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A FISHING LIFE
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 AJ
Probing
Tropical Dream
Baja, Mexico
Photo by Nick Price

“Fly-fishing is to fishing as ballet is to walking.”

Howell Raines
Fishing Through a Midlife Crisis

10 Anglers Journal
Anglers Journal 11
 AJ
Closing In
Storm Clouds
New Jersey
Photo by Tom Lynch

“… the clouds come bowling up from the horizon,

messengers, outriders or comrades of a gale.”
Hilaire Belloc

12 Anglers Journal
Anglers Journal 13
 AJ
Sure Sign
Permit
Biscayne Bay, Florida
Photo by Pat Ford

14 Anglers Journal
 “The flats were still-life compositions of light. Visited only by a small commercial
fishing industry, a handful of illegal netters, Cuban crabbers and a few pot runners,
the sea was healthy and the marine life plentiful. The competition was non-existent,
the fish unmolested, and the flats silent and immaculate.”
Guy de la Valdène
On The Water

Anglers Journal 15
 ANGLERS JOURNAL VOL. X NO. 2 SPRING 2023
CONTENTS

A FISHING LIFE

10 OPENING SPREADS
Probing, Closing In, Sure Sign.

20 WEIGHING IN
There’s no comparing the loss of a loved one
to losing a fish, but the stages we wade through
— anger, grief, acceptance — are similar.
By CHARLIE LEVINE

30 AN EPICUREAN’S APPROACH
A chance encounter with a canoe fisher-
man in the Florida Keys opened my eyes to
becoming an equal-opportunity angler.
By STEPHEN COLLECTOR

36 THE HEALING
A father and son return to a Montana
stream they have fished for years after a fire
reduced the mountain to ash. They found
sign after sign of resurrection.
By TODD AND NOAH DAVIS

42 SCRATCHING AWAY
As the tautog’s popularity as a gamefish
grows, one has to wonder if its greatest at-
tribute — splendid table fare — is putting
too much pressure on the fishery.
By JOE CERMELE

46 MY BOAT MY LIFE
My 17-foot Action Craft has long served me
Next-level chunking can well as a stable fishing platform on Florida’s
deliver impressive results.
Mosquito Lagoon, Indian River and the
Space Coast.
By CAPT. TROY PEREZ

ON THE COVER
48 CHEERS, CAPT. PETER B. WRIGHT
Photo by Tom Lynch
Fix yourself a “Health Drink” and toast leg-
endary heavy-tackle captain Peter Wright,
JERRY AUDET

who died earlier this year.

By CHARLIE LEVINE

16 Anglers Journal
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 CONTENTS
Everything is bigger in Texas,
including the tarpon.

50 STRIPER TIME
The arrival of spring signals incoming striped
bass in coastal waters from the Mid-Atlantic
to New England. A striper special section.
By WILLIAM SISSON

52 DEBUNK THE CHUNK

If you view chunkers as Neanderthals whose
only end game is to harvest meat, I’ll show
you why my technique upends that stereotype.
By TOBY LAPINSKY

60 SPOON BENDERS
Properly trolled bunker spoons are known
for enticing big bass to bite, and banging
and bending metal to create these lures is a
Rhodes family tradition.
By CAPT. STEPHEN RHODES III

68 TOUCH OF GRAY
Eric Wallace targets striped bass from a poling
skiff along the foggy flats of Maine’s Casco
Bay as if he were stalking bonefish in the Keys.
By MICHAEL CARR

76 A LAST GREAT PLACE

The St. Johns River remains a vast, wild
setting in a world of constant development.
Few understand this Florida river and its
fisheries better than Jon Cave.
By CHARLIE LEVINE

84 TEXAS TARPON
Tarpon fishing is as much a part of the south
Texas culture as tacos and barbecue, and the
Lower Laguna Madre is known for monsters.
By KELLY GROCE

96 BETWEEN FISH
“Work-life balance” goes right out the
window when spring arrives — and with it a
PETE MILISCI

flood of striped bass.

By WILLIAM SISSON

18 Anglers Journal
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WEIGHING IN
By Charlie Levine
Of Fish and Loss
I
’ve met all types of people while fishing: fanatics, dabblers,
uberwealthy, independently poor, loudmouths, quiet and
reserved, drunks, adrenaline junkies, gearheads, attention
seekers and a long list of solid, good-natured men and
women who have become my lifelong friends (and in some
cases de facto life coaches).
No matter where I fish, I have one simple rule whenever I step
aboard a boat with someone for the first time: Learn something
new, even if that one thing is, I don’t ever want to go fishing with
this person ever again.
Watching how someone reacts to losing a fish can be a solid
indicator of who they are at their core. Do they pout and stomp
their feet like a child? Do they shrug it off with a smile and rebait
the hook? Do they learn from it and vow to never make that mis-
take again? Do they beat themselves up and sulk for hours?
I’ve graduated from one reaction to another. Now that I’m
wading into the midstream of my life, I try my best to shrug off
a lost fish, retie and get back out there. I’ve learned that time on
the water is precious and that it’s a waste of a valuable resource
to glower for hours if a fish breaks you off. But overcoming such
emotion is easier said than done. When I was a young boy fishing
on my father’s boat, I often cried when a fish shook free. The
disappointment was too much for me. The sway from the highest
of highs with Dad cheering me on to the deep hollows of despair
snapped me into pieces. Dad would say something nice like,
“It’s OK buddy, there’s plenty more out there,” as he patted my
shoulders. But I couldn’t turn it around, and I’d let the one that
got away ruin my entire day.
The angry angler is perhaps the ugliest of all. I should know —
I’ve been one of those, too. I’ve cussed, screamed and destroyed
good gear. And what did it get me? High blood pressure and an
expensive trip to the tackle shop. No one likes to lose fish, but
watching an adult act like an insane person because a barracuda
bit through the leader of a prized bonefish catch will destroy the
vibe for everyone else on the trip. Negative energy is as conta-
20
gious as Covid. I no longer fish with those people. I fish to get
away from them. I no longer fish in high-pressure tournaments,
either — it’s just not my bag.
Loss is something we cannot escape, and as we get older, it hap-
pens with more regularity. Comparing the loss of someone you
love to losing a fish is ridiculous, but the stages you wade through
are similar. It’s OK to react with anger. It’s OK to be overcome
with grief. There are no rules. But the sooner you can reach ac-
ceptance and rest on fond memories and good times, the sooner
you can toss that lure back out and start enjoying yourself again.
No matter where you stand on the economic ladder, time is the
currency of which we are shortest. For me, grieving is best done
with a fishing rod in hand and memories flooding my mind.
Fishing is my happy place. I don’t want to pollute it with hostile
anglers who are hopped up on ego. If I lose a trophy fish, I’ll try
not to sulk. I will be brokenhearted, for sure, but I’ll retie and try
again. You never know what’s going to happen — the next fish
might even be bigger.
TO MY MOM,
RHONDA LEVINE.
FEB. 3, 1948 - DEC. 23, 2022
JORDAN JENNINGS
We want to hear from you.
Please send your comments to editor-in-chief
Charlie Levine at clevine@aimmedia.com.
Follow us @anglers_journal.
Anglers Journal
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Jerry Audet is a writer,
photographer and lifelong
fisherman residing in
Massachusetts. Dedicated
to shore-based striper
fishing, he writes about
and takes photographs of a
wide array of angling dis-
ciplines up and down the
East Coast. The managing
editor of Surfcaster’s Jour-
nal, Jerry shot the images
that accompany “Debunk
the Chunk.”
A FISHING LIFE
PODCAST
22
Michael Carr is an English
teacher and writer from
New Jersey who chases
stripers with a fly rod
whenever and wherever
he can. He is working on a
collection of fishing essays
in the off-hours between
hikes, pond trips and
driveway hockey with his
sons. Michael takes us to
the foggy flats of Maine’s
Casco Bay to target stripers
from a poling skiff.
AJ
Contributors
Stephen Collector began a
career as a freelance pho-
tographer in 1975. In 1992,
Clark City Press published
his book Law of the Range:
Portraits of Old-Time Brand
Inspectors. He freelances
for several magazines and
periodicals, including
Esquire, Men’s Journal,
German Geo, Outside,
Sports Afield and Outdoor
Life. Stephen writes about
becoming an equal-
opportunity angler in “An
Epicurean’s Approach.”
Todd Davis is the author
of six books of poetry,
including the recent Native
Species. His son Noah Davis
publishes regularly in such
magazines as The FlyFish
Journal, The Drake and
American Angler. Though
Noah now resides in Mis-
soula, Montana, the pair
hunt and fish along the
Allegheny Front near their
family home in the village
of Tipton, Pennsylvania.
Todd and Noah write
about the rebirth of a
favored stream ravaged by
wildfire in “The Healing.”
ĊĊđđčĊĊĘę
ĎĘčĎēČęĔėĎĊĘ
Kelly Groce is a writer,
photographer and outdoor
enthusiast with an unwav-
ering heart for saltwater
fishing. A native Texan who
grew up fishing the Gulf of
Mexico, she is a former edi-
tor of Gulf Coast Mariner
Magazine and is now a
columnist for Texas Fish &
Game. Her work has been
featured in such magazines
as Bonefish & Tarpon Trust,
Florida Sport Fishing, Shal-
low Water Angler and now
Anglers Journal. Kelly writes
about fishing the tarpon
migration in south Texas.
Toby Lapinski is a lifelong
angler who targets ev-
erything from wild trout
in his local blue lines of
Connecticut to tuna off
New England, but he is
most at home in the surf
hunting giant striped bass.
He is the former editor
of the The Fisherman and
is now digital editor and
website manager for Fish-
ing Tackle Retailer and The
Fishing Wire. Toby explains
how he takes chunking to
another level in “Debunk
the Chunk.”
PHOTO BY TOM LYNCH
Anglers Journal

