Mount Misery

by Angelo Peluso

  “Karen, I need you to analyze a few things with this DNA. First, I need to know if the tooth came from a known species of fish. If not, what does the DNA most closely match? Second, I want to know if there are any anomalies in the genetic makeup of the tissue. Has anything caused changes or mutations? My gut tells me these are not simply giant guppies.”

  “I’ll also use FISH to help me profile the DNA. Stands for Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization. It will allow me to map the genetic material in the DNA, including specific genes or portions of genes. From the standpoint of your needs, it is important since this enables me to analyze any chromosomal abnormalities or other genetic mutations. If your fish are some genetic monsters, I will be able to validate that. I may even be able to tell you how it happened.”

  “Terrific, Karen. I appreciate all the help. This whole situation is like a ticking time bomb and I’m running out of time.”

  “Have the K&K Twins completed all their work?” Rick returned from his coffee run. “I brought you each a coffee light with a tad of sugar to add to your already sweet dispositions.”

  “What a ball buster,” Karen responded, “But thank you. Despite what some may say, you do have some socially redeeming qualities.”

  “Who’s the ball buster?” Rick shot back.

  Katie intervened. “We’re done, Rick. Karen has a lot of work to do and I need to get back to Fish and Game. Let me hear as soon as you find out anything, K2.”

  “Figure two days. That would be my personal best.”

  “Okay, we are outta here. Let’s get together for dinner after all this is over. We have a lot to catch up on.”

  “Just leave your buddy at home.”

  Rick turned back toward Karen and with a smile said, “I love you too, sweetie.”

  On the way back to the truck, Rick asked, “What’s up with Karen? Why the nasty attitude toward me? What did I ever do to her?”

  “It’s not what you did to her, Rick. It goes back a long way to when you and I broke up and you headed up to Alaska. Karen was my crutch. She was there for me when you weren’t. It was a dark time for me and she was my salvation. She helped me through some tough days. In her eyes, you were a real shit. Can’t say I blame her.”

  “You two stick together like syrup on pancakes. That wasn’t an easy time for me either. But that was then and this is now so she’ll just have to deal with it.”

  “We’ll talk about this some other time, Rick. Now I just need to get back to work and figure out what we are going to tell the director. Waiting for those DNA results for two days is going to seem like an eternity.”

  CHAPTER 25

  The bait shack had been open for business almost two hours when Jack Connors walked slowly up the stairs leading to the front door. While he was in good shape, jogging and mountain biking regularly, sixty-four hard years had begun to take some of the spryness from his legs. His double tours of duty as a US Marine scout sniper in the jungles of Vietnam had had the most impact on his physical and mental aging. He rarely talked of his combat experiences, but when he did, Jack would often respond to inquiries about the Vietnam War with his own altered version of a famous quote by Henry David Thoreau, “The mass of Vietnam vets simply lead lives of quiet desperation.” Jack had seen more than his share of the horrors of war, and he had perpetrated many of his own horrors in the name of honor and duty. To this day, he had endured his own personal times of quiet desperation. Jack wasn’t ashamed, nor did he ever feel a sense of guilt for what he had done for his country. He did what he knew was right and necessary, but sometimes late at night he would see the faces again as clearly as he had seem them through the scope mounted on his sniper rifle. Faces frozen in time and mind just as they were before he held his breath and squeezed the trigger.

