It was 1985-6, I don't remember the exact year I opened my Video Store. I had been renting videos, only a few from my house and someone had complained. I was told to stop and open a store, by the police. It wasn't as dire or sinister as that statement might sound, but it spurred me to do it and in September of 1985, I think I opened my store.
Sometime around the end of the year, or the beginning of the next I guy comes into the store to become a member and he starts hanging around. I have no reason why. It seems he comes into the store every Monday night around 9 PM. The reason I remember this is I had a TV in the store and when a movies wasn't on, I'd watch TV and on Monday nights it was Murphy Brown at 9. I really enjoyed the show and Jim seemed to come in always around that time. It was difficult to have a conversation with him and watch the show.
Spring arrives and Jim invites me out on his boat. We take a trip up to Greenwood Lake in Orange County and go fishing. It's a great night. We fish until it's dark, then head over to the arm of the lake and have dinner and drinks at a restaurant where Jim has made friends with the owner. We do several trips up to Greenwood Lake. All involve fishing and alcohol. We're young and indestructible.
One Night we are across the lake having dinner at an outdoor restaurant. The Night is comfortable and we have just sat down. The Docks and the water are off to my right, I think. For Jim, the docks are off to his left and slightly behind him. We are both enjoying the night. I don't remember if we'd eaten or not, but I do remember we were just hanging out there when I hear a splash, No big deal and it barely registers. A while later, maybe ten minutes I hear someone, in a very low voice call for help. It gets my attention, Jin hasn't heard it. A little while later, I hear it a second time and I ask Jim if he heard it too. He says no, but we both get up to investigate. Somewhere out in the water, just beyond the lights of the restaurant is a person. I don't remember where or what he is hanging onto to stay above the water, but he needs help. I am totally freaked out by the situation. So Jim is the one who goes into the black water, on a black night, just beyond the lights of the restaurant. He later says that he was waiting for the guy to jump on him to save him and drag them both under water. He tells the guy to be calm and at some point he realizes that this guy has something in his hand or hands. It turns out this guy and a friend were drinking heavily at the bar. They walk down to the docks to take their boat back to their dock and the friend misses a step, falls into the water hitting his head and goes under. His Friend goes in after him. He finds him, but it too drunk or too weak to keep the guys head above water. At that point he calls for help. Jim helps the guy with his friend to the shore. I'm still just watching the drama unfold. I think Jim calls for some help and several people come to assist. They get the guy on a table and start CPR. Someone else calls 911. After an intermedible amount of time, it seems the Ambulance arrives. The People performing CPR thought they felt a pulse. Later it is said they were feeling their own most likely. The Guy is dead.
Jim and I head to his boat. I am totally beside myself. I had failed in the clutch. I let panic stop me from doing the right thing, leaving it all to Jim to do. He says something like I need to stop this shit and I was the one to hear the friend calling for help.
After that Greenwood Lake is another place. We don't drink on the boat any more, or even after we get off the water. Several Years later Jim quits drinking. Maybe this had nothing to do with it, I don't know. I made peace with this night. I don't know why, but I guess I did as much as I could that night. Either way the guy who died that night would still be dead even if I were more involved. The two of them were drinking and were not careful.
I don't remember the exact sequence the next events, but I buy a boat. Someone said they knew someone who was selling a boat. I knew NOTHING about boats when I went to look at this boat. I took Jim with me because he owned a boat so I figured he would know more than I did. All I knew about boats is they were not supposed to have holes below the water line. Jim and I go over to this guys house in the early evening. It's warm and it's summer. It's the perfect time to own a boat, or for that matter to sell one. We walk around the boat. It is a 20' Grady White with a cabin on a newish water trailer. The Boat is old, but it is solid and I like it. Jim asks to hear the motor run. Now the one thing I will learn LATER is you don't run an outboard without water flowing through the motor. The Guy starts it up without hesitation and it is loud and nice. Jim inspects the motor a bit and after a while we turn the motor off. I give the guy an offer or I pay his asking price, I don't remember, but at the end of the day I am a boat owner. I think the boat was from 1972 or so. It is 1985 and I take the boat up to Greenwood Lake. Or more precisely Jim trailers it up there. It's a little too much boat for a lake. I dock it in the arm of the lake and every time I take it out I have to squeeze under a low bridge to get to the main part of the lake. I have some good adventures on the lake.
