started off the day with a dog shark problem but after a hour or so the blue sharks showed up in full force and got bigger as the day went on... It was nonstop action on these fish and the majority ranged between 150 to 300 lbs which is not the normal size for your spring shark run.. We didn't get our Mako or Thresher we had no shot with 5 to 10 big!!! blue sharks surrounding our boat, bumping it ,biting our props and chum buckets it was definitely not the day for a swim to cool off... The last shark of the day was around 300 lbs and took a hour or so to get to the boat, it was one tough blue dog and actually bent the seat of our penn international 50 wide and after that it was around 2 pm and we decided to head for the barn... What a nice first trip it turned out to be , it oiled up the crew for the next trip and that big mako / thresher we will be looking for, now off to the chiropractor and the tackle shop to re-rig btw a special thanks to Mike Falco "Rip Some Lip Tackle" in Freeport for hooking us up with the bait/chum....
Tight lines JJ
Sept 26th 2011
The Montauk Bass bite is on!!!! We fished live eels over the rips and got 5 fish over 40 inches on a half day trip.....
Closer to home the bass fishing in the inlet is heating up, Marco put a nice keeper in the boat last night so we will be hitting it hard this week.... Make sure you check out the store for the new Tshirt designs that are now available for purchase.... Tight lines JJ
