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Fishin’ with Crazy Al
Surfrats Editorial #9 Part 2
By Paul Melnyk
12-3-07

Fishin’ with Crazy Al Part Two


The False Bar. It was deserted. The wind was in our faces… 15-20 mph. There was a great sweep as the tide and waves surged towards Point. The formula was complete… Where are the fish? Where are the googans?

We stepped into the surf, maybe twenty yards apart and waist deep into the wash.

“Put on the secret weapon….”

I made one cast with the secret weapon… I felt a bump...

“THEYA… HEEYA….”

“I…. KNOWWW…..”


Off to my right I heard Al start to shout. “I’m into big fish, bub!”. Al talks in a staccato voice when he bets excited. His words sound like they are coming out of a type writer.

At this point my own tip was pulled into the crest of an incoming swell. We had found the fish and they were of substantial quality. We were both drawn by our fish down the beach towards the eastern rocks where we landed them a few yards apart. I looked down at Al’s fish, which was a twin of my own catch.

“My fish is bigger…”

“You’re full of crap!”

“We high-tailed it back to the honey hole. I arrived first and stepped purposefully into the water. [Alberto’s last perch is on my agenda.] He splashed into the wash behind of me ….

“Get off my spot, you Goog!”

“I don’t see no name on it!”

We stood elbow to elbow, casting, hooking up and fighting big bass for an hour, all of them twenties and thirties. By the time the bite slowed down, we each had caught ten fish.

“How many did you catch?”

“Ten, how ‘bout you?”

“Twelve”

“No wait… I had fourteen…”

“Oh, you are soo full of crap!”

“Yeah, well so are you!”

We were both tired and thirsty as we retired to the truck for a smoke.

“Well, that was fun.” I said, taking a pull on my cigerette.

“The fish have moved, Bub.”

“Let’s go!”

We moved all the way to the point, stopping every few yards and casting. The tide had changed and the fish had boogied. It is amazing how fast they could disappear.

“This side is dead. Wadaya think about the flood on the south side?”

“Some big stuff there too. It will take a while to get there. Give the tide a chance to turn.”

“Let’s go!”

We hit the get-on road and made for the south side. The temperature was falling. There was a thin layer of frost forming on the inside of the windshield as we steamed up the cab with hot breath and wet waders. We passed a fox as we crossed the highway. It looked at us like it owned the place.

“Where to?” Al asks, as we pulled away from the Point.

“Let’s go deep…”

Going deep. Deep south. The Land of the Giants…..

We drove for several miles and turned off the road onto an abandoned country lane, at which point we parked the truck and made for the ocean. Fences, Gates and “No Trespassing” signs greeted us at every bend in the road. I hate the damned things. The ocean is my cathedral. Churches are always open. When I see a sign or a fence, I ignore it. We grabbed our gear again and climbed a fence onto an old dirt lane.

“Don’t worry, I know this guy.” I said. In truth, I didn’t even know the owner’s name. Montauk locals have there own designs about private property. I had been passing through these woods for my entire life. As a kid, I walked through these trees picking blackberries and wild apples with my mother. As a teenager, my pals and I would raise hell back here. Now, I just don’t care about these ridiculous signs and warnings. In the small hours of the morning, they are superfluous. These woods are mine. I will not let any weekend/summer Wall Street, Lawyer, Usurer, Geek keep me from my favorite grounds, especially at 3am. Don’t get me wrong fellas, I can get away with this because like myself, my truck is notorious. You, on the other hand, will get a ticket, or worse, towed.

“Shhhh… Be vewey, vewey quiwet….. Wew’re wabbit huntin’! Ha,a,a,a,a,a,h!”

“You’re a freakin’ lunatic!”

“Yes! And don’t you forget it!”

“The woods are lonely, dark and deep” (Sorry, I couldn’t resist) as we pushed through the low foliage of a deer trail towards the sound of the breakers. The smell of over-ripe grapes and fallen leaves drifted up through the soft loam.

“I took Pope through here once. Ya know what he said? This sure looks like a good place for a murder…”

“Shut. UP, you Goog…”

Pope Noel is one of my previous cohorts. Pope most definitely is a nut.

“What’s that!”

I stopped dead in the path. I heard the soft shuffle of hooves moving through the underbrush, heading straight for us. I once had a run in with a ten point buck one morning. It was rather exciting. The bushes to our left parted.

“What the…” Alberto said as a spotted fawn about four feet tall popped her head out of the briars. She was a late summer foal. It would be hard for her come the winter. So young… So fragile…

“SHOO!” I said, as I waved my flashlight and rod at the little beastie. She turned away and danced into the foliage.

“Wow”

“Yeah…”

Reaching the bluff, we had to climb down the face of a hundred foot slope. The mist from the surf hit the shear face and drifted about halfway up. We had to take careful steps. The rocks were loose, causing us to slide the last twenty feet to the base. The beach was rocky, with great spires of solid clay climbing high up the sides of the cliff face, like giant sentinels.

