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Forbes Life
Urban Angling
Monte Burke, 07.22.02
Why search for sylvan brooks when city waters teem
with feisty fish, semisafe to eat?
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| Cap'n Frank is a 20-year veteran of NYC waters. | |
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Standing on the bow of Captain Frank Crescitelli's 25-foot boat, preparing to cast a fly into Jamaica Bay, we expect another hit from a feisty bluefish or burly striped bass. The bite is on. We've already landed seven fish this morning, under light breezes and a steely spring sky.
Suddenly the pastoral quiet is pierced by the deafening whine of a Korean Air 747, 100 yards away, coming in for a landing at JFK International Airport. Welcome to urban angling, New York style, where if you can put up with a little floating trash, an occasional whiff of jet fuel and the cacophony of New York Harbor, you can catch fat, healthy striped bass, bluefish, weakfish--all of them safe to eat, in moderation.
Just ten years ago you might have been committed to Bellevue for fishing this water. Untreated sewage and the 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls that General Electric dumped in the Hudson River turned the harbor into a cesspool. But then the Clean Water Act of 1972 stopped cities from using the waterways as open sewers, and now New York enjoys one of the best inshore saltwater angling spots in the country.
Here (and in other cities) perception has yet to catch up with reality, meaning most anglers don't fully understand they've got prime sportfishing waters right outside their offices. For you, that's good: Your odds of being shouldered off your spot by 200 Orvis-clad dweebs brandishing $1,000 rods are far smaller than on the bucolic Beaverkill River in the Catskill Mountains.
The fish are even edible--up to a point. The New York State Department of Health says that women of childbearing age and children under 15 should not eat fish containing PCBs. Everybody else, though, can safely eat one meal (half a pound) a month from the Hudson and nearby waters. Captain Frank and this reporter decided to take our chances with a 15-pound striper caught--fittingly, we decided--between Hoffman and Swinburne islands, used in the late 19th century as a quarantine and a crematorium, respectively. Back at his house on Staten Island, we pan-seared the bass in a mango-and-walnut sauce for our dinner party. The flesh was firm and delicious, and we ate and drank until midnight, toasting the reborn harbor of New York. (To book Captain Frank: 917-468-4817; finchaser.com.)
To read about other urban fishing holes, click here.
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