October 23, 2002
Look What's for Dinner
By PETER KAMINSKY
VERY year around this time, the world's greatest wildlife migration
passes
by New York City. Whales, dolphins and tuna swim past on their way
south,
and monarch butterflies as brilliant as stained-glass windows are in
the
air. Ducks, geese, woodcocks and songbirds fly with them above waters
teeming with baitfish in uncountable billions and, best of all for the
hungry angler, bluefish and the local champion in pinstripes, the
striped
bass.
At times the bass off New York are so thick that they thump against
the
side of your boat with a tom-tom beat. And for the last two weeks, I
have
followed them from the northern part of Jamaica Bay, within 100 yards
of
the idling jets at Kennedy Airport, on past the churning tidal rip of
Breezy Point, through the Narrows and the windswept passage between
Liberty Island and Manhattan and on up the East River to the
Triborough
Bridge and beyond.
When I tell nonangling friends that I fish New York waters, every one
of
them asks the same question, as if I were slightly off my rocker: "You
mean you can eat those fish?"
To which I answer, "Yes, you can."
New York Harbor is the beginning of a fjord, or arm of the sea, that
surrounds Manhattan and has a tidal reach in the Hudson River that
extends
up to Troy, N.Y. Throughout that entire stretch the action of the
tides
flushes out the river and the harbor twice a day. Environmental
improvements since the passage of the Clean Waters Act of 2000 have
further improved the water, so that the state deems it swimmable even
at
the north end of Manhattan and fishable throughout the harbor.
Although I release 99 percent of the fish I catch � and encourage
everyone
to do the same � every now and then I get a great kick out of marching
down to the harbor, meeting my buddies in a boat and catching my
dinner,
the way the Indians did.
Last week, Frank Crescitelli, a local fishing guide and one of the
moving
forces in promoting angling in city waters, took me fishing off
Hoffman
Island, just south of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. A century ago,
this
granite outcropping served as a quarantine center for would-be
immigrants.
Only one striped bass came to the fly (too small to keep � the state
limit
is 29 inches). But Frank managed to hook a legal four-pound bluefish,
and
dinner was assured.
