We grew up on South Oyster Bay about five miles from the Captree Bridge across the Great South Bay. On summer mornings in our 15' Snipe I sailed east to the bridge in a light offshore breeze, then turned back west against the reliable southwesterly blow - rails buried, water pouring in through the leaky side deck, put it in irons, bail, and head off into the wind again. On a couple of occasions I made it to the Fire Island Inlet before heading back home.
In the evening our mother Clare would throw us boys out of the house to go fishing for snappers at the mouth of the canal across the street. The baby bluefish would wait off the point for schools of shiners, like the one that was skewered on a snelling hook below the red and white bobbin at the end of our bamboo poles.
So it was an occasion for reminiscing to visit Captree yesterday, seeing dozens of people (mostly Asian - men and women) fishing for snappers, perhaps a fluke or sea bass, or tossing a chicken baited crab trap into the waters at the eastern end of the Jones Beach Island where the ocean gushes into the Bay.
At the Captree State Park boat basin on the bay side a dozen 80 foot party boats vie to take out a dozen or so in these covid-constrained days to snag fluke and sea bass until the striper run starts later in the fall. The flocks of gulls hovering over the returning boats signal success as they wait for returning fishermen, cleaning their catch, to throw the scraps overboard. For fifty bucks the fluke boats will hand you a rod, rig, and bait then take you out for three hours of hoping for an 18 inch or better keeper or three.
- GWC
