646 
F C) K E S T A X D ST R E A 
October, 1919 
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FISHING AT MONTAUK 
WHERE, WHEN AND HOW TO CAST FOR BLUE FISH 
AND STRIPED BASS AT THE END OF LONG ISLAND 
By Dr. H. H. THORP 
AVING seen several in- 
quiries about fishing 
at Montauk I thought 
some Forest and 
Stream readers might 
like to hear of con- 
ditions there. Most 
articles on any par- 
ticular place are not 
definite as to place or 
exact enough as to 
conditi-ns to enable a 
stranger to go there 
with any chance of getting fish. Here 
and now I propose to remedy that as to 
Montauk, so your readers who know how 
to cast can get blue fish and bass there. 
The writer thought he knew Montauk 
thoroughly by having fished there by trol- 
ling and still fishing from power boats 
off the Point for three summers. At 
times that kind of fishing was very good, 
beginning the third week in May with 
the pollack and ending in Octobet with 
the run of large bluefish. Of course 
there was little sport in hauling in fish 
from a moving power boat with a hand 
line, but once Captain L. and I landed 
and sold to the dealers at Fort Pond 
Bay seventeen hundred and sixty pounds 
of pollack, this being for some time the 
record for two men in one day. As to 
leaping tuna (which never leap when 
hooked) or horse mackerel they were a 
nuisance. They ran from twenty to 
forty pounds and there being no market 
for them eight years ago, we turned them 
loose. Captain L. called them “Billy- 
goats” and hated them because when a 
big one hit one of our trolling jigs it 
was good-bye to that jig and line. 
Of bluefish we caught a fair number 
at times, getting most of our fish be- 
tween sunrise and nine A. M., that be- 
ing the time bluefish feed on the grounds 
around Montauk. Occasionally by run- 
ning as close to the rocky shore line as 
we dared and throwing a jig on the end 
of a trolling line towards the rocks we 
would catch a rather large striped bass. 
That was what started me fishing for 
striped bass at Montauk. 
Having caught these fish still fishing 
and trolling at certain places, I turned 
up at Montauk with what in my ignor- 
ance I thought was the proper outfit, 
namely a light, short butt rod and plenty 
of fine shedder crabs and white worms. 
From the Inn at Fort' Pond Bay where 
I stopped we drove out to the Point and 
started fishing at a cove called Stony 
Brook. There was a heavy surf on, 
which bothered me a lot when casting 
and trying to keep the bait out when 
cast and I didn’t get one strike. 
P RESENTLY a car stopped near 
where I was fishing and two men, 
G and J, who also were staying at 
the Inn and whose catch of striped bass 
and bluefish I had wondered at the day 
before, came and after asking if I had 
caught anything remarked: “Think it 
will be right about one o’clock” and de- 
parted. About one they returned and 
I got my first surprise. Instead of fish- 
ing in the nice deep cove where I had 
been feeding expensive crabs and worms 
to black fish and other bottom vermin 
J waded out on the left hand point as 
far as he could go and not drown and 
proceeded to “shoot them out” using a 
spring butt serf casting rod and block 
tin jig and reeling the moment the jig 
hit tlie water. Inside of one hour I saw 
him hook and helped him land nine blue- 
fish averaging seven pounds apiece. Then 
that other expert G, who had been quietly 
seated, smoking a cigar, remarked: “I 
think I will get a bass” and proceeded to 
amble out to the extreme tip of the right 
hand point and then to hook and land 
a striped bass of about fifteen pounds. 
Then they gathered up their fish and 
motored off and I sat on a rock and 
“said things” to the “Cat.” The latter 
I ought to explain being a Chesapeake 
Bay dog whose real business in life 
is to retrieve ducks but who thinks 
he has to accompany me on all fishing 
trips to help land fish, and does. Re- 
alizing I had struck something new in 
fishing, the next morning I asked G and 
J to show me and taking pity on my ig- 
norance they, like good sportsmen, took 
me along and showed me how to catch 
bass at Montauk. 
Later, through the kindness of a 
friend, I became possessed of a proper 
casting outfit and spent odd moments all 
one summer practising casting on the 
beach at Southampton. I never caught 
anything, much to the amusement of my 
fellow townspeople who could not under- 
stand why I persistently cast where they 
knew there were no fish. Finally the 
day came when I could get 150 feet 
measured on a lawn. Then I went to 
Montauk and at a place called Mor- 
gan’s, caught one fish weighing 26% 
pounds which, beautifully mounted by 
Mulgatroid, I can see as I write, one 
fish of 19 pounds and one of 12 pounds. 
L ast summer I could only get three 
trips of a day each and did not land 
a fish, although I hooked and played 
two, one large bass and a good blue- 
fish. The latter amazed me by jumping 
out of the water like a small tarpon. 
This I learned they do if hooked in shal- 
low water. I had caught hundreds troll- 
ing and chumming, but I never saw a 
bluefish do this before. At last the day 
came when I got even with old Mr. 
Striped Bass, but the middle of October 
came before I could get away. Then one 
cloudy day, on the tail end of a north- 
easter, the “Cat” and I started in my 
auto for Bass Camp, a small shack we 
have on the Point, driving the forty 
miles over the new road recently built. 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 575) 