Photographer and surf
fisherman Tom Lynch’s
images have appeared in
The Fisherman, On the
Water, Big Game Fishing
Journal, Sport Fishing, Fly
Fisherman and American
Angler, among others. A
regular contributor to
Anglers Journal, he also is
the owner of Angry Fish
Gallery in Point Pleasant
Beach, New Jersey. Tom
shot the images for “Spoon
Benders,” as well as the
photo on the cover and the
“Closing In” spread at the
beginning of this issue.
Anglers Journal
Fly-fishing and photogra-
phy aren’t just things James
Manning does; they are
literally who he is. Hailing
from the Northeast, he
follows the run as if it were
the North Star, capturing
incredible moments. From
striped bass and albies,
to steelhead and trout, to
bonefish and tarpon, he is
immersed in the world of
fly-fishing and tells stories
through the lens. James
shot the photos for
“Touch of Gray.”
AJ
Contributors
Rex Messing is the content
production manager at
Simms Fishing Products.
Though he is based in
Montana, he has East
Coast roots and a passion
for all things Northeast
fishing. As a photographer,
producer and documentar-
ian, he has spent the last
decade traveling, guiding
and fishing all over the
world. Rex’s photography
appears in the three-part
striper special section.
Capt. Pete Milisci is an inshore
guide based in Fort Myers,
Florida, whose love for
fishing and the outdoors
has allowed him to pursue
his dream occupation. He
enjoys taking photos almost
as much as fishing, and
incorporates photography
into his charters. His im-
ages have appeared in such
publications as Salt Water
Sportsman, Florida Sport
Fishing and Marlin, and he
has done work for Scales
Gear, Mustad Fishing and
Seigler reels. Pete’s images
appear in “Texas Tarpon.”
A third-generation offshore
fisherman hailing from
Manasquan Inlet, New
Jersey, Capt. Stephen Rhodes
has fished the world with
his father, from Prince
Edward Island to New Zea-
land, with a focus on tuna
and striped bass. Together
they have logged more than
20,000 hours of fishing
and maintained a variety
of sportfishermen in the
mid-30-foot class. “Spoon
Benders” is Stephen’s story
about his family tradition
of making — and fishing —
bunker spoons.
Ian Sasso is a filmmaker,
photographer and avid
fly-fisherman. He has
produced documentary
work for the National Park
Service, directed commer-
cials for global brands, and
collaborates regularly with
the fly-fishing industry.
A lifelong Floridian, he
enjoys stalking fish in his
home state, but can fre-
quently be found drifting
flies for large brook trout
on the Canadian border.
You’ll see Ian’s photogra-
phy in “A Last Great Place.”
23
 Anglers
Journal
A FISHING LIFE

Spring 2023 Vol. X, No. 2

PRESIDENT GARY DESANCTIS
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CHARLIE LEVINE

CREATIVE DIRECTOR STEVEN JYLKKA

EXECUTIVE EDITOR WILLIAM SISSON VP, GENERAL MANAGER CHRISTINE NILSEN
SENIOR EDITOR MICHAEL LABELLA VP, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR DANIEL HARDING JR.
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER GABRIELLA MAGRATH VP, MARKETING AND EVENTS JULIE JARVIE
VP, MARKETING INNOVATION ERIC DALLIN
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS VP, CUSTOM PUBLISHING JEANNE CRAIG
MICHAEL CARR, JOE CERMELE, STEPHEN COLLECTOR, NOAH DAVIS DIGITAL TRAFFIC MANAGER MATTHEW BOYLES
TODD DAVIS, KELLY GROCE, TOBY LAPINSKY, TROY PEREZ, STEPHEN RHODES III PRODUCTION MANAGER SUNITA PATEL
SENIOR PRODUCTION COORDINATOR AMY RALEIGH
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS/ARTISTS AD OPERATIONS COORDINATOR DIANA BERARDINELLI
JERRY AUDET, STEPHEN COLLECTOR, PAT FORD, TOBY LAPINSKY, TOM LYNCH DIRECTOR, RETAIL SALES SUSAN A. ROSE
JAMES MANNING, REX MESSING, NICK PRICE, IAN SASSO, JOHN TULP, JAMES WICKS VP, CIRCULATION PAIGE NORDMEYER
FULFILLMENT MANAGER JENNIFER WILSON

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SENIOR SALES COORDINATOR SARA CARPENTER DIRECTOR, HUMAN RESOURCES SCOTT ROEDER

TO SUBSCRIBE TO ANGLERS JOURNAL: Call 800-877-5207 FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE INQUIRIES:

PLEASE SEND YOUR COMMENTS AND LETTERS TO:
Anglers Journal, Attn: Charlie Levine
35 Industrial Park Road, Unit 10, Centerbrook, CT 06409
(860) 767-3200
clevine@aimmedia.com
Visit www.anglersjournal.com/customerservice. Send an e-mail to: Marinesubs@aimmedia.com.
ANGLERS JOURNAL, Spring 2023, Vol. X, No. 2, by Active Interest Media, Holdco Inc. The known office of publication is 2143 Grand Ave.,
Des Moines, IA 50312. Periodicals postage paid at 2143 Grand Ave., Des Moines, IA 50318-9652, and additional mailing offices.
Copyright 2023. All rights reserved by Active Interest Media, Holdco Inc. Single copy price is $11.99.
Phone: (860) 767-3200. Printed in the USA.
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 AJ SUBSCRIBE TO ANGLERS JOURNAL
Call (800) 877-5207 or visit anglersjournal.com. Subscriptions are $29 for one year (four
issues: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall). Please send letters and comments to Anglers Journal,
35 Industrial Park Road, Unit 10, Centerbrook, CT 06409, or email clevine@aimmedia.com.
Mail

THANK YOU, JOE BROOKS
My father gave me my first fly rod 70 years ago, and I came to know of
Joe Brooks not long after that [“Last Chance,” Winter]. Though I never
met the man, I admired and respected Brooks. I will always be grateful
for his ability to inspire so many of us to better-appreciate the gentle-
manly pursuit of fly-fishing.
INTELLIGENT LIFE
I picked up the Fall issue of
Anglers Journal on a flight from
Houston to Virginia. It was
my companion for the flight.
Two stories really made an
impression on me. The first is
Charlie Levine’s “Weighing In”
[“The Great Escape”]. This is a
description of my soul. I often
tell my wife there are three F’s
in life: food, fishing and — let
your imagination fill in the third
one. I’m also of the point of view
that when the world has gone
mad, it’s because more people
are not fishing. When my wife
tells me we need to go out and
do something, I reply that it has
to include a quart of shrimp for
bait. I’m lucky my wife still loves
me after 41 years.
The other article was Bill
Sisson’s “Between Fish” [“Bass
on Bus 7”]. Growing up in the
Frank Sharpe
Burtonsville, Maryland
inner city of Houston, this story
took me back to when my best
friend and I would go camping.
Camping meant being under the
nose of his older brother, who
had been in the Marine Corps.
However, camping also meant
fishing in small streams. The fish
weren’t big, but they started my
love for fishing.
Thank you for the work you
do. Your magazine is a hallmark
that lets the world know there is
intelligent life on Earth if you go
out and fish.
Larry Galvan
FOR THE RECORD
Anglers Journal nearly swept the
Fishing category of the Boating
Writers International awards pre-
sented earlier this year. AJ took
home five writing awards, includ-
ing two certificates of merit. “It’s
always nice to see the hard work
of our editorial team and our
contributors recognized,” says
editor-in-chief Charlie Levine.
AJ executive editor William
Sisson placed first in the fish
category for “One for the
Books,” his story about an
amazing striper day on lower
Chesapeake Bay (Spring 2022
issue). “At the risk of add-
ing another log to the fire of
overwritten hook-and-bullet
adventures, this is the story of a
truly epic day,” Sisson writes. He
also placed first in the Columns
category for “Between Fish.”
Levine placed third in the
Fishing category for “Red all
Over” (Spring), which takes
readers to the backwaters near
Steinhatchee, Florida, as he
targets redfish from an airboat.
Levine also won a certificate
of merit in this category for
“Rainforest Roosters” (Fall), and
Ron Ballanti grabbed one for
“Jurassic Trout” (Spring).
If you missed any of the
stories in the magazine, you
can read the winning entries at
anglersjournal.com.
FAIR WINDS
It seems like just yesterday that
Erin Kenney and I were futzing
with a million details on the first
issue of Anglers Journal, which
we worked on during the sum-
mer of 2013. What would we
put on the cover? Which writers
should we solicit? How could we
break the old molds that fishing
magazines seemed stuck in?
Erin was the magazine’s
first creative director, and she
brought her broad artistic sensi-
bilities to its pages, photographs
and covers. She did a wonder-
ful job. Change is the only
inevitable in our world. This
is our 37th issue of AJ. Charlie
Levine is our new skipper. I
have pulled back to working two
days a week, and Erin recently
decided it was time to retire.
Last I heard, she was headed for
Whistler in British Columbia for
spring skiing. I wouldn’t expect
anything else. We will miss her.
The magazine’s design, mean-
while, remains in good hands
with new creative director Steve
Jylkka, whom I’ve worked with
for more than 20 years.
William Sisson
ECONOMY BE DAMNED
Having just received the Winter
Anglers Journal, I want to let you
know that I look forward to ev-
ery issue. Your writers are a class
act. With the economy getting
tight, I’ve cut back on magazine
subscriptions, but AJ will always
be coming to my mailbox. Keep
up the good work.
Bill Sposa

