Legend of the Surf

Editor's Note: 

Back in 2012, I had the opportunity to interview a living legend of surf fishing. By that point in time, though he’s too humble to acknowledge it, Pat Abate had long earned a reputation throughout the Northeast as a bonified surf sharpie; a member of the old guard with a knack for sniffing out big striped bass. It was also a time when Pat owned River's End in Old Saybrook, one of the more premier fishing outfitters in southern New England. For someone like me, who was at the pinnacle of my surf fishing effort and interest, it was an awesome experience to hear some of Pat's insights and stories. He eventually sold River's End and retired, allowing for more time on the water instead of behind the counter. It should come as a surprise to no one that Pat is not only an awesome angler, but also a salt of the earth kind of guy who is still plugging away in the surf. 

One of the walls in River's End is adorned with hundreds of lures that would make any striped bass fisherman drool. Above the ones for sale however, hang special, battle-worn plugs—each with their own story to tell. Pat pointed to a cracked green needlefish and said he found it one day at Southwest Point on Block Island. With a black Sharpie, Pat added some mackerel markings and took it with him fishing later that night. In Dories Cove, in a howling northwesterly wind, the newly found needlefish accounted for eight giant striped bass up to 55-pounds! The magic finally ended when the lure's side cracked open after hitting a rock on a fateful backcast. Pat said it lost its “mojo” and he retired it as one hell of a conversation piece.

Sitting in his office, I asked Pat about a blown-up surf casting photo hanging on the wall. As the story goes, years ago while napping on Nauset Beach, a crew from Sperry shoes knocked on the window of Pat's beach buggy and asked him to take part in a photo shoot. Next thing he knew, Pat was being photographed casting a needlefish in the suds while wearing Sperry shoes two sizes too small. They must have forgotten they also outfitted him with a mic and Pat could only laugh while hearing the crew second guessing that "he's too old for this” and "we'd better shoot from the rear.” In the end, Pat became “Mr. March” in a Sperry sports calendar and his life-size poster hung for a while at the Kittery outlet store. It turns out that Pat can now add modeling to his impressive resume. 

KB: Who got you into fishing and how old were you?

PA: I was about 12 or 13 and living in Brooklyn at the time. I had an uncle who as an avid fisherman. I had fished for sunfish in Prospect Park and things like that, but he took me out fluke and porgy fishing and I got hooked. New York City isn’t the ideal place for saltwater fishing, though you’d be surprised how many people travel the subway with 10-foot rods to the beaches or party boats in Sheepshead Bay. At that time, you couldn’t drive until you were 18, so you really had to depend on public transportation or someone over 18 to take you.

KB: Do you remember the first big striped bass that got you hooked into surfcasting?

PA: Well I was hooked into surfcasting years and years before I ever caught a big striper. I fished the Rockaways and places like that and, to us at that time, a 10 or 12-pound striper was about as big as we’d seen. It wasn’t until a trip to Nantucket in ’67 when I caught what I considered to be a big bass, a 29-pounder. I think I got it on a Rabbit plug, similar to what today you would call a Robert’s Ranger. At that time they were made of wood. A friend of mind had made some that he saw in a Saltwater Sportsman article. That was my first big bass; breaking the ice was the hardest part. But there weren’t a lot of big bass around then. The only guys that I knew who caught big bass were the guys that fished the jetties. Those were the idols to a surfcaster at that time, the Al Bensten’s and those guys.

A younger Pat with a nice bass from the rocks.

KB: When and what made you get into the tackle shop business?

PA: I sold some tackle mail-order back in the early 80’s; odds and ends, droppers and stuff like that. Then I got into River’s End in ’86. I was going to be a silent partner and then I turned into an unsilent partner [laughs]. My job was transferred from Connecticut to New York and I struggled to get into this lifestyle of commuting to the City. I tried it for one week, didn’t like it and quit. Been here since then...

KB: Were you always in this location?

PA: I started out with a partner named Sherwood Lincoln and we had an 800-sq. foot shop down the  street. It was an un-insulated building with a woodstove to heat it. You couldn’t leave the shop for more than 12 hours unattended because the pipes would freeze. So we basically never closed [laughs]. This is River’s End’s 27 th year in business. We kind of grew by drips and drabs. When this building became available, it took about eight months to renovate it. Now we have just under 4,000-sq. feet.

KB: After all this time behind the counter, what’s your favorite part about the business?

