It was a mythic beast.

Twenty-five and a half pounds. Feisty as Carl Paladino on the campaign trail.

Four feet long if it was an inch.

It fought the good fight but, alas, succumbed earlier this week.

And now, your time has come to enter the fray and unseat the leader. Of the best fishing competition in all of... Brooklyn.

Allow us then to present your invitation to the 2010 Brooklyn Fishing Derby, an open sporting contest for gentlemen fishermen, accepting new registrants now.

As with any classy gentlemen’s competition, there are rules: all entries must be in by November 21, only stripers and bluefish, photograph your beast lying flat next to a tape measure and, most importantly, you must do all your rodding and reeling from the shores, without the aid of any sort of yacht, schooner or haute personal watercraft. (While this slightly injures your chances, at least Jacques, your jet ski butler, need not return from his winter sojourn to Turks and Caicos.)

And although the sporting grounds are restricted to the East River between Red Hook and Long Island City, that leaves you miles and miles of the most pristine fishing grounds to ever recover from the brink of ecological collapse to contend for what the committee refers to as an unspecified “cash prize.”
 
Pride is bigger than the committee...