Mike D’Alfonso
Alix Boyle, 9.25.2025 Special to CT Examiner
I never liked fishing. Until I met Mike D’Alfonso.
You may know Mike. He’s a bartender at The Shipwright’s Daughter, one of the places that’s making Mystic known as one of the best restaurant destinations in the country.
When he’s not bartending, he’s fishing. And his catch may show up on the menu that evening in the restaurant, which serves nearly all local fish.
On a recent Wednesday morning, I tagged along with Mike while he set out in West Cove in Noank to see what was biting that day. Mike has a restricted license to fish for species like porgies and green crabs.
“If I can find an excuse to fish, I will,” said Mike, 26. “What’s not to like about it? You’re outside, every day is different, there are a million variables and ways to trick a fish into eating something. Sometimes you get something to eat out of it.”
First, we checked the traps for green crabs, which originally came to the U.S. in the 1700s on the bottom of vessels from Europe. Green crabs are usually used to add flavor to a dish, not for their meat. Mike sets his traps for green crabs because not only are they used at Shipwright’s Daughter and in a bisque at its sister restaurant, Fish Camp, but trapping them helps the fishery by controlling an invasive species.
Called the Southern Cross in a nod to his father’s Australian heritage, Mike’s boat is just 23 feet long and filled to the brim with all manner of gear.
“She’s a fishing boat,” he said with a shrug.
With no action in the crab traps, we changed location, and Mike baited a hook with a rubber worm scented to attract the fish. Right away, he caught a porgy, but it was a bit too small and he threw it back.
“This is as much of a science project as anything,” he explained. “You learn the patterns and find the fish.”
The pattern that day was heavy cloud cover, an outgoing tide and wind coming out of the northwest.
Fishing in Connecticut is more complicated than I realized. Everyone over 16 needs some sort of license, whether fishing for fun or to sell what you catch. A commercial fishing license can cost tens of thousands of dollars while the Connecticut restricted commercial fishing license costs just $125. With that, Mike can catch limited quantities of select fish, for example, up to 100 scup, also known as porgies, a day.
He can sell the scup to Shipwright’s Daughter for $4 a pound where they may be roasted whole and served with seasonal vegetables. The menu lists the name of the vessel that provided the fish.
“There’s no such thing as a trash fish, it’s just the way you cook it,” Mike said.
Raised in South Windsor, Mike spent every summer at his grandparents’ house in Noank where the Southern Cross is now moored. His dad and grandfather taught him fishing basics, but for the past 12 years he’s become an expert by watching YouTube videos and reading books and logging all his data about species, size, location, water conditions, wind, bait and tide. He’s seeing a lot more sharks in the water as well as southern species showing up like mahi-mahi off Watch Hill.
“Mike is one of our longest-tenured team members at The Shipwright’s Daughter and an avid fisherman. He’s also a writer for Fisherman’s Magazine,” said Kathleen Standridge, who serves as creative director for the restaurant group.
“We worked with him to obtain an ‘unregulated species’ fishing license. It allows him to harvest lesser-known species that are often overlooked in the culinary world. This approach reduces pressure on the more popular fisheries and gives us the opportunity to serve some of the freshest, most unexpected catches—sometimes the very same day they’re pulled from the water.”
Mike caught a porgy that was big enough to keep. He quickly dispatched it and put it in a cooler for the ride home, planning to make a fish sandwich with tomatoes from the garden.
This is exactly the way you should spend a Wednesday morning if you get the chance.
All this has me in my garage, dusting off a rod and reel. I think I’ll look for some bluefish and maybe smoke them.