Legends of the Salt... Living Legends thread
The Living Legends
When we think about the evolution of surf fishing, many legendary characters come to mind.
From the humble beginnings of their heavy surf sticks paired with conventional reels and a few bucktails and tin squids, surf fishermen have come a long way.
If there was such Hall of Fame for East Coast surfcasters, who would be in it?
Who would you like to see in it?
Who stands out in your mind as a character who either contributed to surf fishing in some significant way or is one of the remarkable present day surf fishermen ?
Vito Orlando of the Farragut Striper club
Vito Orlando is an institution at Montauk. There was one post on Melnyk's site where they described the "Vito Orlando death march" out to fish the night tides. I would nominate him.
http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=247680
http://www.27east.com/assets/news.Column/CB_In1.gif
Publication: The East Hampton Press & The Southampton Press
Nov 24, 09 9:58 AM
http://www.27east.com/assets/news.Ar...feast2_new.jpg Vito Orlando's 32-pound striper was one of the larger fish taken off the beach last week.
see all images
The topsy-turvy surf scene continued this week.
For the sixth week in a row, stiff east winds had the fish biting in the suds—nothing unusual about that, certainly. But rather than heading for the bluffs or Jones Reef or the revetment under the Montauk lighthouse when the seas piled up, the parades of beach vehicles bristling with surf sticks were on the sand again, as they have been since the New York Football Giants started their miserable losing streak (hopefully the fish won’t reverse their parallel trend).
And instead of the thundering cavalry of vehicles roaring down the beach after moving schools of fish, with tight knots of anglers leap-frogging each other east and west, the picket lines were more or less stationary again this week and, in civilized manner, spread far and wide along miles of beach. Except for isolated tangles when the fish seemed to be focused on a spot, elbow room was abundant.
A sure sign of the apocalypse: Some of Montauk’s local patrol (not the legion of visitors that somehow qualify for the “Montauk Locals” surf fishing tournament these days, mind you), commonly loath to peek beyond the sands of Napeague, were even seen roaming the beaches of parts west.
This week’s fishing was definitely the most steady and widespread of the last 30-plus days since the sand eels moved into the surf zone in earnest. Almost every size class of fish has been represented on the hook this week, from the 10-inch micros to fish into the mid and high 30-pound range. Amagansett’s beaches have seen the most fish and most of the big ones, largely thanks to their propensity to remain fairly clean when the winds churn up the ocean, but Bridgehampton, Southampton, Ponquogue and WHD have all seen their share of the action this week. As long as the east winds continue, and the weather stays mild, the fish are probably going to be pretty reliable.
1 Attachment(s)
Crazy Alberto, Crazy Alberto Knie
I nominate Crazy Alberto. I have seen him at a few seminars last year. He always seems approachable. He has quite a few records of large under his belt. Even with all that, I never got a sense that he had an attitude when I or others asked him a question. I would love to have a chance to fish next to him. He appears to be just a regular guy who loves to fish, without the superstar status.:thumbsup:
This was published in the fisherman and on Zenos site.
Attachment 10258
This article originally appeared in the Fisherman magazine
“Crazy” Alberto Knie
In this month’s installment “Crazy” Alberto Knie shares his secrets of hunting for big bass during the month of June. Al is known for turning conventional wisdom on its head, concentrating on tides everyone else avoids abut his consistent ability to cull very large fish has earned him respect all along striper coast. He is a striped bass world record holder with a 45lb bass he landed on 8 lb test in June of 2004 at Shineckock. Although he is as comfortable snook fishing in Costa Rica , tossing fly’s to tarpon in Florida Keys or trout fishing all over the world his passion for striped bass and weakfish keeps him firmly implanted on local the scene during the month of June. Why does this world-class angler choose to fish local waters during this month? Read on.
Hi Al. Tell us were do you intend to fish during the month of June?
I like to concentrate on big fish and therefore spend a lot of time in south shore Back Bay waters. The reason is there is a lot of big baits around in these areas and big baits mean big fish. Concentrate on slack water faze and you will find big fish. You are not going to catch a lot of them but you will definitely catch quality fish.