During the time the boat is up there Jim and I go out fishing on it several times. One Time, during the a beautiful summer afternoon I take the boat out alone. I park it in an empty spot and start to fish. I hook into a nice size fish and land it. Now I'm stuck. It is pre-cell phones and I don't have a camera on board so do I keep the fish I'm not going to eat or do I throw it back. The Fish gasps for air as I debate his future. I look at the traffic on the lake and debater some more. Finally conservation and the thought that someone else might catch this fish and enjoy him more than I would prompts me to set him free. When I describe the fish to Jim he says that is the type/size fish he's been after on the Lake.
During the week, Greenwood Lake is empty and beautiful. On the Weekends, it's like a rough day on the ocean. Wakes from other boats seem to hit you broadside constantly, rocking you out of your comfortable perch on the edge of the rail while fishing. It gets to the point that we stop fishing and try to do some tubing. Like everything else in my life, I don't have any idea what I'm doing and have put little thought into how it should be done to make it a success. It is Jim, his girlfriend Phyllis and I on the boat that day. It is another warm sunny weekend on Greenwood Lake. I think, I am volunteered (Jim says I should go first) to ride the tube first. I don't remember. My only vivid memory of doing this is my time at the helm, the tube being pulled and stretched, me giving the boat more gas and our lack of success getting the tube up on the water. Our self conscious efforts end rather quickly.
Fall approaches and the days are getting shorter. This is the time when Billy, my cousin invites me to bring my boat out on the ocean with his boat. I don't remember anything more than my self conscious efforts to back my trailer down the launch ramp to get my boat. I think Bob Schrader was with me to help.
Before I go further, I need to talk about Fred Roland and the trip to Moriches. Since Moriches, Fred, Jim and Bob Schrader will all figure in the next ten years or so of my boating and fishing life.
The Timeline is a little hazy . I think it is the same year I become friends with Jim, I met Fred Roland and his brother Ray. Fred is living on Western Hwy with his brother and a few other people in a large old house. Fred is recently returned from Florida. We get talking about fishing one day and he says He wants to take me Fluke fishing. It is the late 80's and from the position of 2019, the late 80's were the end of the great fishing era on the east coast, in and around New York. We didn't know it though. The middle of May 1985 was a spectacular day for fishing. We caught 32 keeper fish. Back then eighteen inches was a keeper. Now I think it is twenty-one, if you can catch one.
The Day was bright sunshiny and I get up, must be somewhere around three in the morning. We make the one hundred and three mile trip to East Moriches. It is a place I will fall in love with. It has been over twenty years since I was there, but all the wonderful memories of that place start with this trip. We arrive a little before the places opens. The Sun is up and it's warm. I walk around the place, my feet crunching on the sea shells and cream white stones parking area. I go over to the cleaning stations where you can cut up and clean your catch once your off the water. A slight smell of fish comes off the tables. Gary the owner comes rumbling in after a few minutes, it's about six in the morning. He's a friendly guy and I won't say the three of us become friends, but Fred and I and later Jim and Bob are all familiar faces. Gary rents us a small skiff and we buy bait and some hooks and all those other things that you don't know you need until you see them on Gary's wall. Fred, the old pro asks Gary where the action? He replies can 27. I'm thinking can? can 27? Fred takes it in stride and we get into the skiff we rented. The water is glass smooth, the weather is warm, not hot and there is little to no clouds in the sky. I'm twenty-seven, using no sunscreen and it feels like life will only get better. Today that will be true. A few years later not so much. But Today the fish are biting. Can 27 is a buoy that marks part of the channel that runs through the great south bay.