  Jack would have preferred to have been on the water at first light but he'd had a late night carving mallard decoys for one of his duck hunting buddies. He specialized in working decoys, those that are actually used for waterfowl hunting rather than purely decorative “birds” whose only functional purpose is to sit on a display shelf and look pretty. His carvings were all about function rather than form. Jack’s decoys were in local demand by hunters as well as collectors of American folk art, but these days he only carved for his friends. When the demons of his scout sniper days would relocate to his consciousness, Jack found comfort in carving, the feel of wood and the shape of an evolving duck. The creative process cleared his mind and his soul. His were oversized decoys called magnums, much larger than the real-life ducks he hunted. Jack found that the bigger the “deek,” the more easily it caught the eyes of greenheads. He painted his decoys with a unique impressionistic style that worked well to fool waterfowl. It took a lot of concentration and finishing time to transform blocks of basswood into an impression of a live mallard. When asked how he did it, Jack would say that every block of basswood had a decoy locked inside and it was his gift to give it freedom. Jack carved and painted birds throughout the previous night until he was completely exhausted. His head didn’t hit the pillow until almost two in the morning and even then, the faces in the scope kept haunting him. This late morning start would have to do.

  Jack had called Theo at The Shack the day before and told him to hold out some fresh bunker and two frozen chum blocks. This was to be a bluefish day, hopefully, a big bluefish day. With two days to go before the big money tournament kicked off for the holiday weekend, Jack wanted to take a practice run and fish a few of his favorite spots. Jack had been fishing these waters for more than fifty years and knew the local fishing better than anyone. His morning outing would be a secret honey hole off the northeast edge of the Stratford Shoal in the Middle Grounds, around half the distance between Long Island and Connecticut. Jack would run and gun, shoot and scoot, testing the waters to make sure fish were around.

  While others knew the general whereabouts of this location, Jack planned to stay on the move. He didn’t want to draw the attention of snooping eyes spying his intended fishing spots; the key to his success was to fish around one specific period of tidal movement. One of Jack’s fondest sayings was that there are fishermen who are good at finding fish, and wannabes who are good at finding the fishermen who find fish. Jack also believed there were no longer any secret spots in the Sound, just spots that held their secrets. With fifty grand on the line, Jack didn’t want to take any chances, so cloak and dagger was to be the order of the day. He told his wife that if conditions were right, he might stay on the water throughout the night and use the cover of darkness to explore other spots that might produce big fish.

  “Top of the morning to you, Theo.”

  “And the rest of the day to you, Jack, I’ve got that bunker and chum for you. Been getting some good reports of big blues running the deep edges of the shoals and offshore structure. There’s a ton of bait out there too. It’s shaping up to be a good tournament. From what I’m hearing, they’ve gotten a record number of fishermen signed up already.”

  “Now that’s just great. Every weekend warrior from the Bronx to Orient Point is going to be out on the Sound this weekend. Not to mention boats from Connecticut and other transients trailering from around the tri-state area. I hate fishing the thing but there’s a ton of cash at stake.”

  Jack was also thinking that he promised Rick he would help out with the covert operation to gather some G-2 on those killer fish. Damn, this was beginning to feel like one of his long-range reconnaissance patrols behind enemy lines.

  “I’ll put this stuff on your tab,” Theo said, and then added with a big smile, “You can settle up when you win the fifty Gs. What do you think will win it this year?”

  “It’ll take a bluefish of about eighteen to twenty pounds and I’m going to pin those suckers down right now.”

  Jack gathered up his bait and chum and walked back to his truck and trailer parked in the adjacent launch ramp lot. He loaded the bunker baits in the cooler that sat securely tethered with bungee cords behind the bench seat of his c
enter console. And then he tossed the chum blocks in the fish box.

  Jack’s boat was an old style Sea Craft, a hull from the late seventies. He bought the boat with the money he saved while on active duty. There was not much to spend his meager military pay on in the boonies other than booze, hookers, and gambling, and Jack didn’t gamble much. Those old hulls were some of the best center consoles ever built. Jack’s boat was a Classic 20. He loved that boat more than any other material thing in his life. It was his ticket to freedom. Whenever life started to suck, which was more often than not these days, he filled up the gas tank and headed to the water. Jack learned early on in life that water was for him a therapeutic elixir, a chemical compound with extraordinary medicinal properties. Jack simply loved being around water; he adored being on it. He also hated crowds and that motivated him to find sanctuary away from the typical fleets that congregated on all the known hot spots. That penchant enabled Jack to build a coveted library of GPS coordinates of fishing spots that other fishermen would kill to acquire.