Do you concentrate inside the inlets?
Yes. The mouths but mostly cuts, coves, rip in the back. You have to think about this now. The last of the flounder or whatever is left of it will stay in the mouth of the inlet or in the back coves very close to the inlet. There is overabundance of blackfish that moves in to spawn in this period of time. Sea robins, small sea bas and fluke are also abundant, so there is a lot of big bait present. That’s were you find the bigger fish. Ninety nine percent of the fish will be caught at night; this is not a day bite. The fish tend to go in the deeper cuts in daytime and they generally never venture into the shallow waters during the day in June
Are you going after these fish with plugs or bait?
I use big plugs. It all depends on where I am fishing. If I fish shallow waters I tend to try to “match the hatch” and the smallest bait I try to imitate is blackfish. You are talking darters, black bucktails and big rubber shads. In rough conditions, a Gibbs bottle plug is a must. Other swimming plugs? Leave them for other months. June is a big fish month, probably the best month for landing a cow. The bigger fish usually get active close to the new moon. Three days before and three days after is your window for big fish.
What about a needlefish, thin profile lures and teasers? We have been told that in June we must try to imitate sand eels?
I don’t use needlefish a whole lot until fall and then it is usually on the open beaches or rocky areas. Sand eels means aggressive, small fish and the pattern that I am fishing is usually big bait. Don’t get me wrong, June is a phenomenal month to catch fish, especially in the inlet areas and you can do quite well with needles and thin profile baits that imitate sand eels. But I concentrate on big fish and thru the years I found out that they feed at different stages of the tide than those small ones. So all you have been taught is true but you have to remember that if targeting a “fish”, that’s easy; there is plenty of fish around in June. Targeting big fish requires a different mindset, as there are not many big fish around. You don’t know how many times people see me on the water as I arrive and promptly inform me I just “missed the bite”. They have no idea that I am looking for one or two large fish instead of just looking to get in on the action. As for the teasers, I don’t use them in June, as they tend to attract a lot of smaller fish
Does color of the lure matter?
I like dark colors but in particular I like olive. If you think about it, sea robins, blackfish, sea bass, flounder, they all have a hue of olive. I have caught more big fish on olive than any other color. I also like black lures but I think olive is a better color. The black is a very dominant color but nothing there is really real black, the darkest color is olive. Most of the lures in my bag in June are a shade of olive
How about presentation?
Retrieve should be kept slow and you should be very, very methodical about it. You have to use all your senses and not just your eyes. You need to listen to sound around you and at times you will also be able to smell the fish in the area. Pay attention to your presentation at night. Striped bass use their lateral lines to feed and paddle tails and big plugs will cause the fish to notice your lure.
Are big fish more difficult to fool with a plug than smaller, more aggressive ones?
Bass are opportunistic feeders and if you can present you plug half way decent they will take it. But if you miss it they will probably give you another shot and that will be it.
Are you looking for a particular stage of the tide in regards to bait and water movement?
Absolutely, I am all about tides. Never on a high tide or a strong moving current. I know this fly in the face of “conventional” teaching as we have been told repeatedly to fish “high water down”. You got to think like a fish. When currents are very strong you find a place you can rest and wait, letting the more hyper and aggressive fish chase the small bait. When the opportunity comes that you can swim freely and chow down anything that you want and the fact that there are lot of big baits around, heck, they are having a feast down there. That’s why the bellies get swollen up, from munching on those big baits. Also, in June theoretically, it’s easier to locate bigger fish.
Theoretically?
Yes, if you know your water well. Great South Bay is great in May but if you are looking for big fish in June, concentrate on Moriches and Shineckock Inlets and even Montauk. Find some deeper pockets around the inlets and I bet you will find some large fish. Think about it, blackfish come in the 5 or six-foot water to spawn .You think those big cows are not lurking in the shadows? It’s all about bait, big bait.
Why is it easier for these large fish to chase the bait in slow water instead of a ripping one? Don’t they always use current to feed?