26 Anglers Journal
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FIRST LIGHT
By Noah Davis
The Armchair Angler
Trout Spey & the Art of the Swing
By Steven Bird
Swing the Fly Press
From America’s premier spey-casting magazine, Swing
the Fly, comes the new authority of trout spey fishing.
Typically viewed as an Atlantic and Pacific salmon
tactic, spey casting uses two-handed rods, shooting line
and even the surface tension of a river to throw a fly
the great distances needed to reach the many holding
lies of a big river.
Trout Spey and the Art of the Swing is a complete
book that delves into the history of spey with roots
in wet-fly fishing, equipment and its advantages in
American rivers. Steven Bird argues that this growing
technique is no longer reserved to the shores of the
Columbia and the Snake, but can be utilized on smaller
water with great efficiency. Is this a new wave of fly-
fishing? Tell them I called it if you start seeing hordes
swinging on the West Branch of the Delaware.
The little Tom Rosenbauer in all fly anglers’ hearts will
be overjoyed to flip through nearly 150 color pages of
flies that might find their way into a spey angler’s box.
Tales of a Distance
By Andrew C. Gottlieb
Trail to Table Press
I don’t often review poetry. Maybe that’s because the
number of poets compared to other writers is so small.
Or maybe so few poets write about fishing in a way other
anglers can understand. Either way, Andrew Gottlieb’s
Tales of a Distance are welcoming poems that invite the
reader into the stanzas based on familiarity, whether that
be the language of anglers or the world beyond the water.
In “On Mere Point,” Gottlieb takes the reader
through generational memory of fishing as he casts for
stripers in Maine:
My fly rides from one moon phase
to the other side of the tide.
These baits are frail hope
that one dark mouth will take the hook,
end up caught in a cold bucket
of lost talk.
I think what will draw folks to Gottlieb’s poems are
their authentic nature and language. Beautiful and tac-
tile, like a rocky beach or a stretch of trout stream.
28
The Alaska Chronicles
By Miles Nolte
Departure Publishing
We all know someone who wants to be a guide. The
one who’s watched A River Runs Through It a thousand
times. Or the one who imagines himself tossing a cast
net off the bow of a skiff. Or the middle-aged fool who
thinks now is the time to quit the rat race and throw
away their boring job. If that person is in your life, buy
them The Alaska Chronicles.
Early on in the text, Miles Nolte reveals the staples
of an Alaska fish camp: “Beer, whiskey and porn are
all absolute necessities when spending four months in
a remote camp full of men. The proprietors of all local
establishments know this, and the prices reflect my
desperation and their monopoly.”
In this brutally honest depiction of the world of
guiding on the country’s last frontier, Nolte delivers
vignettes in the form of dispatches. Daily writings to
keep us abreast of failing equipment, terrible clients,
boredom, bears, putrid odors and damn good fishing.
Water Views
By David Ondaatje
The Monacelli Press
Maniacal anglers pore over maps. Whether it’s on a
phone, waterproof paper or a plastic-sheathed print at
the county courthouse, we’ve tried to find public access
to the beach, attempted to decipher how steep that cliff
is down to the river, or guess if the outflow of the lake is
really big enough for a canoe.
I love maps and believe they hold a spirit, but David
Ondaatje knows that a photograph can hold a soul.
And just as maps give us a birds-eye view, the photos
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to reveal the conservation issues that our planet faces. A
bird’s vision is not blocked by hills or buildings.
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Winston Rod Co. and Bauer Fly Reels — has an eye for
the locales of fish, and this beautiful coffee-table book
will open your eyes to the places anglers hold dear and
the forces that seek to destroy them.
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Anglers Journal
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FIRST LIGHT

An Epicurean’s Approach
A WILLING CANOE ANGLER IMPARTS A NEW APPRECIATION
FOR A WIDER RANGE OF FISH IN THE FLORIDA KEYS
Story and Photos By Stephen Collector

Canoe angler John

Tulp finds pleasure in
catching all species.

ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHERS STRIVED TO ESTABLISH what they called summum Several hours (and no bites) later, I began
bonum, “the greatest good to which all human effort in life should be directed.” I learned this the long trudge back to my truck, where I
from a 78-year-old angler who described himself as an Epicurean. spotted the other anglers dragging a canoe
My wife, Leigh, and I had arrived in the Florida Keys in February, having made the tedious out of the water. I wandered over and intro-
drive from Colorado for a two-month stay in Marathon. While fly-fishing from foot along a nar- duced myself. I asked how they fared, remark-
row causeway on Middle Torch Key, I saw a guy poling another angler in what appeared to be ing that I’d seen them hook a good fish. “Oh,
a small skiff. The seated angler was tangling with a large fish. I had waded out onto a flat on the the first one was a lemon shark. We caught a
incoming tide, trying not to stumble on small coral heads or step on sea urchins. The water was nice barracuda, too, but the flat didn’t hold
clear and knee-deep. I had a shrimp pattern tied to the tippet of my 8-weight fly rod. I wasn’t many fish this morning,” said the fisherman
seeing fish. Meanwhile, over by the mangroves, those anglers were into another tussle. who introduced himself as John Tulp.

