DOROTHY B.

The picture to the left is from around 1950 and shows Captain Kevin's father Walter (plaid cap), Uncle Frank (center) and Uncle Joe (to right of Frank) holding a couple of nice cod.  Catching beauties like these was standard in those days and they were caught locally -- just an hour or two from the dock in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn -- and without the aid of modern day fishing technology like GPS devices, fish finders, and radars.  On clear days, some scraps of paper with a couple of good hand-drawn ranges and some basic Penn reels (or a simple sidewinder) were all they needed to land fish like these.  On foggy days, careful attention to course, current, speed and time were all they had to go by -- but cod like these must have made it all worthwhile!!

Fortunately for us they left a couple big fish out there for the later generations.  The picture to the right is of Captain Kevin, daughter Dawn, deckhand Sean (now son-in law Sean) and nephew Jason with a 568 pound Bluefin Tuna caught a couple miles off the Jersey coast.  There's nothing quite like the sound of those first few clicks of the drag on a simple Penn 16-0 when a Giant Tuna starts to run with the bait (a Mackeral caught near Ambrose on the way to the fishing grounds).  Sean reeled in the giant while Jason kept the pole on his shoulder, Captain Kevin did some skiillful hand-lining, and Dawn chased the fish down at the wheel.  From runoff to tail rope was an exhilarating twenty-two minutes.  This beauty was weighed in at Hoffman's Anchorage (a great little marina, now condo development, just inside Manasquan Inlet) and was quickly dressed for shipment to Japan.

Though not quite as big, the picture to the left is of Captain Kevin and deckhand Chris Frka with a 250 pound tuna -- one of two 200+ pounders caught that trip (picture below is the other)!

The picture to the right shows Captain Kevin's nephew Timmy sitting on the other giant.

They don't have to be giant to be a blast to catch -- especially when they are as plentiful as they were on the trip pictured at left.  That's Sean (he's not one for missing a good trip) hosing down a bow full of yellow fin and long fin tuna.  What a trip that was!!