This story, “Brooklyn, Whiting, and Heated Rails,” appeared in the January 1981 issue of Outdoor Life.
In Brooklyn, in the winter, on a day that broke Kodachrome bright, I boarded the good ship Atomic for a day’s fishing. The thermometer had dug in for a goal line defense on the short side of 30, and the wind coughed out of the northwest, cold and punishing. I wished I had brought along a six-pack of Sterno.
If it were May, there would have been a lot more fares. The rest of the Sheepshead Bay party boat fleet would have been long gone. But it wasn’t May and the fleet rode at anchor. Winter’s harvest was lean for the party boat captain. We were the hard core. Twenty-six of us had paid $18 a head for an excursion that promised to combine the comforts of ice fishing with the joys of seasickness. Ah, Brooklyn, where the faithful still root for the traitorous Dodgers.
There were fish to be caught — whiting. The whiting is a small beast, so insignificant that I’d be surprised if it had a Latin name. A Latin abbreviation would be more like it. But in that part of the world, at that time of year, the whiting is the only game in town. It’s a fish that you go fishing for, and if you live to fish, which I do, then “there ain’t no bad.”
I was there to fill my pail, but more important, to play hooky. Hooky, you recall from your school days, is a two-part operation. Part one involves not being where you’re supposed to be. Part two, the critical part, requires that you fritter away the better part of the day in ungainful pursuit. There are a lot of ways for grown-ups to play hooky. You can hit the bars and drink your way through soap operas. You can go to the movies alone and hope that you’re not mistaken for one of the raincoat crowd. You can go to the track and watch next month’s rent forget where his legs are in the back stretch. Or you can go fishing — far away from the telephone, the insurance adjustor, newspapers, subways, pollution, noise and all the other pleasures of the Big Apple.
Hooky, you recall from your school days, is a two-part operation. Part one involves not being where you’re supposed to be. Part two, the critical part, requires that you fritter away the better part of the day in ungainful pursuit.
The engines start, twin diesels, 1,200 horsepower’s worth. We glide away from the dock past the other party boats — the Apache, the Enterprise and the Brooklyn. The old Eagle isn’t around anymore. Her captain works for the oil companies. More money in it. All you do is motor out 100 miles and wait for something to go wrong on the oil platform. If things get messy you evacuate everybody and head for home. You save a lot on fuel bills, parked that way. I miss the Eagle like I miss the Dodgers.
Breezy Point lies to the left. On our right, Kingsborough Community College, sunwashed and angular, looks out of place in tired, old Brooklyn. As we reach open water, the morning sun catches the top of the parachute jump at Coney Island. Captain Jerry hits the throttle. I feel good. The G-force sends my coffee sloshing over the top of my cup. The hot liquid stings me out of my reverie. A Dutchman named Lou rhapsodizes the joys of flyfishing to the old black gentleman across the table. The old man says, “Yep, freshwater fishing can be fun,” hoping to put an end to the conversation. He has a desperate look in his eyes that I last saw when a Hari Krishna preacher buttonholed my agent outside a Japanese restaurant on Madison Avenue. We’ve got a two hour run ahead of us, and the old man isn’t prepared for a nonstop harangue from a born-again flyrodder.
I am, sort of. “What’s a flyrodder doing on a head boat?” I ask.
“What else you gonna do now?” Good answer.
In back of me, a pretty Asian woman wakes with a start. Her coffee has invaded the table too. She wears a funny little patch that says Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club.
“Vietnamese?”
“No.”
“What did you come for today?”
“Dinner.” More good answers.
There are a few others under 65 on board, but most of my shipmates have reached the point in life that condominium promoters call the golden age. This is their boat, their clubhouse. Tom greets Sal and Sal greets Abe and everybody knows everybody’s grand children’s first names. They’re the year-round party boaters. They can’t afford high-priced charters. They’re glad if the day’s catch saves them a few dollars at dinner time, but mostly they like one another’s company.
Take away the gray hairs and the stubble from their faces, and they look like a bunch of preschoolers bundled up by mom for a romp in the snow — galoshes, ear flaps and about eight layers of jackets and pants. Red noses and rosy cheeks heighten the effect, al though these last owe a debt to Demon Rum. At least I surmise it’s Demon Rum. Maybe it’s Demon Four Roses or Chateau Bath Tub. I can’t tell because no one drinks from a proper whiskey bottle. Pops No. 1 takes a furtive pull on a small jar labeled Gerber’s Baby Food. Pops No. 2 resorts to a bottle that once held a year’s supply of Vitamin E. Each smacks his lips and emits a satisfied sigh — something you never see a grown man do after he’s eaten baby food or Vitamin E.
