When I took my role at The Fisherman Magazine, one of the first people who called me was former Long Island editor and current contributor Bill “Doc” Muller. Doc has been involved in the Long Island fishing scene longer than most of us have been alive and has a wealth of knowledge and expertise to offer. In that initial phone call, Doc offered up his help and tutelage to me as I went into a job that was very new to me and of course could use the guidance with. Between Fred Golofaro and those such as Doc Muller, they certainly made the beginning stages of my role with The Fisherman much easier. I must also add that Doc sits on the NYS Fishing Advisory Board with me. He is currently the longest sitting member on that board.
So fast forward a few years and a bunch of trips that were talked about but never took place. Finally, last fall, I got the call from Doc about a trip with his friend Rich Lazar and Rich’s son. The place was the western Sound and the target species was tog – a fall favorite of mine. And also in a location where I did not fish before so it was even more interesting to me. The schedules lined up and I was able to make the trip on Rich’s Everglades center console. Doc actually covered some of the details of the trip in his October feature article. These guys were a blast to fish with. They had quite the camaraderie going on and we caught fish as well! Most of the fishing consisted of light jigs with green crabs for tog but Doc showed us that you could still get it done with some salted clam during the fall session for tog.
Fast forward less than a year later and the discussion of a trip came about in the early portion of the season. Actually we had this great idea to try catching a couple of winter flounder for old time’s sake but that trip never actually came to fruition. I’ll certainly place it on the ’25 list with Doc.
I spent a good portion of the summer restoring an old boat of mine (you can also read about that project in my October editor’s log) and told Doc that once I was finished I’d love to get him out for a light tackle fluking trip. Well the boat project went a little longer than expected just due to being busy throughout the summer, doing summer things. By some time in the beginning of August the project was completed and luckily the fluke fishing stayed excellent all through August and into the month of September.
We finally picked out a day and had at it. I was on a pretty good fluke bite close to home and if it wasn’t 30 seconds from the mouth of the canal, it was literally 45 seconds until you were in the action. Before anything, the first step was to cast net some live peanut bunker so before heading to the spot, we went up the canal where we quickly found some baits and while Doc controlled the boat I threw the net for about 60 livies.
Within a few minutes we were back out of the canal and literally fishing in no time. And the first fish came pretty quickly, too! It was a good pick at fluke with one put in the box by myself in the first half of the trip. Then we decided to break away from the pack and scout out some other stuff for ourselves. Good thing we did because while cruising along near a shoreline about a mile away we found some schools of peanut bunker being harassed. Initially we thought they were being bothered by the snappers until we started to fish around them. As soon as we casted a live bait into the school it was sucked up by a fat fluke each and every time! These schools were getting attacked by super aggressive fluke – something we have never seen before in person.
By the end of the trip we both caught plenty of fish, each had a keeper for the dinner table and experienced something new that we never witnessed before. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the next trip with Doc.
