By:Scott Brinton
The engine rumbles, and the water around Bloom's 18-foot fiberglass boat suddenly gurgles. The 33-year Merrick resident releases the boat's mooring lines, and he is soon cruising out of the boatyard and into the middle of Merrick Bay.
It's a recent overcast Saturday at around 8 a.m. There's little boat traffic in the bay. The weather reports have called for rain, so most people have stayed home. But Bloom, a fisherman's fisherman, isn't deterred by the possibility of getting a little wet. He's taken his tan Invader into the bay for more than a quarter century, plying its waters for one catch or another. Today he's fishing for fluke, a spotted, flat, gray fish.
For Bloom, fishing Merrick Bay is an escape, a way to find peace. "It's very relaxing," he says, looking every bit the fisherman in his faded jeans, checkered shirt and well-worn baseball cap. Bloom is on the water five to seven days a week. He often heads out with his wife, Sue. He fishes at the boat's stern, while she sits at the bow, sunning herself, talking to friends and family on a cell phone, or reading.
Today, the sky stretches to the horizon like a giant, ash-gray field. The bay, with only a hint of waves, shimmers. Sprawling homes, enlarged again and again since they were built in the 1960s, line the shore. Just to the west, a black cormorant steams across the bay, its body submerged beneath the water, its head poking out like a periscope. A handful of black-and-white terns hover overhead, cackling for a quick meal of fish bait. But Bloom gives them none. Give to one and a dozen others will show up demanding food.
Bloom, who for years owned a sheet-metal business and is now retired, parks his Invader just east of the Merrick Peninsula and shuts the engine down. The terns have disappeared, and it's nearly silent. Only the sound of lapping waves punctures the quiet. A soft wind flows over the water.
Boxes of hooks, lures and fishing weights are neatly arranged on the floor of the boat. There's a crate full of old rags, a box of pliers and knives, and a few bottles of motor oil. From a small aluminum bucket at his feet, Bloom scoops out a frozen spearing, a tiny, silvery fish used as bait for fluke. With a hook, he carefully pierces the spearing's eye and body, and pulls the bait perfectly straight so that it will look like it's swimming when in the water.
Bloom casts his line and lets it sink to the bottom of the bay before pulling it back slightly. The fishing, he remarks, hasn't been great of late. The bay is warm in August. Fish like cold water, so they tend to stay in the cooler ocean. He doesn't hold high hopes for today. Soon, however, his reel clicks and the line jerks. A fish is tugging. Bloom pulls his pole hard, then gently reels in his catch, a fluke that's a bit too short to keep, according to state regulations. So he throws it back in the water, unharmed.
As Bloom fishes, he speaks of days gone by when the bay was a much different place. When he started fishing here in the 1970s, there weren't all the sleek yachts that now crisscross the bay. Mostly working-class folks came out in small fishing boats to catch Saturday's dinner.
Bloom remembers Nick's Boatyard well. Nick's, on the east side of Merrick Bay, rented rowboats. People from all over came for the boats to while a day away fishing. Bloom says, "You'd see them all over the bay, little rowboats that said 'Nick's' on them." Nick's is now a high-end yacht club.
Despite the bay's character change, which Bloom doesn't particularly relish, he continues to fish its waters. He loves it so much here that he and Sue keep their Merrick home so Ed can fish the bay from spring to fall, even though the couple owns a house in Florida. They spend the winter there, and Ed mostly plays golf, rarely fishing. The waters are more turbulent down south, and Bloom craves calm.
Around 10 a.m., Bloom revs the Invader's engine and moves the boat farther into Merrick Bay. He settles on a spot between an archipelago of marsh-grass islands and a raft of dark green seaweed the size of a football field. Thirty yards away, a great white egret tiptoes through the shallow water beside a muddy island, searching for an easy catch of small fish.
Bloom notes that there's a "hole" nearby where the bottom drops away. Small fish live on the slopes of the drop-off. The small fish attract big ones, so this is an excellent place to cast a line.
He lets his boat drift aimlessly. He's soon caught a second fluke. Again, it's too small to keep, and he returns it.
Bloom prefers the taste of fresh fish from the bay to the variety bought from a store where it's been on ice for three days. "The taste is entirely different when you're filleting fish that's an hour old," he says.
But much of what Bloom catches doesn't end up on his table. Instead, he gives most of it to a neighbor who is a gourmet cook. Her husband suffers from a heart condition and can only eat fish. In a good week, Bloom might provide 20 pounds of meat to his friend.
Just after 11 a.m., a light rain starts to fall, and Bloom calls it a day. He slowly pilots the Invader past a family of swans, through the wide-open bay and back to the boatyard. The hustle and bustle of suburbia seems a world away.
"The six months we're in Florida," Bloom says, "I'll miss this."
