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As the last summer heat is squeezed out of the weakening sun, the waters around New York
 City appear like a lifeless expanse of molten grey steel.

Maybe from the shoreline, but in the water itself, the "blitz" is on. Right now, parked off
 our coastline, are roughly 40 million striped bass, pausing in New York harbor as they make
 their annual migration from Maine to the Chesapeake Bay. Our once-polluted harbor is now
 the striped bass equivalent of the Vince Lombardi rest area - a place to refuel on cheap
 junk food before continuing on the journey.

So for fishermen, the next three weeks are the Super Bowl, the fall of Baghdad and
 Thanksgiving dinner all rolled into one. During the blitz, there are so many fish in the
 sea that catching one is about as easy as catching the clap in the backroom of a Bangkok
 gin mill.

Few sane men (or less-sane newspaper columnists) would wake up at 4 a.m. to go fishing - but
 "the blitz" can make a man do crazy things. So the Gnome accepted an invitation from
 fisherman-of-letters Dave DiBenedetto, author of "On the Run: An Angler's Journey Down the
 Striper Coast," to experience the striped bass blitz firsthand.

DiBenedetto is one of those insane fishermen. In 2001, he quit his job to follow the bass
 migration from Maine to North Carolina. Along the way, he encountered the full range of
 even nuttier bass-o-philes, including a guy in Montauk who swims into deep water in the
 middle of the night and fishes while floating on his back, and a guy in Rhode Island who
 makes underwater fetish videos of feeding stripers (hey, whatever turns you on).

"There's an amazing subculture of striped bass fishermen," said DiBenedetto, whose book is
 fascinating even if you think that fishing is a good boat ride spoiled. "Some of these guys
 will fish all night."

Out on the water, the word "blitz" describes more than just the stripers' migratory pattern.
 The bass feeding frenzy not only attracts the sea gulls (who take their share), but also
 the fishermen, who lean hard on the throttle and race each other to the scrum. It's not
 fishing - it's hunting.

"I call it 'combat fishing,'" said Captain Frank Crescitelli, who runs fishing trips out of
 Staten Island's Great Kills Harbor (www.finchaser.com). "We see the birds hovering and
 we're off! It's search and destroy."

All morning, Crescitelli and DiBenedetto pulled out stripers at will -- using nothing but a
 plastic lure that looked about as much like a fish as a scarecrow resembles an angry
 farmer. 

"These fish are in such a frenzy to fuel up for the migration that they'll chase anything
 that moves," DiBenedetto explained.

How easy is it to catch a striper during the "blitz"? Let's put it this way: The Gnome,
 whose orca-like consumption of fish should not be mistaken for skill in the ACQUISITION of
 fish, caught two 25-ounce beauts on his first three casts. 

It was fun, I'll grant you, but DiBenedetto and Crescitelli were like fishermen in a candy
 store, catching fish, posing for photos, and high-fiving each other - even though they
 always return their catch to the water.

"That way, I can catch him again someday," DiBenedetto said. But when he finally pulled in a
 14-pounder, we decided that this was not just a beautiful striper, but dinner. 

Which proves that old adage: Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; give a newspaper
 columnist a fish and he eats AND fills his Monday column.

--30--

gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net