Not necessarily because in moving water they are always behind something, large fish at least, otherwise they would be wasting too much energy. That puts them in a vulnerable position where they have to rely on their reflexes to lunge at something that is passing by, chase it eat it and then go back to their original position, wasting a lot of energy. In slack water they are free to go and chase the large baits using their speed. Even although I was targeting weakfish that night, my word record 45lb bass on 8-pound test was caught very close to slack water
Tell us little more about your slack water theory?
It’s very, very simple. If you look at the dynamics of striped bass and how it is designed, that wide tail is built for short, lightning fast burst of speed. So at slack tide, not slack current, they can move in the area and chase and ambush big bait at will. At nighttime, especially flounder and blackfish tend to be lethargic and half asleep becoming an easy prey. As the water starts slowing down those aggressive fish will move and the bigger ones will make an appearance. They will pick up leftovers and they will attack the most vulnerable baits. This will all take place in a window of no more than ½ hour and then they move of the structure.
Does weather play a large role in June?
Not really. Weather in June is fairly consistent and it doesn’t play a large role unless you are talking about bunker present along the oceanfront. If there is a good amount of bunker up front a NW wind can be very good for this particular bay pattern as the bunker always feed into the wind, in case of northwest this means tight to the shore. Besides that, the weather in June rarely brings the unexpected. June is, in my opinion, an easy month to locate fish. You know they have to feed and that there is big bait close to shore. They can be very predictable, yes, big fish can be predictable. Once you locate them they will be there night after night, give or take 10 minutes, like clockwork as long as it’s dark.
North shore, you fish there?
If I want to chunk for big fish in June, I go to the North shore. That is not to say that certain areas on South Shore don’t hold big fish, they absolutely do, but if I am fishing south shore I am going with artificials. Think about it, western sound, Hempstead Harbor , Cold Spring Harbor , in May and June there is a big body of trophy fish there. Some of them move along towards Orient Point and some continue onto the Cape but many stay there for the summer harassing bunker. The problem is accessible shoreline to fish from and that’s why a lot of guys shy away from fishing there.
Know your water and be a local fisherman. Why would you go elsewhere when there are big fish in your waters? Learn you water than explore elsewhere
How about weakfish?
I have this big fetish will weakfish. It’s the only fish that can put a hold on my bass fishing. You don’t run into a lot of them and it so happens that late May, early June you can find a decent body of big weakfish. After they spawn they can often be found feeding aggressively. I scale down my plug selection and use a lot of plastic paddle tails and such. Pink is the color and the key is to concentrate on areas of calmer moving waters. By the way, they do feed on slack water, regardless of what we have been told. But for consistency concentrate on moving water.
Any last words?
Know your water and be a local fisherman. Why would you go elsewhere when there are big fish in your waters? Learn you waters than explore elsewhere .The window of opportunity for catching a big fish for the year is brief. June is probably the best month to catch that trophy. If you are looking to catch big fish, a bragging rights fish, that’s the month. There are good opportunities to get a large fish in October and November but the fish are less predictable in those months. After the bass spawn in spring they get into a feeding frenzy and Mother Nature allows all those baitfish to move in the shallow waters. At night time in the moon periods, they are having a feast .If there were ever a period of time that I really enjoy going after big fish, June and October would be the two months
Finchaser - Legends of the Salt
** ^^(Rip, call or PM me and I'll walk ya through how to post a pic. I think ya may have done something at the last second before you posted that caused the pic to not be recognized)
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I'm glad ya nominated Finchaser, Rip. I wanted to do it a while ago but was concerned people might think there was a bias there. After all, if I were to nominate a grouchy old basstard who insults me every chance he gets, is about as critical as my Dad was, and likes to rant and rave at me when he's upset about a current fisheries management issue, people might say that was illogical behavior. :moon: :)
So, I'm glad you put his name out there, because he certainly deserves the honor. There are quite a few threads here detailing his fishing career, from the
"Long Branch...back in time" thread
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/.....back-in-time
Where we learn, among other things, that...