To fish for Fluke, you drift. You stop you boat near an underwater shelf , or a channel, somewhere where the water is moving through a narrow spot the bait fish will pass. Fluke are predators and hide in the sand until a bait fish or your worm drift by and they attack. You will be gently bouncing your pole, jigging your bait when a Fluke attacks. The tip of your sensitive rod will dart toward the water telling you where the fish is. You sing out loud and clear "FISH ON!" A tradition from party boat fishing to alert a mate on the party boat, you have a fish so he can help you swing it over the rail. A good size fluke will pull drag and if you have set your pole correctly it will pull line and not break it off. After a fight of a few minutes, someone with a net will be by your side to net an odd but beautiful fish. If it is above the limit, you get to keep it.
We do several drifts some are good, some are not. When We hit a good drift you could be catching fish left and right. That Day, like several days and the next few years we used two poles each. It was a different world back then. There were plenty of fish in the ocean, or at least that was what We believed. We thought we were being good custodians of the resources back then. We never took an undersized fish.
After that Day, I think I'm hooked on fishing saltwater. I take my boat out on the ocean at the end of the season. I remember going up to Greenwood Lake to get it out and being embarrassed that I couldn't back the trailer down the launch ramp to get my boat. It took me a few tries to do it and I had help, I think I was friends with Bob Schrader by then. Bob first came into my life when my Dad got diagnosed with cancer. He helped my dad do his route. I don't remember how I found out he liked fishing, but somehow him and I went out fishing. The First Trip out on salt water is so different then fresh water. We went out of Cove Isle Park in Mamaroneck,Westchester. I knew nothing about the rules of the road for boats. I'd never been out on salt water before and it never occured to me that there were rules. We launch the boat from a narrow steep ramp just inside the park, not like the one that is there now. This ramp angles toward the main road on like a 45 degree angle over near where the bait shop is. We park the truck, a brown undersized Chevy Pick Up truck that does milk deliveries and that takes us all over the area fishing in the next few years. I start the boat and head out, It only takes Bob a little while to realize I have no idea what I am doing. He starts to give me information about boating etiquette. The first thing he tells me is 'red right return'. Which means when you are coming back to the docks keep all red buoys on your right. Going out you keep them on your left.
Him and I have may adventures. Somehow we don't die or even get hurt. On one trip, a few years later, it's late in the season, We go fishing on Long Island, at I think Oak Beach near Captree State Park. I'm better at trailering a boat and launching a boat, but I still don't know everything. Like something I should have known was that you don't trailer boats on parkways. I drive my pickup and my trailered boat down the Meadowbrook State Parkway. My reasoning is simple. I don't know any other way to go to get to the launch ramp I want to get to. I'm sure the Police will understand. It is 1980's New York and that plays well for me. The Police in the 80's in and around New York City are fighting a battle with crime. A fight that in the 70's they were losing. In the 80's the tide might be turning about now and things like boats on parkways are not a top priority. The other thing, something that I notice going down the parkway is the bridges I go under are curved and come a little close to my boat. Why did they do that it's not safe. It is only later. years later that the signs they have up saying cars only for parkways meant no cars with trailers. The ramp is free after Labor day so in we go. It is cold and it is October. We know it will be a short day. We launch the boat at high tide. Bob's amount of experience is more then mine at this point, but in hindsight it was not much more. He knew the basics only. We head out to fish for blues. Blue fish are great fighting fish. They just taste lousy. Bob promises to take all the blues we catch. There will be no worries about what happens to the fish we catch, there will not even be a bit today.
After several hours of nothing we head in. We went out on a high tide, we are returning on almost a dead low. We go back the way we came in and I notice the bottom, a nice sandy bottom is getting close to the boat. We are maybe a few hundred yards out from the launch ramp when we hit bottom. I back up off the sand and try another direction. again we hit the sand. It gets to the point where Bob gets out of the boat to push it. In my frustration to get the boat moving forward I'm bouncing my body against the steering wheel. At first it seems like it is helping. Then it breaks off in my hand. I now have only a couple of prongs radiating from the steering column now to guide the boat.
