Teach me to fish
Elementary school teacher fascinated with angling
Editor's note: Anglers across the U.S. are buying fishing licenses in record numbers. Following is a story in our new series, Fishing America, representing a slice of American angling pursuits.
TINTON FALLS, N.J. — Gustavo Barrientos tied a clinch knot onto the belt loop of an energetic 9-year-old student and told the boy to run.
"Me? I'm the fish?" asked the boy. "Awesome!"
The Tinton Falls, N.J., elementary school teacher wanted his 20 students to know how the drag on a reel works. Many of these kids lived only minutes from the Atlantic Ocean and yet few had fished or even thought much about it.
The boy ran and jumped while the class laughed. Barrientos gained line when he could. In the end, the teacher and the St. Croix rod won.
"They had a great time. That boy will probably never forget that lesson!" said Barrientos as he baited a hook for a friend's 10-year-old boy who dropped the offering to the bottom.
"Hold your thumb on the spool," Barrientos said, still teaching in a way even though he was off for the summer. "When it hits the bottom, reel up a few cranks. There. Perfect."
Barrientos is a lot like any other fishing nut across the country. He loves to hit the water, and is always fascinated about what he hooks into. Where he lives, in shore-side Monmouth County, N.J., that usually means fluke, sea bass, weakfish and bluefish.
Farther offshore, mako sharks, blue marlin and mahi mahi are targets. But he also travels to Florida's East Coast and Caba San Lucas for good shots a big game, like sailfish, wahoo, swordfish and marlin.
But like any fisherman, he's happy to fish local waters. Barrientos watched the depth finder as he motored the "Linda Ann," named for his wife.
"Forty feet. Forty-four feet," he said. "This is it! I feel good about this spot."
He cut the motor. Two friends and the 10-year-old free-spooled their bait-runner reels on 7-foot boat rods to the bottom. They each had a 4-ounce surf weight with a three-way rig attached to about 24 inches of 20-pound test that ended with a 2/0 Kahle-style fluke hook.
Bait was a strip of squid and a live, 3-inch killie (mostly likely a Fundulus heteroclites, which are also called mummichubs and killifish elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast.) A buoyant Spin-N-Glo in pink or fluorescent green threaded above the snelled hook topped of the bait. It served as an attractor and kept the bait just off the bottom where the flatfish could easily spot it.
"This is the spot," called out the optimistic Barrientos, who smiles wide and frequently. Barrientos turned up the radio. It was tuned to a New York City station that pulsed '80s and '90s rock. Perfect music for a summer Saturday on the Jersey Shore. Barrientos jigged the rod every five or six seconds, and let the tip back down.
"When you pull the bait up off the bottom, the sinker makes a 'poof' when it hits the sand again," he said. "These predator fluke see that and swim over to check it out."
The boat drifted with the southeast wind and incoming tide. It was among about a dozen other boats — from 16-foot skiffs to 30-foot Hatteras sport fishers. All were about to 200 to 500 yards off a spit of land at the northernmost point of the Jersey Shore. This thin, pristine peninsula called Sandy Hook stretches into Raritan Bay and New York Harbor and is capped by a 103-foot-tall lighthouse.
Anglers watched their lines and waited for a hit. Some jigged, some stared off, squinting in sunshine. If they looked to the north, they would have seen Brooklyn about 10 miles away. Barrientos' mother and father moved from Guatemala City to Brooklyn in 1973 when Gus was 5 years old.
The boy never went fishing, even though he lived a few blocks from New York Bay.
Barrientos remembers going to the fish market in Coney Island, eating fried clams and fried fish. He remembers seeing anglers disembark from party fishing boats. But he never remembers having a desire to set sail or wet a line.
"It just wasn't something anyone in my family did," he said, looking into the water as waves rocked the boat.
The skyscrapers of Manhattan looked like a floating skyline 20 miles to the north.
But few were admiring the Big Apple, especially when a fluke took the bait 40 feet below.
The takes were subtle. The fight didn't put much wear on the drag. Still, like all fishing, it's a thrill to speculate what's on your hook.
Most of the fish were sea robins (Prionotus carolinus), one was a skate (Rajidae) and the four anglers aboard pulled in about 10 fluke in about three hours of fishing. All were short of the 18-inch minimum size. All were released.
Even though no one would be eating baked fluke or fluke with butter and lemon on a grill that night, the day was just about perfect.
"There's nothing I like better than to bring friends out here on the water," said Barrientos as he turned the bow toward land and motored eight miles through the Shrewsbury River to the boat ramp at Parker Creek.
"It doesn't get any better than this," said Barrientos with a wide smile and a laugh.
