Teach a Man to Fish

My Uncle V always loved to take us fishing. He would load up his Chrysler Newport with my cousins and me. A bunch of fishing poles. A cooler. Lunch that Grandma made. Sausage Hero's. Meatball heroes. Olives and pickled eggplant.

We would leave at about four thirty in the morning. Drive all the way out to Orient Point on Long Island. It took about three hours. So we got there after people had already gone out for two hours. We would get a box of skimmers which were very cheap clams to use as bait. A box of blood worms. A big piece of squid to cut up for fluke bait.

My uncle had his own out board motor.  We would attach it to the back of skiff that we would attach the motor. Put all our stuff in and go out into Peconic Bay.

We would rig up for porgies and fluke. Two hooks below and one long stringer higher up for fluke.

The thing about porgies is when you hit a school you almost didn't have to bait the hook. You could pull them up two at a time. We would often catch a hundred fish at a time. Now in those days they didn't check you cooler so you could keep some of the small fish. Not two small but still pretty edible.

Then we would drive all the way home on the LIE which could take four hours or more. With the smell of fish in the cooler. Now there is one problem when you caught all that fish. You had to clean all that fish. So when we pulled up and parked on Henry St in front of my Grandma's house we would unload. All the old timer's on the block would sidle up to find out what we caught. My uncle would wheel and deal. He would give a couple or three fish to each of the guys. They would reciprocate with a bottle of home made wine or fresh tomatoes from their garden. It was share and share alike.

That Brooklyn is long gone. The yuppie scumbags would report you to the EPA for the fish smell or to PETA for killing the fish.

You can't go home again.