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!

He'd rather be fishing

So apparently a bit of controversy surrounded the NFL Draft this past weekend in NYC. No, no one got shot outside of a club. And surprisingly no Bengals players got arrested. Instead the controversy stemmed over one of the top draft picks, Joe Thomas, who wasn’t present at Radio City Music Hall on NFL Draft Day.

Let me explain a little. Thomas, who was regarded as one of the top offensive lineman in the nation coming out of college, was projected in many mock drafts to get selected by one of the top 5 teams. Which means (for those who are not familiar with the process) he was in for a big pay day. As in a multi-million dollar pay day.

Imagine for a second that your new boss was about to hire you and make that announcement to the world. Imagine that the media was omnipresent at that event and the whole world was watching as your new boss announced that you were a new member of their organization. And imagine that you stood to make upwards of at least $20 million dollars with your new company. You’d be pretty psyched right? And you’d probably show up for your first day or “orientation” at work to have the media take your picture and bask in the glory of the announcement.

Well what if you had a previous commitment that day? Say a family obligation or a tradition you took part in every year. Would you renege on that obligation because of a big announcement to the world in which you were set to make millions of dollars with your new job?

I guess that my friends is the million dollar question! (no pun intended)

Anyway, this is exactly with Joe Thomas had to face this weekend. Instead of coming to NYC to the NFL Draft to bask in the spotlight of the announcement that the Cleveland Browns had selected him as the 3rd overall pick in the draft, Mr. Thomas stuck to his previous plans.

Which was a fishing trip.

With his dad.


Thomas not only caught a keeper, he just became about $20 million richer

Awesome stuff. I commend Joe for sticking to his original plans for that day. When the Browns came calling to tell Joe that they were considering taking him with their selection and to come to New York to Draft, Thomas said thanks, but no thanks. Which is very rare in this day and age of greed and instant gratification. Athletes more often than not will take the money over everything, including family. Most, you can argue, need the money to help support their families. Others would disown their own families now that they were rich and famous.

Granted it was very weird as an observer to see someone get selected at the top of a draft and not be present on stage to shake hands with his new bosses and hold up a jersey with the number one on it. But knowing the background story and seeing him on his boat fishing (they had a camera crew follow him that day) made me smile. Not just because it’s a great plug we can make for Field & Stream and Outdoor Life on the popularity of fishing. But because here was a guy who got it.

Tradition won over notoriety.

You can argue both sides of the equation. You could say that he was disrespectful to his new organization by not showing up for the “first day” on the job. You can say that as a professional athlete he has an obligation to represent his new team on its biggest stage. And partly, you would be correct. However it’s hard to argue with someone selecting time with their family in an annual tradition, which happens far too rarely in this world of crackberries and PDAs. Plus don’t you think some of the players there rather had been somewhere else on Saturday? Don’t believe me? Just ask Brady Quinn.


You think Brady Quinn would have rather been fishing than being subjected to hours of sitting there watching team after team pass him by?