Ambrose Salmini was going through a rough patch in April 2022 and like many of us he took comfort in fishing. But that wasn’t going well either.
“It was five days in a row and I did not even have a bite. I can’t really explain how strong that urge to catch a fish was,” he says. “I’d leave work early and come home any time between midnight and two in the morning.”
Ambrose’s obsession with stripers often pushes him to go beyond what most anglers consider reasonable, such as fishing from a kayak in heavy chop and 40-mile-per-hour gusts. Such was the case on day six of his quest, when he pulled into a Union Beach, N.J. lot popular with fishermen. On any normal day it would be bustling with activity, but on this wind-whipped afternoon it was eerily empty.
As Ambrose unloaded his bright green kayak an older man approached. “I know you’re not going out there.” When Ambrose replied that he was, the old-timer looked him dead in the eyes.
“You’re an idiot. You’re crazy,” he said. “Be careful.”
Ambrose didn’t give the warning a second thought. He had fish on the brain, and as tough as the conditions looked for kayaking, they were promising for stripers.
“Seeing the wind and the waves, I thought, ‘Good, the fish will be here because it’ll be dirty. They’ll be stirring up bait. There’s going to be fish everywhere,’” recalled Ambrose, who launched through the shore break without even taking time to put on his life jacket.
The old-timer looked Ambrose dead in the eyes.
“You’re crazy,” he said. “Be careful.”
It was tough going from the start. Ambrose struggled to get off the beach and put his lines in the water. He was out of his element and knew it, but just as he decided to turn back his reel screeched to life. For a few glorious minutes Ambrose forgot all about the wind and waves. “Battling that fish in those conditions was an incredible rush,” he says. “It’s why I fish.”
When he finally got the fish to his kayak, he let out a joyous whoop and reached for his phone. He wanted a photo to commemorate the moment, and that meant punching in his passcode and setting the self-timer with one hand, all while wrangling a 20-pound striped bass with the other. As he worked, the kayak drifted broadside to the waves, one of which rolled under him just as he hoisted the fish for the photo. “That shift in weight, combined with the wave, tipped me over,” Ambrose recalls. “I went into survival mode the second I hit the water.”
Without a life jacket, Ambrose struggled to keep his head above the surface. His waders filled with water, pulling him down. Struggling to stay afloat, he realized the gravity of his situation.
“With no life preserver on and the big waves come in, I was swallowing saltwater and really struggling to breathe. My waders were filling with water, pulling me down like a sinker,” he says. “It’s hard for me to explain fully that feeling. There was a good 10 seconds where I was kind of grappling with the fact that I’m probably going to die drowning, fishing away from my family.”
The kayak immediately began to drift away, and in a moment of clarity Ambrose lunged after it and latched on. The water was 48 degrees. Ambrose had only a few minutes before hypothermia would set in, robbing him of the strength to grip the kayak. Climbing back aboard with his waders full of cold seawater was out of the question, so Ambrose turned toward shore and started kicking. He didn’t seem to be getting any closer, but the exertion kept him warm.
Fortunately, the old man in the parking lot wasn’t the only one who had taken an interest in the lone kayaker fishing the storm. Someone watching from their apartment window saw Ambrose capsize, and dialed 911.
Ambrose watched from the water as squad cars and a fire truck pulled into the empty fisherman’s lot, lights blazing. “I was choking on saltwater, freezing, and genuinely afraid I wouldn’t make it,” he says. “But hearing the sirens gave me a little bit of hope.” Then, inexplicably, the emergency vehicles rushed off in a different direction. Ambrose kept kicking.
A few minutes later, officers from the Union Beach Police Dept. Marine Unit arrived in a patrol boat and hoisted Ambrose aboard. Soon he was shivering in the back of a Union Beach Fire Dept. aid car, with the heat cranked up as high as it would go.
Reflecting on the incident later, Ambrose acknowledges his mistakes and the thin line between passion and recklessness. The combination of inadequate equipment, dangerous weather conditions, and lack of essential safety gear nearly cost him his life.
“Going out in those conditions without a life vest was laughably stupid,” Ambrose admits. “It’s a miracle I’m here to tell the story.” Ambrose did survive, and he told his story in a YouTube video that garnered thousands of views. One of the people who commented on his video was the person who made the life-saving 911 call.
“Buddy, I was watching you from my living room,” wrote the person, identified only by their YouTube handle. “Glad I stumbled across this video and that you are okay. As a kayak fisherman myself my heart started pounding when you went over … Good luck and tight lines.”
