NIGHT FISHING FOR MONSTER STRIPED BASS

Can you imagine what it would be like to catch four Striped Bass over fifty pounds and one over sixty pounds, and do it all in one night? Well, Billy "the Greek" Legakis accomplished this feat on the night of June 5th, 2008 on the Meadowbrook Bridge, one of the nine bridges that comprise the west end bridges of Long Island's south shore. During their heyday, they produced impressive numbers of forty to fifty pound bass, and staggering numbers of twenty to thirty pound bass. But they didn't give them up for free. There was a steep price to pay, both figuratively and literally, which is why so few fished them. Fishing from atop these bridges was a unique, dangerous, productive, and secretive form of fishing. This book is more than just a collection of fish catching stories, it is an attempt to encompass the whole bridge fishing experience, from the early days right up to its demise, due to law enforcement, changes to the bridges, and the overall decrease in the Striped Bass stocks. The stories Billy and I tell, are about friendship, discovery, overcoming challenges, good times and bad, and even death, all told with an underlying sense of humor. They represent a mere fraction of the events we experienced during our combined eight plus decades of fishing the west end bridges, an era whose days have come and gone.