Daybreaker's Captain Mike Brumm

About Captain Mike Brumm

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Captain Mike Brumm's life-long love for sport fishing and the sea began when he was a young boy growing up near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Mike fished there for rockfish, what we here in Montauk call striped bass. Often in a skiff, with his stepfather John, Mike would position the boat so their lines floated in the chum line created by clam dredges that worked the bottom. These dredges sucked up both sand and soft shell clam, and pulled the clams onto a conveyor belt for handpicking aboard the boat. Often, some clams escaped the pull of the dredge only to feel the mouth of a rock bearing down upon it. It was into these clams, that Mike's baited hook first went to await the lurking rock. And it was there in the Chesapeake, that young Mike apprenticed in the fine art of fishing, and first experienced the successful fishing trip.

Fishing soon became Mike's primary focus in life. Mike had come to New York City in the mid-sixties to attend art school, and then worked in the city as a photographer. However, it was the waters of New York and not the skyscrapers that would become the home base for this commercial fisherman/charter captain. His skills were refined under the tutelage of the notorious Captain Al Coley of the Betty W out of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.



	Captain Mike and a Porgy, probably destined to be a snack for some unsuspecting Striper, on the cover of The Fisherman. Photo by Tom Schlichter

During the mid-sixties until the mid-eighties many men were able to make a living hook and line fishing in the New York Bight. The first Daybreaker was a small fast center-console boat. Often referred to as the mosquito fleet, the Daybreaker and others like her, would capitalize on their speed and agility to hit the fish first, and take their catch before any of the slower boats caught on. This group earned their reputation as the "sharpies".

These "sharpies" were able to provide the market with ample amounts of sea bass, blackfish, weakfish, striped bass and bluefish. Unfortunately, the ample amounts of fish waned, and soon New York State laws forced Mike and the others to give up their lucrative striped bass fishing. Luckily, Mike had also been chartering all those years, and had gone through two more Daybreakers, each increasingly larger and more comfortable. He easily made the switch to full-time charter boat captain. Mike also acted as a consultant for anglers looking to buy and outfit their own boats for offshore fishing. In the early eighties, Mike recommended the purchase of a 38' Topaz named Artemis, and rigged her top to bottom for canyon fishing, delighting her owner.

Beginning in 1985, Brumm focused on fishing for big game, shark and tuna, in the productive offshore waters of eastern Long island. "I've been challenged by the waters of Africa, the Mediterranean, the west coast of Mexico, the Yucatan and the Gulf of Honduras...but give me the summer months in Montauk for the best fishing anywhere."

The Daybreaker is a downeaster, custom built for the waters of Montauk -- in fact Captain Mike says, you could fish the winters in Newfoundland with this boat. This 38-footer cruises fast at 20-knots and is equipped with the latest required safety equipment.

The Daybreaker specializes in overnight fishing trips to the waters above the great ocean canyons where you can expect to catch the fishing trip of a lifetime.

Since 1993, Brumm has been honing his warm water fishing skills and is now also running the Daylight, a 28-foot McKee Craft out of Islamorada in the Florida Keys from Christmas on up until May 15. The Daylight is docked at Bass Pro's World Wide Sportsman Marina located at mile marker 80 in Islamorada.

"Captain Mike Brumm has acquired a wealth of offshore knowledge that can be put to good use at any port"

- The Edge
Big Game Fishing Journal