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Pollock under the Light? You Bet
By Fred Schwab
Something, which has been missing from the Montauk surf for over 30 years now are the great late, fall Pollock runs. Some Pollock would be caught in the spring in Browns and under the Light, but in November and into December large schools of them, up into the 30’s were liable to show up at dawn and dusk anywhere from North Bar to Kings.All you needed was a tin with a large siwash hook. If your tin landed within the school you’d usually have a Pollock on within seconds, if the hook pulled out another might grab it. In the mornings the action would usually start at daybreak and stop a bit before sunrise, while in the evening it would get going at sunset and end just before dark. Of course there were many times when no schools went past or they were beyond casting range.
Adopted from a book "The Complete History of the High Hill Striper Club " by Fred Schwab
They fought as hard as a bluefish but had no teeth or the sharp dorsal fins of a bass.On rare occasions a few Pollock would be taken at night. The largest that I heard about, witnessed by three club members, was taken under the Light on a darter at night. In the very high 30’s, they guy that caught it was disappointed because he had been certain that it was a bass of at least 50 pounds. The 25-3 taken by Fritz Hubner (1961-65), which won the Club’s Largest Pollock trophy in 1962, came from North Bar, also on a darter at night. My much smaller trophy winner in 1964 was taken at night under the Light. But dawn and dusk were the most reliable times and few if any were taken during the day.However the morning of 11/23/59 was somewhat of an exception.
It was heavily overcast and just two local guys and myself had school after school of 5 to 10 pound Pollock zip across North Bar for nearly two hours after daybreak. When Pollock would bunch up on baitfish they’d be constantly breaking and rolling with the entire school moving fast. When they were in the area you knew it!On that morning of the 23rd we had at least 10 schools go through, all coming from the direction of Shagwong Point with a cloud of balled up,excited gulls marking the location of each school.Beginning with 1963 the Pollock all but disappeared. In fact the only large Pollock that I know was caught after 1964 was Joe SanFratello’s (63-64 & 67-77), 13-4 in 1969, and I believe that was a loner. We figured that the foreign fishing fleets and our own beloved netters wiped out that segment of the Pollock population that had traditionally visited Montauk’s rips in the fall.During World War II the U.S. Navy operated a seaplane base on the west side of Fort Pond Bay, it was abandoned sometime after the war. In addition to a large hangar they had built a very long and sturdy wooden dock. At some point in time anglers began fishing from that dock and on a few November nights for several years in the 50’s I did to.During November and into December nights it was an incredible place to be. In those days on late fall nights, other than the drinkers who hung out and brawled at the Shagwong Tavern, the village would be totally deserted. To reach the Hangar Dock, that’s what it was called, you drove over the tracks north of Fort Pond and west of the railroad station, hung a left and continued to the end. After having driven through a deserted village and roads it was quite a sight to suddenly come up on dozens of parked vehicles and to see what in the dark of night appeared to be a small city protruding out into Fort Pond Bay. What you saw was dozens of coleman lamps lit along that huge dock. Some would be hung on ropes just above the waters surface while others stood on the very edge of the dock. The target species was whiting and the more productive nights were when there was little or no wind and the water flat. I’ve forgotten, but I think a dropping tide was best?
It is no exaggeration to say that on some nights as many as 100 people would be on that dock and on one occasion even the Coast Guard’s 85 foot cutter was tied up with it’s crew tonging fish. The whiting were not always there, one minute there would be absolutely none and the next literally tens of thousands. Usually they would make their appearance on a particular stage of the tide and on really quiet nights it was possible to hear them coming, I never did, but on some nights when I was there, before a single fish was caught you’d hear someone at the end of the dock shout “here they come”, and within minutes there they’d be. They arrived en masse and what attracted them were millions of large spearing and I suppose that the light from the coleman lamps helped.Most guys used a one handed spinner with 1 or 2 hooks baited with whole spearing and a split shot and bobber. The action was near the surface so you didn’t go deep. I often wondered why bass or pollock did not show up there? If they did, I never saw or heard of one being caught or seen swimming about.
However, on some nights huge angler fish would be seen cruising about with mouths wide open. If you had not seen one yet you would know they were around from the excited shouts of others along the dock. They were ugly curiosities, fascinating to watch but with light tackle you wanted to avoid getting one of those 20 to 40 pound toothy critters on your line.It was usually a mixed crowd and when the surf was dead or it was miserable cold a number of the surf regulars would be there. On nights when there was a howling and bitter cold northwest wind it would not be unusual to find some of the surf crowd parked inside the hangar for a sheltered night of sleep.On the best nights one individual could fill a bushel basket or more, that may sound like an excessive amount and perhaps it was but I doubt that many kept fish were wasted.
Most anglers had their catch smoked or they smoked them themselves with any excess going to neighbors or friends. In the very early 60’s, because of liability concerns, the gate to the Navy property would sometimes be closed, but by then the whiting like the Pollock, had dwindled in number and probably for the same reasons.