- Finchaser was fishing at the age of 5, when his Dad brought him out on the codfish boats and told him to "man up" or he wouldn't take him fishing again.. :viking:
- He was also part of the history at the Long Branch Fishing pier before it burned down,
learning from the old timers there and fishing with them every weekend he could bum a ride there. Even in the coldest winters they would fish for whiting, ling, and whatever else was available, with old timers like Joe Melillo, and many others who have since died or moved to different areas.
- He became one of the "infamous" :cool: Stevens Surfsters, the fishing club representing Stevens B&T in Long Branch, one of the lost traditions in the ever-growing commercialization of the shore towns. As part of the Surfsters, they dominated the fishing tourneys during that time, and usually crushed the competition.
- How did they do this? Secret spots? :huh:
Nope...it was sheer determination, and the dedication to fish 2 and 3 days/nights at a time that put them in the forefront of their peers. That type of fishing won them many trophies. It resulted in a surf-caught 50lb bass for Finchaser :clapping::clapping: :thumbsup: but also in the dissolution of several relationships and marriages. http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...cons/icon9.png
- Yep, these guys were "hard-core" before the phrase "hard-core surf fisherman" was even defined. :fishing:
They lived and breathed to fish, and all knew and respected each other, despite personality differences. In fact, the practical jokes they used to play on each other were legendary. Some of them are detailed in the above-
referenced Long Branch thread. :wheeeee:
Finchaser the Conservationist
When he grew up, there wasn't a lot of interest in fish conservation. People fished less for sport and more for food. The country was coming off the economic downturn from overseas war involvement. People felt poor, and they were poor, relative to how we live today. So fishing, as well as hunting, was a valued way to bring protein home for the family.
Gradually, awareness increased about overfishing. First, the 200 mile limit was passed in the 1970's to keep the foreigners, like the Russians, from decimating our groundfish. Unfortunately, by that time it was a free-for-all offshore. After the Russians were pushed out, our US commercial fishermen continued to over-fish cod, whiting, and ling.
This was also happening to an extent with the striped bass. There was a feeling that striped bass were an infinite resource. Less attention was paid to things like biomass, YOY, and birth and fecundity rates.
Some groups noticed their yearly striped bass catches declining. There grew a grassroots conservation movement along the East Coast. One of the most famous conservationists, Bob Pond, has been mentioned here in several threads.
The opinions of these guys were not popular, to say the least. Eventually a drop in catches and bigger bass was so noticable that fishing clubs began to get involved in signing petitions and raising awareness. This was not enough to stem the decline in the striped bass biomass, and eventually in the early 1980's a Coast-wide moratorium was declared closing striped bass fishing down.
Because of this, clubs like Stevens Surfsters, and many others like them, tried to get legislators involved in protecting bass so the moratium would hopefully never happen again. Finchaser worked with his club, along with the JCAA, and several old-timers who are members here :HappyWave: and on other sites, to push for the protection of striped bass in federal waters (3 mi limit) and to get the out-of-state bunker boats restricted to where they could net bunker in NJ and NY waters.
Bunker boats
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...highlight=jcaa
Moratorium
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...***-Moratorium
Striped bass a Gamefish in Federal waters
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...of-1984-HB2655
This grassroots coalition managed to get some significant pieces of conservation-minded legislation passed in the 1980's. This, along with the moratorium and stricter regs, resulted in an unprecedented comeback of the striped bass, said to be one of the greatest comebacks of all times. :clapping::clapping:
Anyone who has participated in the Spring run of cow striped bass which come into the NJ surf zone from May - June, owes some of their success to guys like Finchaser and all the unsung or uncredited club members who toiled quietly and patiently in the background. :clapping::clapping: Their patience and persistence, sometimes required for years of meetings, grew the biomass to the highest level it achieved sometime in the early 1990's. We owe a debt of gratitude to all these fine folks who took the time to think of our fishing future. They didn't get discouraged, and kept pushing and pushing until they got results. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
During the middle part of the 2000 decade, some of these old timers again started to notice a decline in the breadth of different year bass classes. It was enough to cause concern. Finchaser and scores of other fishermen began writing about it...
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...e-Striped-Bass
Re: Legends of the Salt... Living Legends thread