Mon-a-way-tauk is what the Indians called this country. This translates roughly into “the land of many winds”. These cliffs told that tale. A field of weathered boulders extended in every direction at the base of the headland, particularly into the foamy surf. Bass water. At the high tide line the beach was thick with flotsam. Fat grey branches and logs of driftwood were tumbled together at the base of the escarpment, competing with seaweed and broken lobster traps for what little space was available.

“Oh man, does this look fishey!”

I pushed out to one of the far rocks to cast with a needlefish. The waves would sweep past me, every so often hitting me in the waist with a high curl. My hands were freezing and I was getting wet.

“Holy Shit! Look down into the water!” Al shouted to me from his rock.

I could see six-inch long squid darting among the rocks below me. The bite was soon to be…

Sure enough, we were back into the fish. Al held up a bas of around thirty pounds and slipped it back into the surf. As the sky brightened in the gloaming, we had taken twelve more fish. I saw Al come out of the water with a little one. Cold and wet, I joined him against the bluff where he was busy with his knife.

“What are you doin’ with that rat?”

“We’re gonna eat it. Go light a fire!”

I’ve been a pyromaniac since I was about ten years old. I never needed an excuse to light a campfire and I didn’t need one now, cold and wet as I was. In ten minutes, I had a nice blaze going in a rock enclosure. I stood next to the blaze watching the steam form on my gloves and waders. As Al finished cleaning the fish, I found a flat slate to use as a cook-top at the surf-line. Squid were washing onto the sand. They were still wiggling. I harvested a handful.

“Hey look, Al! Calamari!”

The fillet-of-bass was put onto the hot slab, scale sides down and sticks were inserted into our squids. I circled the Kabobs around the pit. Not to close. Squid cooks fast. The smoky fire had turned that slate into a hot griddle. The bass flesh turned white. The squids took on a golden brown. We had a gourmet meal in short order. We picked at the bass like a couple of ‘coons and ate the squidzies-on-a-stick. The mélange of flavor was extraordinary. Oh! For a bottle of Montrachet!

The blaze was only about a foot high as we completed our nosh and picked our teeth with fine bass bones.

“The fire is going out, Bub.” Al said to me with a maniacal gleam in his eye. I think Al is also a bit into fire….

In 15 minutes, we had quite a few good sized logs and stumps burning. The flames leapt the cliff wall as those orange and golden tendrils flickered high into the early light. Great billows of smoke climbed into the sky.

Sunrise. The sun began as an orange mushroom on the horizon. Deep purple clouds floated on the vista. Their edges were tinged in orange and red stripes. Our fire was roaring and we were finally dry. Blessed with a second wind, it was time for me to make a few more casts so I waded out to my rock and threw a bucktail at the waves. Nothing… Al watched me cast with his back to the fire.

“Hey! What the HELL are YOU doing down there! Are you trying to set MY property on FIRE!”

Ah oh… Ritchie Rich had awaken early and was now on the war path…. He shimmied down the cliff in his Searsucker blazer and topsiders to confront Al at the campfire.

“Are you MAD! Do you KNOW how much smoke you have made!”

“Hey, HOLD ON THERE FELLA! This fire was there when I got here… I’m just TRYIN’ TO PUT IT OUT ‘IS ALL.” Al managed to say this with a straight face.

In that instant, I was so proud! Alberto had finally become a Montaukett! Don’t take NO shit from out-of-townies.

I had now stepped out of the water and rallied to Alberto’s defense. “Is there a problem here?” I guess there must be something intimidating about a 230 pound, muscle bound, balding dude with tattoos because Ritchie Rich took a few steps back as I reached the scene…

“Ehemmm… Well…. Put it out before the fire department is called….” With this, Ritchie stormed away, rather indignantly… His topsiders were now quite dusty and he had scuffed the leather patches on his elbows….

It took us five minutes to dowse the inferno. We had to roll the larger pieces to the surf. They sailed like steaming ships. Fire extinguished, we hurried up the face of the bluff and made for the truck at an increased pace.

We had expected to find the police and fire brigade waiting at the road, but Montauk is slow on a Monday morning in the fall. We did find a note stuck under my windshield wiper that said:

“Marshall, tow this truck to Riverhead at the owner’s expense.”

Ritchie Rich…
At this point we made our get-away. We dove back to Paulie’s Tackle to pick up Al’s truck. Paulie was there opening up the shop. He is always anxiously waiting for that slammer to weigh in at dawn. A biggun will add another $5,000.00 to his gross for the week.

“Hey! If it ain’t Crazy Al and Schmednick! D’ja get anything last night?”

Al looks Paulie, straight in the eye.

“Nah…. It was dead out there Bub…”
(c)Paul Melnyk 2007, written exclusively for Surfrats.com

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