Saltwater Adventures   

Not having fished much this summer because of a bad back, as soon as mobility returned, Betsy Miraglia invited several of the club members to her place in Stone Harbor for a little fishing fun. Late summer schedules being crammed with all manner of distractions regrets were offered by all but yours truly. Thus it came about that I spent three glorious days exploring Stone Harbor’s hot fishing spots with the ever fun and energetic Betsy.

Things got off to a delicious if slow start. After gorging ourselves on lobster and Caesar salad preparatory to a night of fishing we were treated to a post preandial display of lightening all across the western horizon. Prudently we delayed fishing until the storm passed several hours later.  The fish apparently having been put off their feed by the storm were entirely uncooperative that night. Well after midnight not even the severely fishing deprived Betsy was willing to lose another moment of sleep waiting for the return of the truant fish. Off to bed and up at dawn. Our schedule had set itself. There was to be little sleep until the pursued were caught. 

We set off for the back bay sod banks bright and early the next morning. For our efforts we were richly rewarded with packs of blitzing snappers traveling up and down the coastline like so many ravenous piranhas.  Lots of fun, these fish bit anything in front of them. My only regret was that I didn’t have light tackle with me to more enjoy the fun. Oh, I did also regret that we managed to kill one of the little buggers trying to use a Boga grip (the grip being bigger than the fish) while trying to remove a hook without losing a finger. Fortunately for the snapper population, although there was no shortage thereof, a kindly fellow fisher advised us on the proper handling of the small carnivores. 

After a day of great fun with the snappers, it was decided that we absolutely had to catch a striped bass. Now if you have heard anything of fishing conditions at the Jersey shore this year you would know that we had set ourselves a difficult task. We recognized that help would be required so we set off to hire Captain Joe Hughes to take us out on his really nice new Key West boat for the evening. Joe is a personable and knowledgeable young man and, in addition to giving me some much needed help with my casting, he did do his damnedest to put us where the fish were. Unfortunately the snappers ruled the evening. There was to be no striper for us on this night.

After having parted company with Joe at about 11 PM we returned to Betsy’s place for a late supper of sandwiches and wine. I don’t recall how it came about, but I eventually took notice of Betsy standing quietly at the foot of her fixed dock staring into the water. Joining her I marveled at the sight of at least a dozen very large weakfish swimming about in the dock light while casually feeding on the bait collected there. Boy, was I excited. But, this was no place for a fly rod, especially in my inexperienced hands. So, being ever pragmatic, I broke out the spinning gear at about the same time Betsy decided she needed a hot shower. Now, I know that I have mentioned my novice status on more than one occasion, so it was with a mild panic that I received the news of Betsy’s impending shower. “What,” I pleaded,  “ am I to do if I actually hook one of these big boys.” “Use the net” was Betsy’s, to my mind, somewhat cavalier reply. In any event, she had no sooner stepped into the shower when I proceeded to hook one of the monsters. After a brief panic I managed to keep the weakie on the hook until I felt it was sufficiently tired for the net, but failed to keep him on the hook while trying to use the net. Common sense should have advised a step down onto the floating dock, but common sense had long since departed. Anyway, the fish having been lost, I was disconsolate on Betsy’s return. I did get my big weakie that night, and, despite being fervent in my catch and release mentality, I did take this one home for dinner. More wine and to bed.

Next day Betsy got it into here head that nothing would do other than to rent a small motor boat and explore. “Oh boy,” I thought, “we can really get ourselves into some trouble here.” Now Betsy is not inexperienced in matters of the sea so I put my fate in her hands and trust in her good judgment and proceeded to board the small and, to my eye, fragile craft. OK, I’m writing this story so it’s no surprise that we survived. She even persuaded me to drive (Is that the correct term?) the boat despite my protestations at the lack of lane lines on the water’s surface. On this day I was even introduced to the sport of crabbing. I noted with admiration how just minutes after tossing a fish head over the side of the boat Betsy pulled up a fine fat crab. I excitedly phoned Tim telling him that not only had I caught our dinner, we had just procured the appetizer. The ease and speed of the initial procurement caused me to believe that we would have dozen or so of the tasty crustaceans in short order. NOT! Only one more fellow was forthcoming despite a full day on the water.

It was late in the day so I headed home after a quick hello to the recently returned Julian (Betsy’s husband). I was so glad to see Tim I gave him a big hug and kiss while graciously receiving his comments about my aroma. It seems that I arrive home pretty stinky after some of my outings. Ask me about dead possum on the underside of a roadster sometime.

- Donna Trexler - 
 Fall 2001 Issue