What Pushes My Buttons

Life's a "breeze"

So on Saturday, Avi, Lauren and I ventured off to do some fishing. Instead of hitting one of the party boats in Sheepshead Bay I suggested we take a trip to Breezy Point (Queens) and fish off one of the jetty's on the beach (which would also double as a beach day)!

So we headed to Brooklyn to pick up my mom's car and some equipment and headed out to Breezy Point, which I haven't been to in years. For those who don't know Breezy Point, it's basically a very small neighborhood at the western tip of the Rockaways adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean. If it wasn't for the Rockaways and Breezy Point, most of Brooklyn would be like the lost city of Atlantis because the water would surge completely inland.



Anyway, we drove to the end of the penisula and parked next to the Breezy Point Surf Club. I figured it would be a short walk from there so we unloaded the car and carried our gear towards the beach.

Well, small problem was that we had a cooler full of beer, ice and bait, bags of beach towels, rods and other equipment to fish with. So we weren't exactly carrying light. The other small problem? I failed to remember that we had to walk over 1/2 mile in the sand dunes to get to the beach.



Everytime we thought we were close, we had another twist and turn in the path. Buzzards were circling over us waiting for the moment we dropped in exhaustion. It really felt like another world, with 10' tall grass and thick as molasses sand dunes. Sweat poured down our brows as the gear became heavier and heavier. It was crazy...I never remember the walk being as long or as tedious.

Finally we got to the beach and dropped our cooler and bags straight down. We took a few deep breaths and tried to catch our bearings. People were laid out on the sand, sunning themselves and playing in the surf.



I looked to the right and figured the jetty would be right near us. Nope. Not even close. The jetty was farrrrrrr in the distance. Like another 1/2 mile or so!


The jetty was barely seeable from here!

You have to be kidding right? How big can Breezy possibly be? We should have been in Jersey by now with the amount of walking we did!

That was a big discouragement to say the least. We were dying of heat and fortunately Lauren and I came prepared by wearing bathing suits (Avi wasn’t as thoughtful) and headed into the water to cool off. I normally like to dive right in, but it was still fuckin cold! Felt good initially, until my nipples started to freeze over and then I headed back to the sandstorm (true to the name, there’s always a brisk ‘breeze’ in Breezy). Seriously, it felt like we were in the middle of a sandblizzard. Sitting down, the sand whipped into your back. Laying down the sand pounded your face. The only salvation came when we opened the cooler and busted out the 6 pack of refreshing Light Mike’s Hard Tea!



Awesome stuff! It's a little less sweeter than the previous versions of Mike's Hard Tea and goes down supersmooth. I think I drank two bottles in 2 minutes top. Probably could've drank another 20 or so. Definitely worth trying, especially on a hot summer's day.

After about an hour or so of laying around we decided the trek to the jetty would be too far, so we decided to surf cast. We only had 7 foot rods, where normally surf casting requires a 15-20 foot rod. So needless to say we were in trouble. I ventured into the ocean and attempted to cast past the waves, which failed miserably. Avi had better luck casting, until the reel popped off the rod and the line snapped off, taking the weight and hook with it. Not only happened once, but twice. Hmm. Note to self, you can't overhand cast a fluke rig. I guess there's a reason you only fish for fluke off boats, you're supposed to drop the line deep down and let the fish bite. We learned this the hard way. Twice.

Anyway I had another 5 pounds of squid that I didn't know what to do with. And since everyone else I asked wasn't fishing for fluke (I guess they were fishing for syringes?) I ventured out into the water and let the squid go. The seagulls ate the squid in about 2 seconds so so much for feeding the fish!

Anyway...no catches of note for us. Besides catching plenty of sand in our eyes, nose and ass. Ok, maybe not ass...but I wouldn't be surprised if some ended up there! Heading back from the beach we cut through the Breezy Surf club where we were able to walk on concrete and not sand. No wonder why they charge their members $50 per visit!

However, since I never published the pictures from our trout fishing trip a few months back, to make me feel better about fishing, here's Avi with his trophy wild trout caught at the Morsston house back yard stream in Livingston Manor, NY





And here's my big catch from that weekend's fishing trip!



Pretty sweet huh? Needless to say that branch was able to feed us for weeks!