Article by Dale Timmons
Suzanne and I spent a few days in Buxton, NC last week on our annual getaway. The fishing wasn’t all that great, but we had nice weather, and I did manage to catch half a dozen Spanish mackerel one afternoon while “throwing metal” (actually painted lead lures designed to resemble a glass minnow. Pink was the hot color, at least that day.). There was a lot of bait in the water, and the eagle rays were jumping and somersaulting, but the highlight of the trip was probably when what I think was a pilot whale came right into the beach on the south side of Cape Point. It was probably within 50 yards of the sand at one time, lolling just beneath the surface with its large black dorsal fin showing well above the surface. Kind of neat to see…
I was looking through some old back issues of CF last week, and I came across a feature story I had done on a gentleman in the late 70s. It started me thinking about all of the good fishermen and interesting characters I have come to know over the years and some of the interesting wisdom they passed on. Some of them may seem trite, or old fashioned, now, but at one time they were fresh, and they have stood the test of time. Consider the following:
“They got a better chance out there than they do in here.” This aphorism is commonplace now in the age of catch and release, but 40 years ago it was radical thinking. The first time I ever heard it was from an old salt named Ward Gray. Mr. Gray fished during the Jackspot heydays in the 50s and 60s, and he was referring to white marlin at the time, but it holds true for just about any fish we choose to let go…
“High water, falling, with a good hole…” Uttered by Judge Dale Cathell, then City Solicitor for the Town of Ocean City, who was featured for his “obsession” with plug casting the surf for stripers. It became my favorite time to plug the surf as well. Cathell also said, “Except for the business it would hurt, I’d like to see it stay just like it is between September 15 and November 15.” Wouldn’t that be nice…
The late Capt. Earl Simpson was a true Eastern Shore outdoorsman and a well known figure at the south jetty in the 1970s and 80s. Earl was proud to put me on my first surf caught red drum in the mid 70s. I featured him in 1977, and he had some sage advice: “These fish don’t stay in one place. They move around a lot. You might find them in one spot one day, and somewhere else the next. You’ve got to look for them.” He was referring to the big gray trout around the jetty, but it holds true for just about every species. A related aphorism is, “They got tails, don’t they?” Simpson also waxed a little philosophical when he said, “Sometimes I catch fish, sometimes I don’t, and it really doesn’t matter. It all evens out. I once had a party where this guy says, ‘Well, Cap, are we going to get ‘em today?’ I said, come on, don’t put the kiss of death on us before we even go out. We don’t always catch fish. That man upstairs is the one. Sometimes He lets you catch them, and sometimes He doesn’t.”
“You got to give ‘em what they want to eat, not what you want to feed ‘em.” These words came from a fellow named Pete Rusinkewicz, who spent the summers living in the back of his pickup truck with a cap on it and fished seven days a week on the old railroad bridge, the Rt. 50 bridge and the north inlet jetty, the kind of life most fishermen only dream about. The advice sounds pretty obvious, but how many fishermen do you know who always fish the same bait, no matter what the fish are feeding on?
“RH (rod holder) is the best fisherman in the boat.” I once interviewed four mates on hooking and fighting white marlin—Jim Farlow, Brian McKibbon, Tuffy Rindfleisch and Jim Garner. They all had slightly different takes on different baits, from natural squids to eels, but they all basically agreed that “Rodney” was the most consistent angler on board. This was in 1979, in the days before circle hooks, and before ballyhoo dominated the bait picture, but it might still hold true. It also holds true for many other species, from flounder to cobia…
Former Ocean City Mayor Hugh T. Cropper, Jr. was an avid hunter and fisherman. He especially liked red drum fishing from the beach and flounder fishing in the back bays. In 1983 he offered me some insights: “We caught a lot of drum on Assateague then (in the late 1930s). It wasn’t nothing to go down and catch seven or eight. We used to catch most of them at Fox Hill Levels, where there were no dunes and the water washed across to the bay all the time. This kept the bottom clean, and the drum would come in there to feed. The real drum fishing stopped when they started building sand fence to raise the dunes…we used to ride the beach and look for piles of sand crab shells, where the drum would be feeding on the soft ones. And we looked for something different, a rip tide or the edges of a bar for instance. If there was a real long stretch of deep water, we would stop where there was something different, a little bar or anything…I always liked to use the big bunker or menhaden for bait, though some liked the mullet. You lay that bunker out in the sun for a while and it gets real greasy, puts oil on the water when it hits… The bigger the bait, the bigger the flounder. I always liked to use those big striped minnows, and live spot…I always liked to troll for flounder myself. I’d catch 3 to 1 trolling. Always trolled against the tide. It’s just like the drum—find something different for your big flounders—a bar, a rip, a deep edge or something… there’s a lot more to flounder fishing than just dropping a line over. Most people pull the bait right away from a flounder…”
One of the most colorful offshore captains I ever knew was the late Capt. Ron “Buckshot” Pieper. He learned from one of the best—Capt. Hoss Hatter—in the late 1960s, and ran boats such as the “Ship Café” for Pete Boinis in the late 1980s. In 1983, Buckshot offered us some help for marlin fishermen: “My favorite baits for marlin are the swimming mullet, a bonito strip bait with a skirt, and the ballyhoo. I use different baits at different times of the year, when I see that the marlin are feeding on something. I try to use what’s close to the natural bait they are feeding on…I always keep a big bait handy for blue marlin. My two favorites are a big squid or a big mullet off Ocean City. What amazes me about a blue is the fact that he is a lot bigger but a lot faster coming to your baits than a white. A blue marlin can eat three baits while a white is looking one over.”
Finally, back to Capt. Earl Simpson, who told me one time: “Don’t get a swelled head if you catch a nice fish, cause most of the time, no matter how good you are, it’s just dumb luck…” Ain’t that the truth…
This is the last issue of Coastal Fisherman for the season, so once again I want to just say “thanks” to editor and publisher Larry Jock for allowing me this space and to all of you who are still reading my drivel after all these years…let’s hope for a good fall season, and maybe I’ll see you out there…
Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.
