Article by Dale Timmons
Welcome to the annual winter issue of Coastal Fisherman. Hope you have had a decent fall/early winter season. Once again we have suffered through a lot of wind for the past few months, and it sure hasn’t helped the fishing. Makes it kind of tough when the water looks like a Wawa cappuccino. As I write this article in early December, the wind is howling from the northwest and has been for almost a week, with high temps in the upper 30s. Not my idea of fishing weather, at least as I get older and I find that “I don’t hate a fish as bad as I used to.” In fact, if it wasn’t for one good trip to the Virginia barrier islands in early October, when I got lucky and caught five nice red drum, along with a couple of decent stripers that I caught in the Black Friday Tournament with my friends Capt. Jack Kaeufer and “Electric Dave” McKay (when Dave would let me get near a rod), my fall season was practically a bust. Of course
the aforementioned windy weather and a nasty upper respiratory thing that knocked me out of commission for a couple of weeks didn’t help matters. Anyway, I hope you get a chance to get somewhere warm this winter and maybe catch a fish or two. I know I’m going to try to myself…
For the past couple of winter editions, I have tried to pass on “what worked for me” in the previous season. I’m happy to report that a couple of items that I mentioned in last summer’s columns panned out pretty well. I caught all five of those reds I mentioned before on the same hook, for instance, one that I said last summer looked good for reds and large stripers. It was the Mustad 39951BLN Demon Circle in a 10/0 size. This is a non-offset circle hook with a relatively thin “1X Fine Wire.” It has a nice wide gap, making it ideal for big baits, and a “chemically sharpened” point that held up well to the tough jaws of red drum. Another outfit that served me well, though it’s not really new, is the Daiwa Saltiga Surf 30 reel mounted on a Daiwa Ballistic Surf Rod. The Surf 30 is a really sweet high end reel, while the Ballistic Surf rod is a three-piece, 13’3” rod that comes in three different weights (powers) and can be used with either spinning or conventional reels. I have caught several large red drum on this outfit and love the way it handles. Another rod that I just started using (publisher Larry Jock turned me on to this one) is the Shimano Trevala S jigging rod. I have the TVSS-63M, which is a spinning model that is only 6’3” long and is rated for 40-60 lb. braid and a 135-gram (4.76 ozs.) jig. It works great with bucktails or metal jigs up to about three or four ounces. I paired the rod with a Shimano Saragosa 4000F reel and really like the combo for stripers. It should also be nice for sea bass. It’s a little bit expensive, but since I already have it, this outfit may also become one of my new favorite flounder killers next summer. It should work well in the ocean, the Cape Charles, VA area or any other deeper water spot where you need more weight on an ultra sensitive rod. I also like the dark green mottled color of the blank and the fact that the rod weighs next to nothing. Finally, in a classic case of “match the hatch,” while fishing in that Black Friday tournament, we were trolling all the usual large lures such as Stretch plugs and big sassy shads on heavy heads and didn’t have a bite all day. I had a spinning rod rigged with a two ounce chartreuse bugeye bucktail for jigging or casting, and almost in disgust I just threw the jig out and stuck the rod in the holder. You guessed it—we had three striper bites and caught two nice fish, all on the much smaller bucktail, which, to be fair, was also tipped with a little straight white pearl plastic tail, one of those “3X” stretchy things…sometimes you just have to get back to basics…
Recreational fishermen are under fire. In the past few years, we have gone from almost being an afterthought, a largely ignored semi-invisible harmless “user group”, to the target of radical environment organizations and government bureaucrats trying to cover their butts in the wake of bad laws passed by a congress that didn’t have a clue. If it weren’t so scary, it would be ridiculous. Regulations have become draconian, absurd or whatever extreme adjective you care to use. We are facing closures of large areas of traditional fishing grounds, radically shortened seasons, size and creel limits bordering on the absurd, beach access closures, “catch shares,” and whatever else the crazies and their lawyers can dream up to justify their fund raising and their jobs. I never thought I would see the day when an individual couldn’t go out and catch a fish to eat. I am not against commercial fishing. My family roots include the Cropper Bros. Fish Camp, which before the 1933 storm stood where the Ocean City Inlet now runs. But like I have said before, our natural resources don’t really “belong” to any of us, or they belong to all of us, and if a hard choice has to be made to insure the survival of those resources, how can we justify allowing one individual or company to catch and sell tons of that resource for profit while telling another man he can’t catch and keep a fish to eat? Wild ducks used to be a commercial commodity, but when their numbers reached dangerously low levels a hundred years ago, wildlife managers and congress had sense enough to prohibit the commercial sale of waterfowl. I don’t think it needs to come to that with fisheries, and I hope it doesn’t, but anyone who thinks recreational anglers are to blame for the demise of certain species has his head up his butt. The problem is that certain radical groups simply don’t want anybody to be able to fish, and they have decided that we are an easier target than the “commercial guy who is trying to make a living”. Never mind the thousands of jobs and businesses that depend on “sport” fishermen. A better solution would involve sport and commercial fishermen getting together to fight for all our livelihoods. The “antis” are cracking the whip, and congress and fisheries “managers” are bowing to their every whim. If we don’t get together and put our money where our mouth is and make a lot of noise very soon, it just may be too late…
I have been writing “fishing columns” for a long time. I think the first one was in the Beachcomber in the late 1960s when it was still owned by its original publisher, a gentleman named Ralph Grapperhaus. I was fresh out of high school in those days, and I think the column was called “Fish Bait”. Later I wrote “Baited Lines” for the now defunct Maryland Coast Press, and there were a couple of others before Suzanne and I started Coastal Fisherman in 1976. This column was first called “Tight Lines,” then “Short Casts,” but when everyone else started using that name I changed it. When Suzanne and I sold the Coastal Fisherman to Larry and Mary Jock in 2005, Larry was kind enough to keep my ugly mug in the beginning of his publication and allow me to continue my “blog.” I thank him for that privilege. When I started there were literally no regulations on flounder, sea bass, tuna, marlin and many other species. Recreational and commercial fishermen got along just fine in those days before the antis and the government pitted one against the other. But there were a lot less people competing for the resource in those days, too, and most folks didn’t have the free time or the money for boats, four-wheel-drive vehicles and other toys that allowed them to spend time fishing. Technology was also limited, and to catch fish you had to either be lucky or be much more attuned to the sea and the creatures that lived there. If I had known how little I knew when I first started this publication, I probably would have never started at all, but I learned a lot, and with a little luck and a lot of hard work it all came out in the wash. I met a lot of nice folks, and some not so nice, and I probably pissed off more than a few, but I also made a lot of friends, and for that I am grateful. A lot of those folks are gone now, and I would name names so you might remember them, but I’m afraid the list is too long and I would forget someone. Anyway, the fire in me is not as hot as it used to be, so maybe it’s time to turn the space over to a younger voice. It’s difficult to know when to quit, and it’s hard to imagine not doing something that I have done for so long, but maybe I’ll fish a little more while I still can. Most of all, I want to thank you for reading my ramblings for all these years. I know not everyone agreed with every word, and that’s the way it should be, but I hope I have at least passed on some useful information and entertained you just a little. Maybe I’ll see you on the rip, or the beach, or wherever and whenever we are still allowed to fish. Until then, tight lines, and thanks again for your support and your loyalty…
Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.
