September 29, 2005 - Net Gains: the joy of seiningThe Suffolk Times • September 29, 2005.9A
Net gains: the joy of seining
1t113 FEEL OF FALL is in the air, which
means snappers are running. By now
they have gotten to be a nice size. As
most people know, snappers are young
bluefish. That's why they are such fun
to catch, particularly on a light spin-
ning rig.
When our kids were young, snap-
pers introduced them into the world
of fishing. But
before they could
FOCUS go fishing, they
O N had to team how
to get the bait.
NATURE So out of the
garage came the
by Paul old seine net. It
Stoutenburgh was one of those
things that was
always there, a
bit on the frayed side — and then there
was that big hole that you were going
to fix one day but somehow the net
always got put away with little thought
of repair.
Fresh bait always worked best, so
the actual seining was done right on
the spot where we fished, and that
was down at the Point at Fleets Neck.
Somehow the older and taller son al-
ways got the end of the 10 -foot seine
net that went out from shore into the
deep water. One of the other, younger
kids took the other end, where they
didn't have to go but up to their knees
I can still see my son walking on tip-
toes out in the deep water trying to
keep the coolness from creeping up his
body.
It was well worth it, for as he made
the big swing to shore, we could see
all sorts of activity going on in the net.
Once the net was on shore, everyone
would gather round to look at the mass
of silvery baitf sh squirming below.
Handfuls of wiggling, silvery fish were
gathered and put into a bucket. There
were lots of other goodies mixed in;
golf ball -size baby blowfish were al-
ways picked up first. They'd blow up
into little white balls with
prickles about them. These KillieS
prickles would be quite un-
comfortable for whatever
tried to swallow them. You
can imagine the surprise
when their mouth felt the
prickly barbs This was the
blowfish's protection against predators
Naturally, when they are in the water,
they fill their white bellies with water,
making them a real mouthful for any-
thing that would try to eat them.
Then there were the pipefish, close
relatives of the seahorse. These were
about four to six inches long with a 1/8-
inch -square body and what looked like
a seahorse head. When in the water,
they would stand upright, swaying in
the current and looking all the more
like grass There would always be three
or four of those squirming in amongst
the others in the net.
There were the globs of jetty -like
masses an inch to two inches long that
became phosphorescent when touched
or disturbed at night. They are won-
derful things to see up close, particu-
larly when you are swimming at night.
You'd bump into these comb jellies
and they'd tight up with their filament
of greenish fight. Sometimes there
would be tiny phosphorescence in the
water when you went swimming and,
as you stood up, all these tiny bits of
greenish light ran down your body like
little glowworms. Those were wonder-
ful days; as the song goes, "Those were
the days my friend, we thought they'd
never end..."
Then there would always be five or
six baby flounders that were so well
camouflaged it was hard to find them,
as their color blended in so well with
the creek bottom. Yet if you turned
them over on their backs they would
show the white of their undersides: no
need for camouflage there.
There was always a smattering of
grass shrimp, those transparent, one -
inch -long shrimp that we see along the
bottom and banks of our creeks These
were the shrimp that were gathered
and sold for chum in the heyday of the
great weakfish runs that once drew
fishermen by the thousands and party
boats by the hundreds to fish the Pe-
conics.
We've talked about this before ...
the lady in New Suffolk
can live who made a living out of
catching grass shrimp. She
had a short net that she
held in her two hands and
with this she probed along
the edges of the bog of the
creek. When her net filled
she'd dump it into a killie cart that she
towed behind her. She sold the shrimp
by the quart to the party boat captains,
who would use it for chum. That's
how they fished for weakfish in those
days — chumming off the back of the
boat and using worms on a hook, they
caught weakfish by the hundreds
In the net we also had killies These
are the little brownish - green, two -
inches- and - longer killies that you see
close to shore cleaning the bottom of
detritus. They are part of the web of
our creek fife. When winter comes they
hibernate in the mud. Some find that
they can stay active and move about
if they find a spot where the wane
groundwater (50 degrees) moves out
into the saltwater. This is usually at the
headwaters of our creeks. It's a place
where you'll find the kingfisher or the
great blue heron eking out a living in
the winter. It's where active killies can
be found. We've tried using kitties for
bait, but for some reason the snappers
don't go for them.
in saltwater,
freshwater or
brackish water
Killies are a hardy little fish and
can live in saltwater, freshwater or
brackish water. I had proof of this
when I took three or four of them last
year and put them in my small plastic
fishpond by the house. Believe it or
not, in the springtime, after the winter
ice and everything had warmed up, I
cleaned out the pond of all the dead
leaves and other trash that had fallen
in during the winter — and guess what
wiggled out of the black muck and
leaves but my three kitties that had
wintered over in the fresh water of the
pond. As I say, they are a tough little
fish. They are the ones that will still be
alive in the bait bucket when all the
others have died.
In those early days it never occurred
to us to think about eating those sleek -
looking silversides we were using for
bait. Today we've seen the light. Now
whenever we go seining for snapper
bait we take a special bucket and put
the best -size silversides in it to take
home to feast on- The way I cook them
is to put half a cup of flour in a paper
bag, drop in a handful of silversides
or spearing, shake the bag vigorously
and then deep -fry them until they
look like french fries No, you don't cut
the head off or gut them or anything;
you eat "the whole thing." At least I
do. My wife likes them but she wants
them cleaned so we always oblige her.
It's quite easy to do since there is no
scaling or anything like that. Try them
Years ago, blowfish were
common throughout our
bays. When they first
came on the scene they
were a pest, as they were
experts in robbing your
bait. Then people started
to eat them. They were
the perfect fish — no
bones, only a sort of car-
tilage backbone. You ate
them something like corn
on the cob. Today it's a
rarity to catch one in our
bays.
Suffolk 7,n— pFwlo
by Paul Stoutenburah
sometime. I believe the Italians and
others have known how to eat them
from way back. Just never occurred to
us to try them.
Sometimes we'd catch a crab or two
when seining. It would walk around,
claws held high, ready for a fight. Usu-
ally we'd just toss them back in be-
cause with only one there's not enough
for a meal. And so when the kids went
snapper fishing they learned a little bit
more about the world around them.
They also learned how to pick up a
crab without getting bitten.
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