  Jack admitted he was, first and foremost, a bait fisherman and big striped bass were his favorite quarry. He had become very proficient at catching big bass on all forms of local baits, dead or alive: eels, bunker, shad, clams, porgies, sea worms, crabs; if stripers ate it, he used it. He would also occasionally use taboo baits. Although illegal, Jack would sometimes bait up with live fluke and immature blackfish. The bass loved them and no authorities ever boarded his boat to check. Jack never killed more than his limit of bass, and often released his catch; and he simply refused to be told what baits he could or couldn’t use. If another boat came too close, he would just cut his line or toss the evidence overboard. His biggest bass of sixty-two pounds was caught on a live tautog. The bass was photographed and released. Jack would say of that fish: “Something that has lived long and hard to grow that big wouldn’t be killed by me.”

  Jack knew that for this trip he would need nothing more than bunker chunks and chum to entice big bluefish to eat. He motored straight from Port Roosevelt Harbor and headed north toward Connecticut. It was a crystal clear day, his bow pointed in the direction of the Stratford Shoal Lighthouse. That would be his first stop but not where he expected to do best. He needed to give the tide some time to run hard on outgoing water. That’s when his secret spot would yield the best results. If there were other boats out there, Jack would lead them astray much like a hen mallard feigning a broken wing leads predators away from her nest.

  Jack loved the way the Sea Craft hull cut through the water. Once on plane, it was like a sharp knife cutting through butter. The hull just floated above the surface of the water, a ride that he often described as being velvety smooth. Jack loved too the equally smooth, steady sound the Mercury engine made as it trimmed out to peak running efficiency. It was a comforting and hypnotic sound. A clear plastic-window enclosure wrapped around the T-top that framed the boat’s center console. The enclosure was useful when navigating rough water and windy fall conditions. The plastic side windows prevented cold spray from soaking Jack but, at this time of year, Jack kept the windows unzipped—the salt spray was refreshing in the heat.

  Within twenty minutes of leaving the harbor, Jack was anchored up about six hundred yards off the lighthouse. He took down two heavy bait rods from the rocket launcher rod holders attached to T-top. Jack threaded tough eighty-pound test braided line through the guides of both heavy-action graphite chunking rods. Each rod was matched to an equally heavy-duty conventional reel with gearing that allowed for high-speed line gathering. The outfit in its totality—rod, reel, and line—could handle just about any fish that swam in the Sound, including some of the small- to medium-sized brown sharks that roamed deep recesses of the mid-Sound. Jack had even taken some hefty tuna off Montauk with this rig. His game plan was to fish one rod with an un-weighted chunk of menhaden affixed to a size 6/0 Gamakatsu circle hook, allowing the bait to remain in the upper- to mid-level reaches of the water column. He preferred a circle hook since its unique design allowed the barb to set in the corner of a fish’s mouth rather than deep in the gullet. It’s easier on the fish, and there’s lower mortality for those fish that are released.

  Circle hooks were especially useful with big bluefish since it was a lot easier to remove the hook from the corner of the jaw and not run the risk of tangling with a mouth full of stiletto-sharp dentition. Jack rigged a length of strong piano wire as a leader that would be resistant to the biting force of even the largest bluefish. Bluefish can easily bite through fishing line so wire was used as the material that comes into contact with their teeth. The second rod and reel was rigged in the same fashion but with the addition of lead sinker weights that would keep the baited hook near the bottom. Between the two rigs, Jack would cover the most probable depths in the water column where bluefish would feed. If the fish herded bait to the surface, Jack would be ready with a stout casting rod and reel rigged with a popping plug, an artificial bait that chugs along on the surface when retrieved. The plug makes a popping commotion that bluefish find irresistible.