PA: Being behind the counter [laughs]. I hate the paperwork and I had no idea when I got into retail. All I thought was that you had to sell stuff. I had no idea that you had to buy the stuff to sell it and you had to pay for it. But there’s an awful lot of behind the scenes stuff that you never see. Like any small business, you’ve a lot of paperwork and it takes a lot of time to buy the right stuff at the right place, and keep the shelves stocked.

KB: If you could travel anywhere in the world for fishing, where would you go and what would you fish for?

PA: My favorite fishing is bonefishing. The only time I fly-fish is for bonefish. It’s the most exciting fishing that I do. There are probably other things, but it’s accessible. Certainly I don’t have to invest in a couple hundred thousand dollar boat to get out to the canyons to tuna fish. You can go with the simplest of gear, walk the flats on your own, be by yourself, on foot, wading, and it’s 70% hunting, 30% fishing. You are in the middle of this ecosystem as well – there are predators, there’s prey, there’s bait; I find there are slow times, but every hour’s exciting whether you’re catching fish or not. You’re hunting when you’re not fishing, so you’re always actively doing something. I try to go to Acklins Island in the Bahamas at least once a year. It’s a very primitive island, very few inhabitants and almost all the flats are accessible by car.

KB: If you could only surf fish one state for the rest of your days, which would it be?

PA: If I had to pick a state it would be Rhode Island for the access. Rhode Island not only has the beaches, breachways and ponds, but there are a lot of different things going on in RI—basically a year-round fishery if you want to pursue it. I probably do most of my fishing within a five mile radius of the shop; it’s not necessarily the best waters, but it’s probably what I know best and what I have the best access to and, as far as time goes, the most time I can spend. It would be nice to be on Cuttyhunk or Block all the time, but you have to have the access, the time and everything else that goes with it.

KB: If you could use one lure for the rest of your fishing what would it be?

PA: Is a rigged eel a lure? [laughs]

KB: That’s a good answer! What direction do you see surfcasting headed? Is wetsuit fishing just a fad?

PA: I think what surfcasting has become is extreme fishing. It’s very much a younger man’s game; more aggressive fishermen do a lot better at it. I think wader fishermen are going to be in the minority. I think there are some really good fishermen now – if these fishermen were around when the bass were around, boy would they’ve hammered fish. But a lot of times people concentrate more on getting to a rock and falling off that rock and getting on that one rock. But when you really survey the situation, the best spot to be may be the rock inside of that that is reaching fishable water. I think a lot of people that are new to it seem to be more obsessed with getting out on a rock than getting to the right location. Tim Coleman, who I fished with for a long, long time, rarely even wore waders.

KB: Thanks so much for the opportunity, Pat.

Best In Show

Tomorrow is the first day of winter and it will feel like it. With the solstice comes the coldest air of the season so far. Nighttime lows in the single digits could make some good ice up north when the wind lays down. But thanks to the seesawing temps of late, I'm trying my darndest to temper excitement. Still, the old Jet Sled is packed with gear by the basement door, ready to go at a moment's notice. 

Waiting for ice strong enough to walk on takes time. Time to reflect on favorite catches of the year as 2024 winds down. I couldn't pick just one. It had to be two favorites, each a personal best of their respective species. One caught in the spring, one in the fall. One caught from shore, one in a kayak. Both with native names derived from the Algonquian language.

The PB tautog story has been told here before, and I'm fortunate to have captured it on video. The PB squeteague story, while much less documented, was nonetheless memorable...

When I was young, my late grandfather told me there used to be so many weakfish in Long Island Sound that you could walk across their backs. Hyperbole yes, but his point was clear. I'll never witness squeteague runs like he did, yet I'm thankful there remains spots they can be found each spring if you put in the time and effort. Earlier this year, while waist-deep in a May outgoing tide, I hooked, landed, and released the biggest weakfish of my life. Though not giant, she was from a bigger size class than any I had previously come across, and from a place that holds special meaning. A beautiful and impressive specimen that set a new bar; a bar I will be aiming to raise again next May. 

Yak Toggin'

A relentless wind ushered in Connecticut's fall tautog season. Blowing hard from the west, it limited when, where, and how anglers could target blackfish in the Sound for days on end. The only calm window during opening weekend was supposed to be early Sunday morning. The wind was predicted to subside for a few hours before ramping up again as it shifted east. I loaded up my kayak and gave it a go. 