We finally admit defeat as the sun is setting. We back the boat off the sandbar and go over to the Captree boat basin and ask if we could moor the boat there overnight. It is the most bone headed trip I have ever been on. We leave and the next day, Monday I do my work grab the truck and the trailer and Bob and we head back to Captree. The boat is still there, the tide is high and we manage to get the boat back to the launch ramp and on the trailer.
MAJOR BONEHEAD US. If I had a chart of the area, which I should have and if I didn't should have never gone there at so late a time in the season where there would be next to no one to help us find the correct way to get to the launch ramp. And if I'd looked at the chart it would have shown an opening in the sand bar near the shore. Why would they not have an opening? Why did we not think about that? Why did we not even try to look around? Why did we not familiarize ourselves with the area before we went out in October, when there would be no one to help us out of a jam? STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, God was watching out for me that day I guess. The only reason you get in trouble on the water or have an adventure' is not being prepared. That is how people die. I learned before people began to die,thank god.
The middle 80's are full adventures. I head down to New Jersey with Bob to fish New Jersey. One of my favorite trips back then was going out of Nyack state park taking the boat down the Hudson past the Palisades in New Jersey, past Yonkers, the slow trip passing New York City. After a few hours on the water you pass the Statue of Liberty. I was always careful to give it a wide berth, even before 9-11. I wasn't sure if you could dock private boats there. Finally after a using most if not just about all of your gas you are in Raritan Bay. You cruise over to Atlantic Highlands to get gas and some snacks. Fishing usually sucked after that long trip. Several times I tried trailering the boat down to Atlantic Highlands and launching it there. I still didn't catch many fish.
Bob was always on for an adventure. He'd say something like let's go down to the Jersey shore and fish for fluke. Me being me would say ok I'm up for an adventure. So I'd trailer my boat down to the Jersey shore. We'd find a launch ramp and not knowing the area go fishing. Now if your goal was to spend several hour in a car and then spend several hours on a boat not catching fish, then this was the trip for you. There was little to no preparation.
The Hudson River brings back a flood of memories. Before I got my boat, my cousin Billy had a boat and on day again it was a sunny warm day, I think in May I'm asked to go fishing with a group of people. It's near lunch, so I get a sandwich. I haven't been out on the ocean often so the two foot waves in the Hudson don't mean anything to me. I get in the boat and we start off. I'm eating my sandwich having a great time, life is good. Somewhere on our trip down the Hudson my stomach begins to bother me. I don't think anything about it, I didn't know better. It grows worse, but I ignore it. After a while I'm sitting hoping it will pass when I feel the need to lean over the side of the boat and as everyone jokes for the next several years, I started to chum. Chumming is using dead fish or a mixture of things fish like to attract them to where you are. I started to deposited my roast beef hero. Over the course of the day on the water, thankfully a short one I emptied my stomach and then some. If it is not obvious I was sea sick. I read up on sea sickness. It is a strange ailment. The motion of the water and something to do with your eyes not agreeing causes the body to feel as if it has been poisoned and you throw up. The strangest thing is if you put on wristbands, one on each wrist and they are put on the pulse sea sickness can be almost totally eliminated. The other way to end sea sickness is to get off the boat. Within a few minutes you will be feeling alot better. If you were out for a full day you will still feel a bit drained, but your stomach, that trouble maker will be feeling fine.