30 Anglers Journal
FIRST LIGHT
The lemon shark is a blast
to tangle with on fly.
Tall, rawboned and with kindly blue eyes,
Tulp was articulate and ebullient; we ex-
changed emails. Several days later, I emailed
Tulp, and he responded: “Though I’ve fly-
fished all my life, and have done well with it in
fresh and salt water, I’m an equal opportunity
employer, both in the tackle I use and the fish
I cast to. A typical fishing trip around here for
me has a lot to do with spinning rods and fish
like ’cudas and sharks, though I see a fair num-
ber of reds. I’d be happy to pole you around
with just your fly rod and a crab pattern,
though fewer shots would be taken that way.”
Tulp was born in New Jersey in 1944. He
began teaching the classics (Latin and Greek),
history, English and art history in 1966 at
boarding schools in Massachusetts. He first
ventured to the Keys to fish in 1980, and it be-
came an annual ritual. He retired in 2010 and
now divides the year equally between a rental
on Cudjoe Key and six months on the road up
North, mostly in Maine. He chose a nomadic
32
existence of teaching and travel, much of
which entailed camping. He’s fished all over
the world — Argentina, Chile, Scotland, Brazil,
Mexico, Panama, Belize, the Bahamas, Ven-
ezuela, Ireland, England and Canada.
An incoming tide poured through the
bridge abutments of Route 1, and as the
16-foot canoe drifted into the archway, a mix
of vegetation and cobble took on the tone of
a trout stream. Tulp poled the canoe onto a
wide grass-and-sand-covered flat. I was in
the zone, my happy place. Somehow fate had
guided me to this fisherman, this elemental
setting and this moment.
From his heightened vantage, he was
tardy spotting two bonefish, which, alarmed
by our presence, bolted. I had my 8-weight
fitted with a crab pattern, hoping for a
shot at bones, perhaps permit. Behind me
were Tulp’s rods. His shark rod was an
8-weight upped with 10-weight line and a
9-foot, 40-pound fluorocarbon leader. A red
feather streamer, embellished with a strip
of fish fillet, was the lure. His other rod —
his ’cuda rod — was a spin rig with a large
tube lure. I held to my preferential goals of
the big three: bonefish, permit and tarpon.
Tulp, however, had other ideas.
“There’s a shark at 2 o’clock. Change rods
and be quick about it,” he implored. I got off
a clumsy first cast but redeemed myself on
the second, and after a couple of short strips,
I hooked the shark. It exploded in a frenzy,
and line vanished from my reel. After a fight
of several minutes, I horsed the 30-incher to
the canoe, and Tulp deftly removed the fly
from its formidable mouth.
“We could see a bonefish or redfish out
here, and we are armed for that, but we’ll
probably see more lemon sharks than any-
thing else,” he said. “I’ve taken some people
who will only cast to a bone or a red. While
that might happen, it’s not reliable for any
steady amount of action. I always sigh when
Anglers Journal
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FIRST LIGHT
they let a 3- or 4-foot lemon glide by without
a cast. They’re missing a lot.
“I take an Epicurean approach to my flats
fishing,” he continued. “The central philo-
sophical debate of the ancient Greeks was
between the Stoics and Epicureans. The Sto-
ics contend that the greatest good was virtue,
to be pursued through a constant upward
climb. Over on the other side, the Epicureans
said the greatest good was pleasure. While
they were judged harshly for this view, they
get to be right, and they get to be happy.”
In angler terms, they catch more fish.
“The Stoics believe there’s a hierarchy of
fish, the noblest on the saltwater flats being
tarpon, bonefish and permit,” Tulp said. “I
believe these hierarchies to be fanciful. In the
Epicurean calculation of high-pleasure value
for low-pain cost, they don’t show up well.
The great Epicurean fish needn’t be a silver
king on the line, but he should be a very sat-
isfying fighter and show a lot of personality.
34
A worthy trophy with interesting character,
exciting to catch, pretty easy to find and not
too easy to fool — the lemon shark.”
By now, Tulp had poled us to a mangrove
island on the incoming tide. I saw a fin in
the distance and scrambled to change rods.
It was a better fish. Seated on the canoe
bench, I had trouble getting power into
my back cast but muscled out another cast,
and the shark pounced on the fly. Realizing
it was hooked, the fish turned on the jets
and headed off into the Gulf of Mexico. I
watched fly line disappear into the backing.
With protesting biceps, I battled the shark
as it zigzagged around the flat. Tulp esti-
mated it at 4-plus feet and 50 pounds. The
fish was a load. I used constant side pres-
sure. There wasn’t anything delicate about
it. When I finally brought the shark to the
canoe, I was startled by its size. Tulp seemed
nonplussed. Using long-nosed pliers, he got a
grip on the fly and removed it without losing
Tulp and his friends are
well-equipped to catch
whatever swims their way.
any flesh. As I watched the apex predator fin
away, I saw the logic in Tulp’s philosophy.
An hour later, with the tide flooding the
flat, I got a shot at a 7-footer. This one was
coming straight at the canoe and closing on
the fly when a remora detached itself from
the shark and somehow beat the host fish to
my lure. Instead of Moby Dick, I was tight
to Mickey Mouse. Later, we saw a school of
baitfish skipping near shore, and I cast the
tube into the melee, only to miss a savage
strike from a big ’cuda.
The long tandem paddle back to the put-in
was satisfying. We skimmed across a large
flooded basin. The perspective of the flats
from the canoe struck a deep, vibrant chord
within me. I felt primal as we slid silently,
propelled by human muscle. Had I insisted
JOHN TULP (TOP LEFT)
on targeting bonefish, I would have caught
nothing. Taking Tulp’s cue, I’d had some
serious light-tackle action. A glimpse into
Poseidon’s secret garden.
Anglers Journal
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FIRST LIGHT

The Healing
A FATHER AND SON REFLECT ON A SPECIAL MONTANA STRE AM
RAVAGED BY FIRE AS THEY WAIT YE ARS FOR ITS RECOVERY
By Todd and Noah Davis

Father (left) and son head upstream

through the scar of a fire that
burned more than 100,000 acres.

PLACE TIES US TO ONE ANOTHER, STITCHES OUR MEMORIES TOGETHER with a fine the afternoon with its script. The beat in our
hand. It stands, like a witness tree on a long-ago family farm, marker to love and death and loyalty. head marking time with the line and the fly
For the last decade, we’ve made a pilgrimage together, father and son, to a stream in Mon- settling softly, as if it flew through the air
tana, a mountain tributary miles and miles away from the valley and the river it eventually under its own power and decided to dip its
feeds. Willows and dogwood drape the banks. The undergrowth too thick to consider bush- wings in the water. Then the balletic leap of a
whacking because the drainage is plentiful with grizzly bears. trout that has seen the fly and believed in it.
There are pools where the water is forced downhill at breakneck speed, where light refracts, Belief, and its cousin faith, have been
painting the surface turquoise. Here, snowmelt runs clear as a grandmother’s window in rewarded here many times. We’ve whiled
spring, blue-veined hand having wiped away winter with vinegar and water. After months of away hour upon hour on this stream, catching
snow and ice, the cutthroat wake to a long-dormant hunger, aggressive and opportunistic, so cutties whose pink and purple sides are so
JAMES WICKS

most any dry fly lures them to the surface. tall our hands fail to grasp them, so long our
We love to watch each other cast in the heat of July. The languid motion of the line covering nets struggle to hold them. On more than one

36 Anglers Journal
FIRST LIGHT
Fire makes for an open
canopy and tough casting
around downed logs.
occasion, we’ve bowed our heads to the power
of bull trout that lurk in the deep recesses,
behemoths whose quickness seems impossible
when you consider the length and girth they
carry as they chase smaller fish into their jaws.
And all of this swept away one summer
nearly a decade ago, only a week after we last
fished it, by a fire so fierce that the mountain
was reduced to ash. Water that was cold
enough to ache fingers, now tepid as bathwa-
ter. All of it erased. Replaced with the worry
that if place ties us to one another, can fire
burn through the rope of familial love, leaving
us at the end of a frayed tether, wondering
where the other might have been lost in all that
smoke, calling “Father?” shouting “Son?”
The first year after the fire, we broke out into
the burn. With all the trees shaved to poles, the
sky filled the void they’d left. Each step sent
ash toward our faces. It settled on our waders,
caked the bottoms of our boots, caused us to
cough and ask for water. But there’s no rinsing
38
away grief. For the first time, we were watch-
ing the woods more than the water.
Uncomfortable with each other in the wake
of the fire that destroyed what we loved, we set
our hands on the cracked and blackened bark.
The fire burned from July until the third week
of October, when a hard, three-day rain extin-
guished it. The flames had stretched under-
ground, consuming roots and leaving tunnels.
As we walked, quieted by the overwhelming
absence, our feet broke through the weak soil.
Despite the destruction, we cast to the
water with a precarious hope. Not blind
optimism, but an anticipation of the possibil-
ity of life after catastrophe. Forest fires are
older than humans. Yet this was a calamitous
fire, one helped along by climate change and
a century of fire suppression policies. But
individual catastrophes do have a beginning
and an end. Possessing the wisdom to know
which is which is hard to come by, and on
this first visit, we worried it was too soon.
And it was.
No trout rose.
Water too choked with ash for anything
to swim.
So we sat on a downed log and marked our
faces with the soot of its skin. Our version
of an Ash Wednesday service. We asked for
forgiveness. Prayed the place would heal.
Then, being anglers, we listened to the
thick current and tried to guess what drain-
ages might be worth exploring, what nearby
mountains might have been spared the worst
of the searing fire. Two miles up and across
the mountain, we found another stream — a
place others would ignore because the line on
the map was so small. As we hiked this new
water, we counted every red rock on the bot-
tom, thankful for some clarity as we watched
ash from our boots and waders wash away.
We caught fish so native to the place that
JAMES WICKS
we found the cousins of their colors on the
banks in lupine and paintbrush. A bit of
Anglers Journal
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FIRST LIGHT
sustenance and grace for our imaginations, a
connection to the possibility of healing.
After that day, we left our stream for five
years. We heard from others about landslides
after heavy snows or torrential rains. Some
of the mountain is so steep and eroded that
grasses and bushes struggled to find any grip.
Inevitably, our talk would turn to when we
might come back. Questions full of fretful-
ness: Will the first succession trees ever take
hold? When do you think the cutties will
move back in? How long before the bull
trout follow?
This past year, rains lingered in the valley,
and there was no sign of ash flowing from the
tributary into the big river. Anxious, we drove
to one of the bridges that crossed the stream
and saw what appeared to be a memory of
water: clear, the deeper pools aquamarine, the
rocks at the bottom of the stream stripped of
the gray coating, their red-and-pink and blue
faces scrubbed, their bottoms crusted with
40
There’s healing
in time, for both
fish and flowers.
caddis casings. In this way, we returned to the
stream that joined us, that made our love for
each other and this place even stronger.
We strung our rods, wary as coyotes
along the edge of a field. After hurt, hope
is a difficult thing, a skittish animal unsure
about what to trust. But as we began to hike
through the new grasses grown tall with an
unusually wet summer, as we praised with
our eyes the magenta of fireweed, the young
willow and dogwood shoots, our sights
turned from the husks of trees that still stood,
and we noticed over the stream a hatch of
lime sallies, some caddis, too, and the pursed
lips of a trout touching the surface.
On our first cast, a fish rose, natural and
right, and we realized we’d been holding our
breath. We longed for, with aching chests, a
return of not only the bugs and fish, but our
relation to them and to each other. Natural and
right, after all, is what any animal wishes for.
We smiled at one another as we peered
at the pinks and purples that elided the side
of the cutthroat, all 10 inches and rounded
belly. We laughed as we laid down the fly
softly on the water’s surface, and another
slurp produced another trout, this one a bit
bigger, the red-orange mark along its jaw
brilliant and sparkling with clean water in
the noonday sun.
The rest of the day was magical, maybe mi-
raculous, in its healing. The stream showed
sign after sign of restoration. Fry in the
shallows and inlets. Fingerlings swimming
with an alacrity born of fear of predation, as
well as with a zest for movement, learning
how their bodies glide through water, how
they belong in the currents. The big fish have
yet to return this far upstream, but it’s only a
matter of time.
We imagine these fish we’ve caught grow-
ing by the month, how their bodies will
JAMES WICKS
lengthen. In a year or two it will be impos-
sible to hold them in one hand.
Anglers Journal
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FIRST LIGHT

