I’d arrived at Montauk in the late afternoon, having left straight from my last class of the week at Villanova. It was mid-September, a bit before prime time, and the fall crowds hadn’t quite materialized yet. Unfortunately, neither had the fall blitzes. At Paulie’s Tackle, the report was that the fish were holding way off the beach, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I followed the path down to Turtle Cove and found one of the Montauk surfcasting scene’s most colorful characters, Paul Melnyk, stuffing a live eel into a model rocket he planned to launch toward the horizon.
Filming the whole ordeal, was Rich Siberry, who I later met and spoke with outside Paulie’s. Rich, it turned out, had just started filming for a documentary on the fishing and the fishermen at the easternmost end of Long Island. The film was to be called Montauk Rocks.
After hundreds of hours of filming, interviewing, editing and fundraising, Siberry’s project is complete. Having just watched the film, I can say it’s a true fulfillment of the vision Rich described to me on the stoop of Paulie’s half a decade ago. Rich captures the fun, excitement and overall weirdness of the surfcasting scene at Montauk. And I was happy to see the space-bound eel footage included.
To pick up your own copy of Montauk Rocks, click HERE.