Another Billy's boat story. This one had nothing to do with me. I just find it a little funny. It is the late 80's. I'm living in Stony Point, my dad has died and my mother is palling around with a family friend, his name is Bruce. I'm home in Stony Point. Someone gets the bright idea to go see the fireworks down around the Statue of Liberty. The get permission from my cousin Billy to use his boat and off down the Hudson they go. I don't remember who goes on the trip. There were more than my mother and Bruce on the boat. Now a strange thing about this boat. You fill up the tank and go down to Raritan Bay, you have a little less than half a tank. Somewhere along the way you will need to stop and buy gas. Everyone I guess didn't know this. Now the other thing to remember is this is pre-cell phone time. So if there is a problem you rely on the boat radio or you stop somewhere to find a payphone (ask your grandparents or older what they are) They head down the Hudson River late in the afternoon or so to moor up somewhere near the Statue of Liberty to see the fireworks. I was down to the city for July fourth firework when the Statue of Liberty was celebrated in the 80's. Those fireworks were the best until I saw the firework at Disney in Orlando at Christmas time around 2012 or so. The inexperienced boaters, no let me take that back. Bruce did know how to handle a boat. He just didn't know about the gas issue and didn't check it on the way down the Hudson. They get down to the Statue of Liberty and moor the boat. They have a wonderful time watching the fireworks. When they are over they have to wait to leave. There are boats ahead of them. Finally they get to go and start the two hour trip back up the Hudson. Sometime during the trip Bruce notices the gas gauge. It is bouncing under a quarter of a tank. He might have enough gas to make it home, but doesn't want to run out and be stuck on the river at night. Remember no cell phones, just a radio. They pull into a dock area to find a phone or some gas. It is late, after midnight, not much is open and even less near the water. Sometime around three in the morning Doug, Ruth's husband brings them some gas to finish the trip home. An adventure that was not necessary. I never knew about the trip. If I'd known, I would have told them about the gas issue having been on Billy's boat. Why Billy didn't I don't know.
Another story I have is the time Billy and I decide to do an overnight trip down the Hudson River into the Long Island Sound via Hell's Gate. Hell's Gate if you don't know is where the East River, the Hudson River and the Long Island Sound come together. We leave late on a Friday or Saturday, I don't remember. I don't remember even why I went. I remember being very ill prepared for the trip and not really a ball of fun. We go down the Hudson, go under the Spuyten Duyvil Railroad bridge take the Spuyten Duyvil Creek and get into the Harlem River. On The Harlem River we go under several bridges and I don't really remember this part of the trip. At Hells Gate where the East River, The Harlem River and the Sound all meet there is a swirling of currents and it can be a very dangerous place. My friend Fred was on a boat of his uncles that sank there. They had to swim to Rikers Island after the boat sank. We avoid going down the East River, one of the swiftest and one of the more dangerous rivers in the area. We make it into the Sound and drop anchor. Maybe we fished a little. The next morning we fish for Blackfish. I hook onto something I think are Black Fish. I fight it until it breaks my line. It was an underwater obstruction, not a Black Fish. We get no action for all of our troubles. Back when we go out on this trip the western portion of the Sound was experiencing hypoxia, a lack of oxygen in the water and all the fish had left the western end of the Sound or died. So much for that trip.
For every lousy trip I was on, there were dozens if not more that were amazing. I remember several trips taken from Silly Lilly's on Center Moriches. After a long day out fishing I'd bring the boat into the shallows that used to terrify me. I'd have the boat on plane, meaning it was up and high on the water. The water would be flat glass and I can hear it now the sush, sush sound the boat made as it cut through the water. The sun in a nearly cloudless sky would be getting close to the horozen. I'd come up a little too fast toward the dock and a voice from somewhere behind me would ask if maybe I'd want to slow down. I would even acknowledge it I was soaking up the last of an amazing day and contrasting on bring the boat in perfectly. At the right time I'd cut the engine, we'd drop off plane and then I'd put it into reverse and we'd gently glide up to the dock the boat's stern coming around so it was no effort to tie us up. The Fishing Station would be empty. everyone having gone home along time ago. We clean our catch, bag the fish pack up the car and head home not thing about the one hundred and two mile trip ahead of us.
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