Scratching Away
WILL THE EVER-GROWING CULT OF TAUTOG-OBSESSED ANGLERS
LEAD TO THE DEMISE OF THIS FORMER UNDERDOG?
By Joe Cermele

GROWING UP IN NEW JERSEY in the

Delicious and tricky 1990s, I didn’t fish for tautog, or blackfish,
to hook, tautog have and rarely heard them mentioned. This
become a popular
fish to target. member of the wrasse family has thrived
from Maine to Virginia for thousands of
years, but they were largely associated with a
blue-collar crowd of anglers who were will-
ing to brave the cold of winter to put food
on the table. So how did we get from a fish
associated with meager means to one with a
skyrocketing market price and aisles full of
specialized, pricey tackle? Let’s start with a
serving of lobster.
Lobster didn’t become a food associated
with wealth until the early 1900s. As train
travel boomed, rail companies realized they
could purchase canned lobster dirt cheap.
Subsequently, folks who had never tasted the
crustacean found out it was delicious. Chefs
soon learned that a whole lobster cooked
live tasted even better. And the price went
up. Prior to this boom, lobsters were served
to prisoners. People thought they were too
hideous-looking to eat. Such is the story of
the tautog, or at least part of it.
The ’tog is a dull gray with a bulbous
head and thick, rubbery lips that hide a set
of conical fangs reminiscent of the vampire
Nosferatu’s ghastly chompers. Those teeth,
however, are designed for very specific
prey: crabs, clams, mussels and shrimp.
You are what you eat, and the tautog’s
shellfish diet makes it one of the most deli-
cious fish in the Atlantic.
My good friend Capt. Eric Kerber has been
TOBY LAPINSKY

running charters out of Belmar, New Jersey,

for 15 years. Like me, he has no recollection
of tautog scuttlebutt from his youth and, like

Anglers Journal
42
 most anglers in the Northeast, didn’t want to
hear about a fish if it wasn’t a striped bass, a
fluke or a weakfish. Man, has that changed.
Between November 2022 and February
2023, Kerber ran 53 trips for tautog. Extrap-
olate that to the countless private boats and
for-hire vessels that target these fish, and it’s
easy to see the dramatic rise in fishing pres-
sure. But it’s not just the fish’s delicious flesh
that drove the popularity; technology is also
playing a role.
Years ago, you had to harbor a unique set
of skills to get your bait to sit perfectly still on
a wreck or rock pile to catch tautog. This was
particularly difficult in rough seas. The solu-
tion was to double-anchor over the sweet spot,
which even for veteran captains can take a few
attempts. It’s a lot of work. Guys used broom-
stick rods and heavy lead, but you had to be
dialed in to detect the tautog’s subtle crunch-
ing — or scratching — at your crab. It took
practice to know exactly when the fish moved
the bait from its lips and into its mouth before
TOBY LAPINSKY
Anglers Journal
setting the hook. Then you had to muscle it
out of the structure before it “rocked you up.”
The challenge made tautog fishing addictive,
and as rods got lighter, faster and stronger,
and braided line became the norm, a new gen-
eration of anglers began valuing ’tog as much
for that challenge as the meat.
Members of the ’tog cult set the high-
water mark at a double-digit fish weighing
more than 10 pounds. The cool kids want
to catch one on a jig, not the traditional
bottom rig. These specialty jigs are painted
to look like rocks or barnacles so they blend
in with the bottom. Tip the jig with bait and
deliver it on a light spinning or jigging rod
for better feel, and you’ll have one hell of a
fight when you stick a dandy.
In most of their range, tautog bag limits are
highest in winter. In New Jersey, for example,
prior to Nov. 15 you can only keep one fish
per angler per day. It’s hardly worth the cost of
live crabs and the effort of double-anchoring
for one fish. (From Nov. 16 through the end of
the year you can keep five fish per person.) A
trolling motor with Spot Lock makes it much
easier to tack a few ’tog drops onto a day of
striper fishing in September or October.
The fish are being harassed more than ever,
yet better tackle and tactics are leading to
some giant catches. In January, Jennifer Zuppe
Using a trolling motor has
made it much easier to drop
a crab on a sweet spot.
43
FIRST LIGHT
landed a 23.4-pound tautog on a charter out of
Ocean City, Maryland, which is the pending
woman’s IGFA world record. In 2015, Ken-
neth Westerfeld claimed the all-tackle IGFA
world record in Ocean City with a goliath
weighing 28 pounds, 13 ounces. Between 2012
and 2023, seven Northeast states saw tautog
records shattered. This is not because there
are more big fish; it’s because more people are
targeting them with improved gear.
Tautog are one of the slowest-growing
fish in the ocean, making them vulnerable
to overfishing. The bulk of the catch (about
44
90 percent) is taken by recreational anglers.
A 2017 stock assessment found the coastal
tautog stocks “overfished” everywhere except
in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but a
2021 stock assessment determined that tautog
were no longer overfished in the four coastal
regions surveyed, according to the Atlantic
States Marine Fisheries Commission.
These record fish had likely been swimming
around since I was in grammar school, if not
earlier. A “teener” can be 40 to 60 years old,
which means a 20-plus-pounder was prob-
ably munching crabs when JFK was assassi-
More anglers are releasing
trophy ’tog these days, a
once-unthinkable practice.
nated. The larger the tautog, the more eggs it
can lay. Therefore, more captains are urging
or insisting clients release fish weighing 10
pounds or more. Breeding cannot keep up
with the growing demand for tautog, which
has never been a catch-and-release fishery.
I’ve yet to land a double-digit ’tog. A
decade ago, I vowed to hang that fish on
my wall when it finally happened. Now it’ll
present a conundrum. As much as I love a
TOBY LAPINSKY
cooler full of fillets, I know my 4-year-old son
could catch that same fish in 10 years, and it’ll
weigh five pounds more.
Anglers Journal
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FIRST LIGHT