  The next order of business was for Jack to prepare the chum block and get an alluring slick of blood and guts oozing into the water. He took the still-frozen chum blocks and placed them in a mesh bag specially designed for facilitating the flow of chum. Once the bag containing the smelly mixture was placed in the warm water of the Sound, it began to defrost, allowing the contents to flow with the current. Eventually, the elongated slick acted like a highway that big bluefish would travel back up-current to the source of the free meal, and hopefully, to Jack’s baited hooks. As Jack placed the chum bag overboard, he secured it to a transom cleat with a length of rope. He shook the bag in the water to agitate and activate the chum mixtures: fish meal, ground bunker, fish oil, and a variety of fish parts, including tails, heads, and guts.

  Bluefish, like most other predatory fish, have the ability to sense their world by acquiring critical bits of data from their watery environment. Jack knew that if he wanted to stimulate a bluefish to strike his bait, he must first appeal to its sensory receptors. Learn how fish react to the environment and you will learn how to better motivate them to accept your offerings. Through a unique sense of electro-reception, predatory fish like bluefish also have the ability to sense electrical impulses given off by distressed prey. Through years of evolution, bluefish have developed a keen sense of sight. The obvious connection between sight and prey is that what a fish can see will often get their attention and result in further investigation. Jack’s quarry also have internal ears and a lateral line that aids in the process of hearing and feeling through vibrations produced in their environment. The lateral line is especially valuable in enabling a predatory fish to sense and feel the presence of other fish, prey in particular. Rows and clumps of receptor cells help bluefish to precisely locate food. It is able to detect disruptions in water like ripples made by struggling prey, and relay those to the brain through electrical impulses and unique nerve fibers. Fish also have the ability to smell via chemical reception. Through an arrangement of nostrils and an olfactory rosette, fish are able to detect and distinguish chemicals, often in minute quantities. Fish can actually taste through taste buds in their mouths and on their lips, tongues, and faces. That innate sense of smell was what Jack would use to his advantage to lure big bluefish to his baits.

  As the chum bag emitted its arousing aromas, Jack placed his baits in the water. The reel was in free-spool as the first bait was allowed to descend toward bottom. He had marked some fish on his electronic fish finder at about seventy-two feet down and hugging the bottom. Jack let the bait hit bottom and then crank up three turns on the reel so the bait could hang seductively. Jack allowed the second bait to float enticingly on the currents without any hindrance from lead weights or any line resistance. With that part of his task done, Jack sat on a cushioned bench seat that backed up to the center console. The seat had a pivoting backrest that Jack positioned it in a way so that when sitting on the cushion, he w
as facing the transom of the boat. That way he could watch the slick develop behind the boat, and be sure to spot any surface activity. Jack was dead-sticking both bunker baits, leaving them each unattended in vertical rod holders mounted on the rear of the gunwales. He placed one rod on the port side of the boat and one on the starboard side. Jack kept a third rod at the ready rigged with a large top-water plug he could cast toward any fish breaking the surface as they traveled up the chum slick to its source.

  Jack gave this spot about an hour and then moved a short distance to another location more suitable to the later phase of tide. He set up again and waited. To pass the time, Jack plugged in the earpieces to his iPod and sang along to some of his favorite Willie Nelson songs. Jack had idolized the singer since first listening to his music in Vietnam. It was the poetry of Willie’s lyrics that captivated him, and he owned every song Willie ever wrote or sang, helping him during bouts of depression and posttraumatic stress syndrome after the war. Jack belted out the lyrics to Good Hearted Woman as the chum slick began to draw the first of its visitors.

  CHAPTER 26

  When Katie arrived at Fish and Game headquarters, Nick was pacing the floor in anticipation of her arrival. “What the hell took you so long? Gunther is having a shit fit. Seems someone leaked a rumor to News Long Island about giant snakeheads in the Sound attacking and killing people. It’s all over the damn news tickers and airwaves.”