The conversation is all fishing.
Pops No. 1: “Two hours to the Klondike. Krikee. When I was a kid you could scoop the whiting out of the surf at Coney Island.”
Pops No. 2: “When you were a kid, Coney Island belonged to the Iroquois.”
Everybody laughs. Someone says fishing has fallen off lately. Someone else blames it on the Russians. The conversation peters out and the New Jersey coast slips by at 18 knots.
Nap time. I dream that Woody Allen is catching salmon on a dry fly under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. My grandfather looks on approvingly. He’s dressed in my old snowsuit and smells of sweet vermouth and diesel oil. I turn to tell him that I can catch salmon too, but I never get the chance, because the Dutchman nudges me awake.
We’re almost there. In the distance I see a half-dozen boats, much like our own. The torpor of the long voyage evaporates. We’re excited. Everybody has one thought – all those boats in one place can only mean good fishing.
The mate comes down from the bridge and tells us that Captain X already has a hogshead and a half. I’m tempted to ask what a hogshead is, but everyone else seems to feel that a hogs head and a half is a good sign. What ever it is, I let it lie. The engines slow. We leave the cozy cabin and walk to our places on the rails. My rod is at the bow, not a great spot but I got to the ship late and that’s the way it goes.
I drop three baited hooks and 10 ounces of lead into a 110 feet of water. Hot water flows through the rails that circle the boat. The water below looks cold. The wind is cold. I’m cold but I don’t care. I’m fishing and the Dutchman is fishing and the two deer hunters from Poughkeepsie are fishing and things are just fine, thank you.
The old guys start to pick fish off the ridge. Someone in the back has a doubleheader. I figure it’s time I checked my bait, and when I reel up I find a whiting at the end of the line. Hell of a fighting fish, whiting.
Pops No. 1 and I start to converse as the fishing slows down. He observes that fishing for whiting closes the circle on the year.
“How do you figure that?” I ask.
“Well, in the spring you got your flounder and your mackerel. And then your sea bass come in and your blackfish come up [a blackfish is a local species that looks like a beat-up dolphin left in the gutter on a rainy night]. The blues start running in June and the fluke show up around then too. Maybe some weakfish here and there. That gets you through till fall, when you catch your striper run, if there is one, and that finishes things off except for the whiting.”
“But Pops No. I,” I say, “this is February, the beginning of the year.
Wouldn’t you say that whiting starts the year off?”
He looks at me just like a man who has discovered that his prize puppy is an untrainable moron.
“Look here, sonny. I enjoy the spring and the flounder a lot more than I enjoy the winter and the whiting. When a man reaches my age, he doesn’t care when he starts and finishes the year just so long as he gets through it. Flounder’s the beginning. Whiting’s the end. Get it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.”
The captain honks the horn. “Lines up, fellas,” he says. “Let’s go find some fish.”
He has a point. The whiting have become as scarce as congressmen with consciences. We all reel up, tie our poles in place and troop back to the warmth of the cabin.
“Close the damn door,” screams the keeper of the galley. Maybe he reasons that we’ve paid for the cold and it would be unfair for him to use it up. Or it just might be that he doesn’t care for the draft that is gusting through the cab in, leaving a film of ice on the pea soup kettle. In as much as he is also the keeper and dispenser of beer, we all snap to and close the door.
We motor to another spot, catch a few more fish and move on. The wind and tide have started to work in concert. The deck pitches like a drunk kangaroo. I look around. No one is sea sick. Like I said, winter fishermen are pretty hard-core.
In order to hold bottom, which is where the whiting are, I am now fishing 18 ounces of lead, hoping to catch a 16-ounce fish. I feel pretty silly, but I remember that yesterday on the Tampa a 2-pounder took a $94 pool.
Nothing doing down below.
The captain hits the horn three times. Quitting time. Nobody puts up much of an argument. It’s been fun but no Roman orgy. It’s real cold now and the cabin is warm. Most of us have caught dinner and things are pretty jake.
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On the way home, I reflect about what Pops No. 1 said about closing the circle on the year. I realize that even New York City is part of the natural world. On the land the nature experience is pretty much confined to pigeons and cockroaches. It’s different on the ocean. The fluke and flounder and blacks and blues have cruised the coast of Brooklyn ever since God divided the waters above from the waters below. The shad and stripers that course the Hudson don’t really know, or care, if they swim by tepees or high-rises. For now, at least, things underwater are pretty much the way they’ve always been, and ocean fishing off New York City keeps you in touch.
I like that.
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