My Boat, My Life
By Capt. Troy Perez
always on the water. I have a 115-hp Suzuki
on it now, and it runs well. I used to have a
140 Suzuki, which was the same weight as
the 115 but cost more.
I keep the boat pretty simple. It’s had the
same hull wrap since I bought it. They’re a
pain to remove. I have a Lowrance plotter,
but the only time I use it for navigation is
in the fog. The best thing about the ma-
chine is the side-imaging. It’s a great tool
when looking for black drum or redfish in
Haulover Canal or along the bridges. A lot
of our fishing is done that way, especially
for big fish, but sight-fishing is my favorite
technique. Unfortunately, the conditions
for sight-fishing weren’t good the last three
years. This past winter we had a couple of
cold snaps that killed off a lot of algae, so
the cleaner water started to come back,
along with the grass in the northern part
of the lagoon. I’ve seen schools of 200 fish
this year, and I hadn’t seen that for the past
ABOUT 16 YEARS AGO, Paul Guard, the founder of Action Craft boats, called and said he few seasons.
was selling the company and had a 17-foot skiff that he could sell me cheap. I had been running Many of my clients have fished with me
Action Crafts for years, and he gave me a great deal, so I bought the boat. I paid $16,000 for it, for a long time, and we’ve set a lot of world
and I’ve been running it ever since. records and fly-fishing records, some on this
I fish Mosquito Lagoon, the Indian River and along the Space Coast in central Florida, and boat and some on my others. My late wife,
my 17-foot, 2-inch Action Craft is ideal, especially its stability. A lot of the clients I take out are Christine, caught a lot of them.
older, and they can fish comfortably in my boat without stumbling. It’s really stable and has Yeah, my Action Craft is older, but it’s
wide gunwales, so you can easily walk from bow to stern. Newer, lighter poling skiffs aren’t as just as fishy as the new boats, if not more
stable. And it’s kind of funny because the guys running those super-skinny skiffs usually fish so. I can pole at the same speed in the wind
in the shallows, where the fish aren’t as big. I’m mostly sight-fishing to bigger fish. You have to as I do on calm days. The light boats blow
know where to go. I’ve been fishing Mosquito Lagoon for 40 years, so I know it pretty well. around, and we don’t have many calm days.
Another thing I like about an older boat is that I don’t care if it gets stuck once in a while or That’s the biggest difference. When I was
scratched. It has so many dings and scratches — I’ll go right into the bushes. This boat gets into younger, I could really pole, but I still get it
CHARLIE LEVINE

the shallows, even with three anglers and me on the poling platform. done, and I’m almost 60. I’ve thought about
The boat has held up well, but I always seem to be working on something — it’s a boat, after getting a new boat to retire on. I don’t know
all. I’ve had four engines, and I have no idea how many hours I have on it. I’m pretty much — this boat gets the job done.

46 Anglers Journal
FIRST LIGHT

Cheers, Capt. Peter B. Wright

C
apt. Peter B. Wright was quite possibly
the best heavy-tackle captain of the
modern era. The IGFA Hall of Famer
was born in 1944 and grew up in Fort Lauder-
dale, Florida. At age 11, he started working on
boats and wired his first marlin in the Baha-
mas. Wright received a degree in biology from
Georgia Tech in 1965 and a master’s in marine
biology from the University of Miami in 1967.
In 1968, after collecting cephalopods for a
research program in Antarctica, Wright found
his way to Australia. He hitchhiked to Cairns
and fished for black marlin on the Great Bar-
rier Reef with Capt. George Bransford, who is
credited with catching the first 1,000-pound
marlin, or “grander,” in Australia.
Wright fell in love with the marlin fishery
and fished the reef every season from ’68 till
2008. He employed the heavy
tackle and boat-handling tactics
he learned chasing giant bluefin in
the Bahamas and tallied incredible
numbers. Vessels that Wright cap-
tained, most notably the 40-foot
Duyfken (Dutch for “little dove”),
caught more granders than any
other in history, including a
1,442-pound black marlin — the
largest ever weighed in Australia.
Wherever you found billfish or
giant tuna, you’d find Wright. He
wrote about offshore fishing, conducted semi-
nars and promoted conservation efforts from
Africa to the Outer Banks. After a good day
on the water, Wright liked to enjoy a cocktail
he called the “Health Drink” — a tall glass full
of ice with tonic water because quinine helps
stave off malaria, lime juice and wedges for
COURTESY IGFA

scurvy, and rum “because it makes it you feel

good.” Wright died Jan. 23. He was 79.

48 Anglers Journal
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 BY BOAT, BE ACH OR ON THE FLY, STRIPED BASS
WILL HAPPILY PL AY ALONG BY WILLIAM SISSON

s temperatures rise and the days lengthen, striped bass flood coastal waters from
the Mid-Atlantic to New England. The traditional early spots see the first fish, but
word spreads quickly as informal, overlapping networks come alive with news that
schoolies have arrived. The once-bare woods — mostly silent all winter — rever-
berate at twilight with the sound of thousands of chirping spring peepers. I lie on
my back and stare at the early-spring sky, feeling the season’s anthem as much as
hearing it from the vernal pools and marshes.
I love spring fishing for stripers, from the heavyweights we find when drifting live
bunker beneath circling osprey to the ones in the salt ponds tattering our Clousers, deceivers and worm flies on warm
evenings that stretch well into the night. Whatever your method or location, you don’t want to miss the spring run.
In this special, three-story section on striped bass, we take you from fly-fishing a tidal river in Maine to
trolling bunker spoons off Staten Island and drifting fresh menhaden chunks well after dark in southern New
England. These techniques produce fish, as do dozens of others along the striper coast.
Spring is when the fish crowd the sounds, tidal rivers, bays, barrier beaches and reefs, eventually moving into
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Fresh stripers punch above their weight in the cool, oxygenated waters of the
season. They smack a variety of streamers, plastics, top-water lures and live baits. It is a great time to be on the
water, searching for bass. The smell of clean, salt air on chilly mornings is a tonic.
At some point, I’ll troll a tube lure or a thin, lightweight aluminum spoon tipped with a sandworm behind my
kayak. I can hear the rod rattle in its holder and the drag whine as a hefty spring bass finds the hook.
I wade a long, hard-bottom bar in spring just inside the mouth of a large bay, where I cast streamers after dark
on a 9-weight rod with a floating line. The current accelerates as the tide washes over the bony shallows, and the
bass slap the surface silly, chasing juvenile sand eels and silversides. A decent swell rolls in and builds with the tide.
A good night here is about a dozen fish, each one fighting like a banshee in the cool water. I’d just released my
eighth striper, and, distracted, I miss a wave approaching in the waning moonlight. I look up just as the breaker
hits me square in the chest and lifts me off my feet, nearly sending me to my knees. I slosh to shore, empty my
waders and head back for several more fish.
Walking to my truck after midnight, I shake my fists in delight. I am soaked and freezing but feel totally alive.
Carpe diem. I holler my pleasure at the night, the roosting shore birds and the horseshoe crabs. I drive
home in dry boxers, drinking a large, hot coffee and replaying the action in my mind.
Aah, the simple yet grand pleasures of spring stripers.

??
REX MESSING PHOTO
Debunk the Chunk
ELEVATING ONE OF THE SIMPLEST FORMS OF FISHING TO
A HIGHER, OBSESSIVE LEVEL OF CATCHING
BY TOBY LAPINSKI, PHOTOS BY JERRY AUDET
 hunkers are viewed as the bottom-feeders
of the fishing world, the polar opposite of
the refined and finesse-obsessed fly fisher-
man. Chunkers are seen as beer-drinking,
cigarette-smoking, white-bucket-wielding
Neanderthals whose only goal is to harvest
meat. Some will tell you chunking is cheat-
ing. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
The way I chunk is every bit as refined, so-
phisticated and intense as any pencil-popping, eel-slinging, deceiver-
drifting surf guy you could imagine.
Step one is catching bunker. Despite having had no trouble finding
bait the past several nights, my first two stops this evening came up
short. I had a single adult menhaden in my cooler, but my average
outing requires 20 to 30 bunker. I had already invested more than an
hour looking for bait, and with the change in tide fast approaching,
I had little time to waste before a decision would need to be made:
forget the bunker and go plugging instead.
If I found a pod of bunker, I’d still need time to process them,
finish gearing up, drive to the fishing spot and hope no one had
54
beaten me to my rock — all before I lost the best two hours of the
tide. I was running out of time.
I pulled up to another boat ramp and found several vehicles parked
there — nothing out of the ordinary, even though it was 9 p.m. on a
Tuesday. Half-dressed for fishing in a farmer John wetsuit and rash
guard, I grabbed my supplies — a 10-foot cast net, bucket, cooler and
800-lumen flashlight — and made my way onto the dock. I scanned
the surface for signs of bunker: small flips, slappy flops and ripply,
nervous water. I saw nothing aside from a few silversides being chased
by young-of-the-year snapper blues. My confidence was waning, but I
pressed on, pacing the dock, feeling the pressure of time and tide, and
hoping to spot fish. I began to think it wasn’t going to happen tonight.
I was walking back up the dock when I saw a disturbance about 50
feet out — the unmistakable sign of bunker milling in shallow water.
There was hope, even though the bunker were still out of reach. I set
up where I thought the school would approach the dock. With the net
loaded on my shoulder, my muscles started to ache. I felt a burning
sensation creep down my arm to my hand. I glanced toward the pain
and could make out the red tentacles of a large jellyfish draped over my
bare forearm. I must have picked it up making the earlier throws.
Anglers Journal
 The first step in the chunking
dance is finding bait with local
knowledge and a cast net.

Anglers Journal 55
 The end game: The writer releases a
nice striper. A hit often comes within
the first minute of the bait soak.