A stunning dawn sky made the trip even before wetting a line. As I anchored to a familiar patch of rocks in around 15 feet of water, there was a magnificent sunrise at my back and an unexpected pillar of light along the shoreline to my front—an A+ start to the morning.

It was a high incoming tide and my game plan was to jig crabs with the lightest weight I could get away with. Lucky for me, a pile of sizeable blackfish was parked on the structure directly below. Vertical jigging from a kayak oddly reminds me of jigging through the ice—I'm crazy about it. On the very first drop with a small green crab, and every drop after that, the action was immediate. Within 30 minutes of fishing, I had a limit of 16" to 18" tautog bleeding out on my stringer. 

While still relatively early at this point, the wind was changing and I didn't want to be on the water much longer. At the same time, I had a solid bite going and felt the urge to hold out longer for a larger specimen. I put the Asian crabs aside and reached for one of the last few greenies. The age-old 'big bait, big fish' theory was to be tested again. 

When I set the hook on the next good hit, it soon became apparent that this tog was in a different class than the rest. It was heavier, pulled harder, and peeled more line off my reel, yet I was lucky it stayed up and away from the craggy bottom. Though it wasn't a high bar to begin with, when the blackfish finally surfaced, it was clear this was my biggest ever of the species. I celebrated like it, too. 

It measured 22.5-inches long from its broom tail to its impressive crab-crushing mouth. Known to be slow-growers, this tog was likely older than my kids, and was getting released back into the gene pool whether I had my limit or not. It was a short trip and this was a hell of a note to end it on. The wind did eventually shift east and pick up substantially. A friend fishing one of the local breakwalls said it was blowing so hard that he had trouble staying anchored. 

With the fish I took home I was able to share a few filets with friends and family, as well as savor some ourselves. Later that night, in a cast iron pan on the grill, we fried tog nuggets for the kids and tog tacos for the adults. It was the icing on the cake of a truly memorable day.

Wild Peninsula

    Whales have summered here
    Before the Wampanoag,
    And long after us.

Callinectes sapidus

    Beautiful swimmers,
    Rust-colored and mad as hell.
    Tasty summer treats.

Squeteague

    Horseshoe crabs amble,
    Waves of weakfish hit the bar.
    Springtime on the Sound.

Opening Daze: 2024

    A spring tradition
    With family and friends
    Recharges the batteries.

First Ice, First Fish

Our footprints were the only ones on the lake aside from the coyote tracks we followed to our spot. It was a deliberate walk in single file, testing the ice in front of each step with whacks from a heavy steel chisel. There should have been more ice than there was, but a recent snow had slowed its growth and hid her imperfections. Even still, there was enough black ice under a grey layer to make us feel comfortable, and temps would be stuck in the 20s all day.

It was mighty good to be ice fishing again, but in the back of our minds we knew it was fleeting. Just like last season, it looked like we could be in for only a short window, so we had to make it count. That’s why we took the day from work and set our alarms for 3 a.m. It’s also why we brought more gear than we needed. What’s the point of owning all of this stuff if we don’t get to use it?

A flag went up just as snowflakes from a light system started to come down. Jeff noticed it first, standing tall on the farthest tip-up in my spread. The bait was a large fallfish that I had trapped in my home waters and vacuum-sealed almost two years before. It’s hard to describe the feeling when approaching a dead bait flag on a windless day. Suffice to say, it was exciting to look down and see a slow rolling spool with line off to the side.

With a firm tug on the Dacron, my hook found purchase in the maw of a hefty pike and the fight was on. Euphoria was soon replaced by despair when the tension went slack. The predator below had bolted toward the hole, fooling me into thinking I had lost her. Once I retrieved enough line to come tight again, our spirits lifted and the battle resumed in close quarters. The fish was still green when her jaw opened just enough for a plastic gripper, and we kept her in the water as we removed the hook and readied the camera.

When we pulled the entire fish from the hole, what struck me first was its color. It sported the darkest greens I had ever seen on an esox—just an absolutely gorgeous specimen, thick from head to tail, well on its way to becoming a true trophy. After quick photos and a measurement, she kicked away strong and cemented a memorable first-fish-of-the-year moment. Jeff and I were flying high for the rest of the outing and it set the tone for the ensuing days, which may or may not have been the last of the ice season. Time will tell.