On this July day, at three a.m the New York mid-town air was super saturated. It promised to be a scorcher in the mid town canyons. My wife was headed to museums that day. Lucky me, I was headed to the water. The concierge of my hotel, got me into a cab and told the driver to head over the Verazano bridge. An hour later, I met up with Mark Sherman in front of a gastric bypass office. Mark, when not fishing, practices as a orthopedic doc. He had me meet him at this lonely dark corner on Staten Island I think because he was trying to tell me something about my weight. I hate thin people. After a couple of stops at various delis to get breakfast for all, we met Marks' brother Gary, also a doc, in fact all of Mark's three brothers are docs. His father Ben influenced his sons to carry on the family trade. The only sane one at the dock was Captain Joe ''Maz'' Mustari. Captain Maz was busy getting the center console sea worthy.
The 23' center console headed out into the orange horizon of rising sun. A glorious day was opening on the water in New York harbor. Maz directed me to cast to some pilings and wham, immediately I was into a nice striper. It came unbuttoned, and I cast again. This time the striper wrapped me around a piling. After the dawn shots at his pet stripers, we headed to open Atlantic, passing tour boats and a huge party fishing boat. In the eastern tranquil blue, gulls and terns were tearing up the ocean. Upon approaching the area we could see the blue fish charging and slashing the bait. Gary got a bluefish on streamer fly, then Mark, and I hooked up also. Maz kept the boat just up current and away from the main schools, so we had lots of time to make cast after cast, without spooking the school of bluefish. I had to relearn how to cast an integrated shooting head that I had designed several years before, but somehow lost the skills to cast. We caught plenty of bluefish on wet flies and surface poppers. At one point, I had caught enough, so I had fun casting a surface plug without hooks on a bait casting rod, keeping the fish coming close so the fly boys could get into the action. Throughout the morning and early afternoon we had several schools of blitzing bluefish from four to ten pounds, and then another chance at stripers at one of Maz's secret spots. Gary told me that many of the other captains try to figure out where Maz is going. He has a sixth sense as to where things are happening by tide and current. Mark said, ''My dad, and brothers grew up here and we have fished New York harbor out of our own boat for fifty years. ''There is no one like Maz, He is the best''. I had to agree.
Jim Vincent
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