I focused on the water, squinting as I

peered into the darkness. I tilted my head to
block the light shining from the streetlamp,
but I saw nothing. My back was burning from
holding the net, and the sting from the jel-
lyfish was painful. I was about to drop the net
to the dock when a large bunker school gave
away its position. I let the net fly. The throw
was about as graceful as a newborn giraffe —
far from a pancake but good enough.
As the net sank, I felt a throbbing in the
handline, a sure sign of success. I let the net
sink as close to the bottom as I dared, then
hauled it up. I deposited 27 baits on the dock.
I picked each fish from the net and placed
them one-by-one into my small Igloo cooler.
I moved to a dark corner of the ramp to
process the bait away from prying eyes. Each
bunker received two cuts: one in front of
the tail and one diagonally behind the gills.
The tails serve no purpose and are tossed to
the crabs. The two remaining pieces are the
prime cuts; the heavy midsection is flesh and
muscle, while the head retains the scent-filled
innards. Both have merit depending on the
spot I’m fishing, the current strength, casting
distance, the number of nuisance species
around and other factors. The chunks are big,
but so are the fish I’m seeking.
Once I’ve finished cutting, I stuff the pieces
into a custom bait jug and hustle back to my
buggy to gear up. I step into my wetsuit, dry
top and spike-soled boots. There will be no
waders tonight; the surf is far too dangerous
at this spot. Plus, clambering onto my rock is
liable to tear up my waders.

When I’m finally standing on the rock, the

rest is automatic. Blood squirts, and the flesh
makes a squeaking noise as I drive the 10/0
circle hook (which I snelled myself) through
the nose. I lob the chunk as it is — no weight,
no fishfinder slides, no pyramid sinkers.
I cast well up-current of where I intend to
fish, and the weightless chunk settles to the
bottom. I keep the line on the index finger
of my right hand and remain attentive to
any sign of life on the bait. The rod remains
in hand the entire time, with the butt rest-
ing on my knee and the tip pointed to the
stars. I know when the bait is held fast to the
bottom. I can feel a crab as it begins picking
away at the meat, and I know when a dogfish
or porgy begins chewing on it. If the chunk

56 Anglers Journal
slips free of its hold and begins to tumble in the current, I recognize
that, too. I swear at times I can even feel when a bass approaches for
an inspection before eating. With each cast, I use a fresh piece of bait.
Barring a hit, the soak lasts between 10 and 12 minutes. I begin
counting off the seconds once the bait settles to the bottom. A hit
often comes within the first minute. If there is no sign of life, the next
60 seconds are usually uneventful. This is when the current starts to
spread the scent, attracting nearby stripers. Now is the time I usually
take small to average-size fish up to about 20 pounds.
After the four-minute mark, I move the chunk with the current
to a new location, spreading the scent farther. The next four to five
minutes are often unrewarding, but I remain vigilant. Assuming no
signs of life by the eighth minute, I make a final adjustment to the
location of the chunk and let it soak. By now, the scent has spread as
wide as possible. This is when the biggest striped bass often locate the
bait. Finally, I feel the telltale bump of a fish.
Scratch, scratch, tap, CRUNCH.
Anglers Journal
Several seconds pass without further signs. I dare not move the
chunk. It feels like an eternity. I remain attentive, weighing my
options. Do I hold fast? Make an adjustment to the bait’s location?
Maybe the fish pulled the bait off the hook — or worse, repositioned
the hook point to where it won’t grab hold of the fish’s maw. Was
there too much tension on the line?
Before I have time to react, my thoughts are silenced by a light
thud, transmitted from hook to leader to braided line to rod and
finally my fingertip. A slow pull finally starts. I drop the rod tip,
instinctively leaning forward, keeping my right hand in contact with
the line while my body begins to tense. Just as the rod tip approaches
a horizontal position, the pull on the line speeds up, and I lean back
in response. The 11-foot surf rod surges into a beautiful, deep arc
from butt to tip — I am hooked up.
I can tell right away that the fish has weight, but I have been fooled
before by mega dogfish and 20- to 30-pound stripers fighting well
above their weight class. And for the past few weeks, 6- to 7-foot brown
57
sharks have been in the area. The night before last, I hooked two differ-
ent sharks on consecutive casts that nearly emptied my spool.
As the fight progresses, I become confident that I have hooked
a nice striper. She makes a strong charge against my drag and the
tidal current, a sure sign that this is a large fish. I apply as much
pressure as I dare, walking the line between too much force (which
could pull the hook or part the line) and too little force (allowing
the fish to dictate the fight). I know the locations of every snag and
hang, so I know when I need to stop her progress and when I can let
her run and burn energy.
I get my first glimpse of the fish when its wide back and dorsal
break the surface a rod’s length away. I guide the fish through the
last few submerged rocks before pulling her into the wash at my feet.
I flip on my red headlamp to get a look at where the hook found its
purchase: right in the corner of the mouth, just as a circle hook is
designed to. Between the rise and fall of the building surf, I pull her
58
close, thrust my hand into her mouth, grab hold of her lower jaw and
hold on as she thrashes wildly in one last-ditch attempt to escape.
After removing the hook, I spend time reviving the fish before taking
three quick photos, hoping that one will come out. My wetsuit enables
me to take the fish out beyond the surge and breaking waves. For a
moment, I float in shoulder-deep water, face-to-face with 46 pounds of
silver and white, barely visible in the fading moonlight, before thoughts
of the recent shark activity creep into my head. Time to let her go.
It doesn’t take long for the fish to regain its strength; she bites down
forcefully on my hand. I change my grip from lip to tail, point her
head away from shore, and before I can signal that our fling is over, a
wave breaks over my head. I lose my grip as she sweeps her powerful
tail and disappears into the darkness.
This is the fish I seek every night, the one I fantasized about walking
off the fishing pier with a cooler of bunker. This is why I endure the
questions and the stares.
Anglers Journal
 “This is the fish
I seek every
night. This is
why I endure
the questions
and the stares.”

Anglers Journal 59
??
 This 40-plus-pounder couldn’t
resist a custom bunker spoon
created by the Rhodes family.

BENDERS
BANGING ON METAL TO CRE ATE BUNKER SPOONS IS A TIME-
HONORED TRADITION THAT PRODUCES L ARGE STRIPED BASS
BY CAPT. STEPHEN RHODES III
TOM LYNCH (LEFT); COURTESY STEPHEN RHODES III

61
 COURTESY STEPHEN RHODES III (2); TOM LYNCH (ABOVE)

Trolling bunker spoons became

popular in the 1960s, especially
out of Staten Island, New York,
where this shot was taken.

62 Anglers Journal
 Fishing with his
father as a kid, the
author watched
his heroes modify
their spoons so
the lures would
swim just right.

UNKER SPOONS ARE THIN

pieces of curved metal shaped like a
tear drop with lead keels and an 8/0
to 10/0 hook fastened to the rear.
Trolled behind a boat, the metal lures
come alive and have fooled many
large stripers over the decades. Big
striped bass mistake the spoons for
adult menhaden (hence the name), a
favorite food that can reach 15 inches
and weigh more than a pound.
Introduced roughly 60 years ago, bunker spoons epitomize the
“large bait, large bass” ethos embraced by many striper anglers. They
are trolled on wire line with long mono leaders to get down into the
depths where the bigger bass hunt.
Bunker spoons may appear deceptively simple, but getting a piece of
steel to flutter and wobble like an erratic bunker involves a ton of trial
and error, and many hours of bending and banging metal. Trust me.
Others may disagree, but in my experience few methods take more
big bass than a properly trolled bunker spoon. Charter captains first
began banging on metal decades ago to create purpose-built spoons
designed to trigger big bass feeding on big baits into striking.
The exact origin of the bunker spoon is a little fuzzy. A charter boat
named Amity out of Sheepshead Bay, New York, has been credited
with introducing the large spoons in the late 1940s, according to Capt.
Ronnie Lepper, who ran the charter boat Kim out of Deb’s Inlet on

