Captain Nick tells tales of the sea

From reeling in eels to landing award-winning sharks, blackfish and tuna, Nick Savene, 67, has caught all there is to catch in Long Island waters. Operating a charter vessel called No Time since the late 1980s, Savene has taught generations of visitors how to fish and given many of them of memories that will last a lifetime.

Now he’s trying to find more time to write a novel about his experiences, and possibly even dabbling in a podcast.

Savene grew up in Flushing, Queens, where some of the kids on his block had a lemonade stand. He had a fish stand. Obsessed with fishing since he was a kid, he would hide fishing line in his locker at Holy Cross High School to go fishing after school in Flushing Meadow Lake. His mother, distraught by what he brought home, would say to him, “What are you going to do with all these fish. We can’t eat all these fish.”

So he started selling fish, in St. Albans and other neighborhoods.

In 1987, when he was up to his ears in fish and couldn’t sell all he was catching, a friend said to him, “You’re so good at catching these fish, and you’re a pretty sociable guy. Why don’t you start chartering?” Savene liked the idea, and after he took some Newsday reporters out on his boat, his business was booming. He moved to Island Park in 2003 to be closer to G&T Marina in Oceanside, where No Time is docked.

Savene is all about teaching each generation the technique — and the thrill — of fishing. “I get no more satisfaction from anything than teaching someone how to fish,” he said. “That’s my mountain to climb at this point. I’ve caught everything I could possibly catch. Giant sharks, giant tunas, mostly big sharks, there’s nothing around here that I haven’t done yet. The challenge now is to try to get more people to learn how to do it the right way.”

After hosting thousands of people in confined quarters for extended periods on his boat, Savene attests, “You get to meet a lot of different people. You meet a lot of different characters.” Women and children are his favorite students, because they’re willing to listen — except when they’re distracted by their phones. Smartphones present a conundrum for charter captains: They are useful when it comes to capturing memories, but easily distract from the task at hand.

Savene is no longer looking to expand his business. “I’m looking to ease back a little bit on it,” he said, “but at the same time, I welcome new people on the boat, of course, because it’s a chance for them to experience something they will probably very well love for the rest of their lives.”

Now Savene wants to write a book based on the adventures he’s had over the years. Since he started fishing, he has kept a log of every spot where he’s fished and fish he’s ever caught, along with a box weighing upward of 40 pounds with photos from his trips.

On a trip in October 1991, he caught a 589-pound thresher shark. The shark swam under the boat and got the line caught in the propeller, leaving the boat dead in the water, because Savene didn’t want to cut the line and lose the shark. His first mate at the time told him there was no chance the shark was still there, so Savene suggested that he jump in and untangle the line, even though he believed the shark was still down there.

The first mate dived into the 61-degree water, untangled the line, saw the shark up close and came up hollering that it was still down there and to get him back aboard. After battling with the shark for about four hours, they managed to harpoon it and bring it to shore. They radioed in they were towing it back in, and that it was bigger than one they’d caught the year before, so by the time got back in, later that night, a small crowd had gathered at the marina to see the creature.

Savene caught a tiger shark the morning before he saw the blockbuster “Jaws” in a theater. He was on a friend’s boat, because he didn’t have one yet, and they reeled in a 450-pounder — “the biggest one I’ve ever caught to this day,” he said.

That night, “ironically enough,” he said, “we’re on a line to see ‘Jaws’ and I’m explaining to people, ‘Well, we were out shark fishing today and caught a giant tiger shark with an unusually large mouth.’” Savene can quote from memory the scene in the movie in which a tiger shark is thought to be the beast that is terrorizing the town of Amity.

But the ultimate memory, for anyone who enjoys fishing, is of that first catch, and Savene is no different. He was at a family gathering at his Uncle John’s waterfront house, he recalled, saw members of the family fishing and asked what they were doing down there.

“All of a sudden I see (one of them) pull up this eel, this really big eel — it was fascinating,” he said. “So I said, ‘I want to try that.’” He geared up, and, as patiently as he could, waited for a bite. Nothing.

After that, he said, “I haunted my father daily to take me back to Uncle John’s, (saying) ‘I want to catch a fish,’” Savene remembered. At another family event, he was so bent on catching a fish that his relatives had to bring him food, because he wouldn’t move from his spot.

That afternoon, “I got my first bite, and it was electrifying,” he said. “I’ll never forget it,” he said. He started reeling and screaming to his family, and they came running, thinking the screaming was something tragic. But when they came, he triumphantly held up an eel. “I’m sitting there, so proud and excited this happened to me,” he said. “I love it, love it, love it.”