On the Run
An Angler's Journey Down the Striper Coast
Excerpt
Chapter OneSwimming With the Fishes
"I don't advise peeing in your wet suit," shouted Paul
Melnyk. "You'll get a mean rash."
"I'll keep that in mind," I hollered into the wind, my
words quickly blown back into my face.
Truth was, whizzing in my neoprene bodysuit was the
least of my worries. I was standing at the edge of the roiling Atlantic in Montauk, New York. Clouds covered the sliver of a moon, the chilly October night as black as the bottom of a well. In a few minutes I would follow Melnyk into the ocean.
We planned to lie on our backs, fishing rods held under
our arms, and kick our way three hundred yards offshore.
Once there, we would float on the current that ran parallel
to the beach, casting live eels for striped bass. After we were carried for a half mile or so, we would kick back to where we started and begin the drift again. Melnyk, a Montauk local who invented this form of angling, calls it skishing (a cross between skiing and fishing, since large strip ... read full excerpt from On the Run ebook
