The pleasures of porgy fishing

Fluke fisherman or bass fisherman often look down their noses at porgies and porgy fisherman.

“They’re too easy to catch,” they say. Okay, just so everyone understands, I once helped a young girl catch a fluke on a piece of bubble gum. Hardly the “wascally wabbits” everyone thinks they are.

“There are too many bones.” I would like to put forward the theory that porgies have roughly as many bones as any other locally caught fish. The problem is in the limited abilities of the people wielding the knife.

It was part of this very debate that I overheard as I sat on the bow of the Peconic Star Express, eating my egg sandwich, getting totally fired up for a day of porgy fishing. The group I was fishing with had a couple of guys who probably would have preferred to go fluke fishing. In the end, porgies won the day.

I secured my favorite spot in the bow and decided to check the boat out. I had never fished on it before. The Peconic Star Express is laid out to fish and to fish comfortably, from bow to stern. Plenty of seating, full galley and a courteous crew. What impressed me more is how close the dock is to where the fishing is. Peconic Star II can untie and basically start fishing. I was further impressed when I went to upstairs to talk to Captain Dave Brennan and heard him talking about running past the fleet of other boats, from far and wide, at the end of his dock, to find fish by himself, out east.

We left the dock and ran past a lot of boats from places as far away as Montauk and Connecticut. We ran east and made our first drop in the area off Gardiner’s Island. I had three fish in as many minutes. Big knob head sea bass were being caught as well. John Mantzopoulos, fishing right next to me, landed a nice blackfish. Those fish are all out of season and were released unharmed.

When the bite slowed, Captain Dave would pull anchor as we picked our way east. The only time the bite completely shut down was slack tide. When the tide picked up again, it was lock-down-slaughterhouse-five-scup fishing! It stayed that way for about an hour. The whole boat was catching fish as fast as you could hit the bottom. The bite began to slow just as it was time to head in.

For the ride home, I sat on the top deck on lawn furniture and traded fish stories with some new friends. Down below, four mates worked feverishly to fillet, scale and gut what was probably around 1800 fish. Fish cleaning was still happening at the dock. I went home with plenty of boneless fillet.

The Peconic Star Fleet is running two boats; one for fluke, the other for porgies, sailing daily from Greenport, N.Y. If you want to try porgy fishing but don’t know how to eat them, try this recipe for porgy ceviche:

Two or three large porgy filets
One small red onion
Two hot chili peppers of your choosing
One large tomato
Cilantro
Hot sauce
10 limes

1. Slice the fillets into bite size pieces and place in a glass baking dish.

2. Squeeze enough lime juice to cover the fish.

3. Chop all the other whole ingredients and add to the dish, along with the hot sauce, to taste

4. Refrigerate for at least an hour, stirring occasionally. The acidity of the lime juice “cooks” the fish. Serve immediately.

Tight lines everyone!

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl

Brian Nigro is a lifelong avid fisherman and former charter boat captain. He’s fished from Alaska to Mexico and lots of places in between, but his favorite place to fish is right here on the East End.