Article by Dale Timmons
We received the following note from Stan and Nancy Geesey, of Conestoga, PA last week. Thought we’d pass it on.
“Here is a fishing story that you may want to share!! It is the honest to goodness truth!! On May 20 my husband and I were surf fishing at Assateague Island on South Beach. We each had our lines in the surf and were standing there holding our rods. About 100 ft. to our left was another couple fishing. Their rods were in sand spikes and they were sitting in their beach chairs a distance back from them. I happened to glance over to see the husband and wife both at the surf, scanning the water – while the husband was holding his empty sand spike!! We could only assume that it was the story of the ‘one that got away - - rod and all’!! Shortly after, I decided it was time to check my bait. I began reeling in and thought I had somehow snagged something. But I soon realized that I was bringing the line in, but it was ‘extremely’ hard to reel. I thought I must have snagged my husband’s line, but he didn’t feel anything. The closer I got, we could see that I was indeed on another line, but it wasn’t my husband’s. Got my line in and then my husband decided he would bring his in also. Again. . . . extremely hard reeling!! Didn’t take long before we spotted the fishing rod in the water. We realized later that I had snagged the line, and in pulling it in my husband had also snagged it. I quickly retrieved the rod and began reeling in the line. Once my husband had his line in, I pulled the rod and line down the beach to the fisherman asking if this was his rod. He was thrilled to see it and began trying to reel it in. It was quite a chore. My husband and I eagerly watched to see what was on the end. The fisherman kept saying . . .’Whatever fish is on the end is yours. You got my rod back . . . you ‘caught’ the fish . . . it’s yours.’ He finally landed a 35” striper!!! That poor fish couldn’t even put up a fight. Guess he was tuckered out from dragging that fishing rod around! This is a fishing story that we don’t expect to ever repeat!!”
It’s amazing how many rods and reels are lost overboard or pulled into the surf. This story had a happy ending, but most often the equipment disappears forever, or it is “caught” a month or two later by some unsuspecting angler. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, recently lost not one, or two, but three surf rods out of four that he had out. Even though he had the drags set loose, he was cleaning a fish and messing with the truck and not paying attention when a school of stripers, or maybe black or red drum, came along and absconded with his equipment. The rods included two brand new 12-foot Lamiglas conventionals and a slightly older 10-foot Lami. Those new 12-footers retail for over $300.00 each. I think he lost a pair of Calcutta 700s and a Daiwa Grand Wave with them. Would have made me sick to my stomach. He was by himself on a Virginia barrier island, so he stripped down “buck naked” and waded out to the outer bar with his remaining rod and cast a big Hopkins lure for over a half hour to no avail (Is that too much information?). Water was only about 60 degrees then, too. The late Bob Coolick, a.k.a. “The Mad Russian,” used to fish five or six rods at a time when he was targeting flounder, and he often told me he lost them all the time since they were usually just leaned up against the gunnels and not in holders. I’ve heard a lot of these horror stories over the years, including some that involved Penn International 50s or 80s that disappeared forever in the offshore canyons. I don’t know what the point or moral of this story is, except to say if you value your gear make sure your drags are backed off, check and reset your sand spikes on the beach and use rod holders in the boat whenever possible…
I like to experiment and try new things when it comes to lures or rigs. Some things work, some don’t, but I enjoy it when they do. Sometimes when I order something from a catalog and it comes, I look at it and say, “What the heck am I going to do with that?” One of my suppliers recently added some very large spinner blades, for instance. They had a nice finish and some fancy colors, so I thought I would try a few. These things were huge; I guess they were made for musky fishing or something, so I ordered the smallest one, which was an Indiana blade that turned out to be two inches long, an inch-and-a-quarter wide, and probably about a sixteenth of an inch thick. (In case you don’t know, an Indian blade is kind of oblong, while a Colorado blade is more rounded.) Anyway, it was super heavy duty and heavy as heck. I laughed at myself, then I took one and rigged it above a 4/0 Kahle hook with a Mylar skirt and several beads. Because of the weight, I put an oblong float about an inch-and-a-half long above the blade to give it some buoyancy. I put the whole thing on a leader about six feet long, followed by an in-line swivel with about 10 inches of dropper to a snap for the sinker. It was kind of a monstrosity, I admit, but I figured the rig might work well for deepwater flounder fishing at someplace like Cape Charles, VA. That evening, however, I went out in the south bay with Capt. Jason Mumford and his first mate/boat engine mechanic Paul Turner. Jason was spanking Paul and me with my own rig, a Delmarva Double with small chartreuse blades that he has dubbed the “Deadly Double.” To make a long story short, in desperation I put on the new rig with the big blade, and I immediately caught a couple of fish, even though they were “shorts.” We were only fishing in five or six feet of water, so now I am even more convinced that the rig will work well in deep water. Now I just have to come up with a name for it…I’m thinking maybe something like the “Sinepuxent Snake”…
Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.