Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Last week a friend was telling me about a recent fishing trip and he mentioned that he was “fishing on a wreck on Russell’s.” Afterwards, while thinking back to everything he said, it dawned on me how often folks now use the term “Russell’s Reef” to describe the shoal and artificial reef area that resides five miles southeast of Ocean City’s Inlet. On the NOAA charts, the little strip of a hump that runs to the northeast and southwest is still officially listed as “Great Gull Bank”, but for years most local anglers called it “Great Gull Shoal” or the “Five-Mile Marker” in recognition of the buoy that always “was” there until just recently when it was removed.
Early-on, as the Ocean City Reef Foundation was getting going with their plans to build and restore offshore habitat, a big chunk of seafloor on and around Great Gull Shoal was approved for artificial reef construction. Once they had their site they needed a name, and although the area could have been designated as “Great Gull Bank Reef” it was instead named after a local fellow who, for a lot of years, was quite a fixture, not only around our docks and marinas, but also out on the water fishing over top of so many of the wrecks and reefs that existed at the time.
I’m proud to say that Russell Sindler was a very good friend of mine. He was in his seventies when he passed away more than a decade ago. I first met Russell and his brother Millard around 1980 when they had an old Hatteras sportfisher called “Slick Chick” that they kept at the Talbot Street docks in front of the Angler Restaurant. The two brothers loved to fish and sharks were their passion - we hit it off right away.
The Sindler brothers were sharking before sharking was cool, and back in the days when the Ocean City Sharkers Club and Ocean City Shark Tournament were in their infancy, Russell and Millard were right there with us helping out and lending support every step of the way. They didn’t run charters for hire but the “Slick Chick” became known as the local “shark boat” since every week the brothers would drive into Ocean City from their homes in the Baltimore area and set out on another weekend shark hunt which often had them up on Fenwick Shoal or out at the Bass Grounds chasing sand tigers and any other species of shark that might wriggle its way up their chum slick.
Russell and Millard were quite a team. They both worked and fished together but, as brothers will often do, they constantly bickered with each other about everything from where to go to what bait to use once they got there. In their heyday, the team aboard the “Slick Chick” caught a 690-pound tiger shark that held the Maryland state record for about a year. They followed that by hooking up their longtime friend, Frank Gaither with a 766-pound mako that set a state record which lasted about 20-years. And as if to show that their monster mako was not just a lucky catch, a week after they landed the record setting monster, Millard landed another mako that pushed the scales to over 500-pounds. And by the way, both of those makos were caught in the same location - a scant 16-miles out near the Twin Wrecks. I’m pretty sure there was a whole lot more than just luck going on aboard the “Slick Chick” back then.
Russell eventually became very interested in a new type of small boat design that he heard had become popular with Australian fishermen. Reportedly, the design offered a smooth ride over choppy waters, good stability while drifting, excellent fuel economy and a unique double-hull design. Russell just had to have one and eventually found a dealer somewhere that carried the unique style of vessel. Russell’s “Shark Cat” proved to be one of the first catamaran-type powerboats in the area. Russell was as proud as could be with his boat and happy to show it to any of the many fishermen who where equally intrigued by the radical design. Of course power catamaran boats have become commonplace throughout this country. They are sold locally and are quite popular with a lot of fishermen who appreciate the same qualities in a boat that Russell was looking for so many years ago.
While Russell never lost his passion for shark fishing, in his more senior years he spent a lot of time chasing sea bass over the offshore wrecks and reefs and always had a raggedy old notebook in his shirt pocket that was scratched full of LORAN numbers he’d acquired over many years of fishing. And always after a day or two of fishing he would drive around town with a cooler in the back of his truck that held his latest catch of black bass that he happily offered to his many friends.
Russell also loved dogs, and while I don’t know if he ever had one of his own, he always kept a big bag of dog treats handy for any pooch he’d encounter. Upon returning home, I always knew if I had missed a surprise visit from Russell because sitting on my back step would be a small pile of treats he would leave for our own little yellow lab. Russell was a quiet and very soft-spoken gentleman who was loved and appreciated by so many folks in our fishing community. Despite his many years of fishing experience and countless angling conquests, Russell was never pretentious or arrogant, he was as humble as could be and spent a lot of time helping other fishermen with their tackle and boating equipment. He also loved to take kids fishing and I know that more than just a few anglers today can attribute their early passion for fishing to the opportunities they had to fish with Russell Sindler.
Russell’s passing touched the hearts of so many folks that it wasn’t surprising when the Ocean City Reef Foundation elected to name a reef site after him. These days the term “Russell’s Reef” just rolls off the tongues of so many fishermen when they’re describing that chunk of water five-miles southeast of Ocean City. For those of us who knew and loved Russell it’s wonderful to hear his name spoken so often, even though most folks who know of Russell’s Reef probably didn’t, until now, know a thing about Russell the man.
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