Anglers Journal 63
New York’s Long Island. With the Amity out-catching Kim 20 stripers
to one, Lepper decided to follow the skipper early one morning to
unravel his secrets. What he saw were large striped bass cranked from
the depths with “huge, ridiculous-looking spoons hanging out of their
mouths.” Lepper told several friends, including some of the top bass
anglers from Staten Island, New York. Word traveled fast, and it didn’t
take long before these sharpies started bending sheet metal, including
scavenged street signs and whatever else they could get their hands on.
In the late 1960s, commercially made bunker spoons started ap-
pearing in tackle shops primarily from three small manufacturers: Joe
Julian of Julian’s Tackle in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, produced
what he called Montauk spoons; Lepper came to market with his Lupo
Equalizer spoons; and renowned charter-boat owner Capt. Fred Coles
of the Janet C, also from Atlantic Highlands, produced Wil-Arm
spoons at his machine shop.
My father, Stephen Rhodes II, a charter captain and marine engineer
on the largest fireboat in America — Marine Co. 9, based in Staten
Island (see “Passing It On,” Fall 2022 Anglers Journal) — also started
64
to experiment with bunker spoons. Dad and several of his friends
from the Fire Department of New York and the New York City Police
Department tried every spoon on the market. But spoons were expen-
sive, and these men fished and ran boats on tight budgets. They were,
however, good with their hands and decided to create their own. By
collaborating, this cadre of spoon-benders came up with new versions
in the 1970s, when much of the development of the lure occurred.
This group wasn’t as secretive as some striped bass anglers. They
shared designs and worked together. My father took me to Lepper’s
house in 1979, when I was 10. I still recall the crackle of the fireplace
and the pair of black Labs who watched my every move. My father and
Lepper compared notes, and debated hook styles and sizes, keel weight
and the thickness of the stainless steel. We still own a dozen of Lepper’s
spoons, but my dad bent and shaped them into something radically
different. Only the word “Lupo” on the back identifies their origin.
TOM LYNCH (5)
Taking a piece of metal and turning it into a striper lure is no easy
task. Using thick cardboard to make patterns, the makers would
cut the metal to shape and then modify the end result on the fishing
Anglers Journal
The author and his son John (left)
continue the family tradition of
shaping spoons from raw metal.
grounds with Vise-Grip locking pliers. The ’70s were the golden era of
spoon-making, as Lepper and Bill Lee, two of the best, shared designs
with Tony Galletta, Skip Tellefsen, Donald Larson, Johnny Mester,
and renowned tuna fisherman John Swedberg. Now in their mid-80s,
most of these captains are still hand-crafting spoons and releasing
large striped bass out of Great Kills Harbor on the south shore of
Staten Island, where there’s a dedicated tribe of spoon-trollers.
For a time, a handful of New York City firehouses and police sta-
tions became think tanks for bunker spoon creators. Lepper, who was
a member of the FDNY along with my father, and several others in
the spoon-bending ranks would fine-tune their latest creations using
workshops in the firehouses and police stations during down times.
A vise, hammer and Vise-Grips were always nearby. The banging
of metal made a distinct racket that blended seamlessly with the ca-
cophony emanating from New York City.
They started with a basic spoon in a teardrop shape with a rounded
head and a lead keel screwed into the front third of the lure. The keels
varied in shape and size, weighing 3 to 12 ounces. The weight helped
Anglers Journal
give the lure its swimming action and got it down into the strike zone.
A hole was drilled into the front of the spoon for a 350-pound test
split ring, which was connected to the leader with a heavy-duty swivel.
A second hole was drilled into the tail portion for a second split ring
attached to a single 8/0 to 10/0 Siwash hook. My father preferred a
single hook to a treble, as it was easier on the fish when releasing. Both
split rings were soldered closed to prevent a lost lure or fish. A natural
or synthetic bucktail could be added, as well.
Stainless steel is much more difficult to cut and bend than alumi-
num or brass, which are soft and can crumple when fighting a large
fish. Or the hook could tear out. You must use heavy-duty snips to cut
thick stainless; it’s a laborious process. After the main pattern was cut,
you’d end up with a template that had to be bent in a vise using ham-
mers. This is handcrafting at its finest — muscles meeting metal until
a rough-cut spoon begins to take shape.
Lacking expertise in hydrodynamics, these early craftsmen used trial
and error to determine the size, weight and shape of their keels. The best
way to test the spoons was on the water. While slow-trolling, traditional
65
66 Anglers Journal
 wire-line rods would be played out and set to work while a third rod
with monofilament would be used to test the spoons alongside the boat.
I learned how to steer a boat trolling in a tight fleet in Raritan Bay while
my father tested his spoons. He’d change out keels on the spot until he
determined the right length and weight for the spoon to swim correctly.
Once satisfied, the ultimate test was to see if the spoon would get a
striper to hit 20 feet down. If not, it would go back to the testing rod.
Keel weights were created by melting lead and forming it in home-
made molds made from the bottoms of milk cartons, concrete and,
more recently, silicone, which lasts longer. Consistency is a perennial
issue with hand-made molds, especially given the quality of the lead,
which often came from discarded weights used for tire-balancing.
Creating consistent keel weights is extremely important when fabri-
cating multiple spoons that will perform in the same fashion at the
same trolling speed.
A trolling expert knows which spoons to use for specific conditions
dictated by current, depth and bottom topography. This understand-
ing, combined with knowledge of where bass will be feeding on a
specific stage of the tide, separates the very good striped bass anglers
from the rest of the fleet.
The firefighters and policemen further tuned their creations by
going head-to-head on the water in informal competitions. Each
fisherman selected a spoon to fish on the morning tide, and whoever’s
spoon got more fish, won. The other contenders would tweak their
spoons in the cockpit in preparation of the afternoon tide. Crews
would then swap boats and compete again during the next tide cycle.
This let them see if a particular hull impacted the way the spoon
swam. On a good day, the best spoons would account for 10 to 15 fish.
There is nothing quite as satisfying as fooling a 50-plus-pound
striper on a lure you created — be it a wooden plug, bucktail, fly or
bunker spoon. There is little in the fishing world that compares with
COURTESY STEPHEN RHODES III (LEFT); TOM LYNCH

that level of satisfaction. If you’re not a DIY angler, don’t sweat it; you
can buy commercially made bunker spoons and still catch, but that
victory may not taste as sweet.
Last year on Memorial Day, I released two bass that were my personal
best. The fish tipped the scales at 62 and 57 pounds, and I was using a
spoon my father designed and built. To break the coveted 60-pound
Bunker spoons do a good mark with my father’s creation was a thrill. My son, John, caught a 50-
job of imitating large prey, inch bass on the same trip. It inspired him to follow in his grandfather’s
leading to large bass. footsteps and start making his own spoons. The sound of John banging
away in my basement brings me back several decades, to the small base-
ment where my father played the same tune.

Anglers Journal 67
??
TARGETING STRIPERS ALONG THE FOGGY FL ATS OF MAINE’S CASCO BAY
BY MICHAEL CARR, PHOTOS BY JAMES MANNING

??
 The sun rises over the Royal River in Yar-
mouth, Maine. Photographer James Man-
ning is next to me in the boat, sipping coffee
and deciding whether to put his camera into
its underwater housing. It is our second day
fishing in Maine, and the air is mild with a
slight chill. We hope to find a quiet patch of
water and some eager fish to return us to a
sense of equilibrium once again.
Maine during summer is one of the trea-
sured places in my heart. When I was 15, I
caught my first striped bass not far from here.
I was an inept angler, but I was there with my
dad, and we were celebrating what was our
first “normal” year of my adolescence without
the prospect of me having to get more tests
and more chemotherapy. It was a perfect trip,
all the way down to the lobster rolls we ate
from the dock after our morning catches.
“Morning guys,” Eric Wallace says as we
walk down the ramp. His Maverick skiff is
already in the water, and he greets us with
firm handshakes. He’s a burly man, wear-
ing just enough easy-to-shed layers to keep
him comfortable.
A fellow traveler, Wallace began guiding
in 1992 on the Fryingpan and Roaring Fork
rivers in Colorado before moving to Oregon
and becoming enamored with steelhead on
the Deschutes. Around that time, his father
had begun exploring Islamorada, Florida,
and Wallace was called to join him. He
learned to pole in the Keys, and in 2002, he
and his wife began exploring a move.

Anglers Journal
70
 Eric Wallace was among the first fly
guides to target striped bass in Maine’s
skinny waters with a poling skiff.

Anglers Journal 71
 When conditions allow, this
fishery is all about sight-
casting for striped bass.

72 Anglers Journal
 “My ex and I flipped a coin, and we ended up in Maine,” he says.
“I realized once I got here that I brought the wrong boat. Once I got
my skiff up here, I started exploring. I saw stripers in really skinny
water, and then things took off. I was able to book my Eastern
clients that used to come west to come to [fish] Maine instead. We
learned together. It was a real team effort. It felt like we had it to
ourselves for a long time.”
And that’s just what we have as he hits the throttle. We’re alone on
Casco Bay, and fog is all around us. The morning gray has seeped in,
but it’s not ominous. Wallace sets the skiff up along a calm stretch. We
can make out the ripples of a sandbar.
Tony Friedrich, policy director for the American Saltwater Guides
Association, calls Wallace, a “great, conservation-minded guy. He’s
one of those guys that says, ‘This is my game, and I’m going to figure it
out better than anyone.’ ”
Friedrich’s words prove true as we begin to fish. “The bass set up on
the side of the bar as the shrimp get washed over,” Wallace says as he
Anglers Journal
hands me a rod with a simple, greenish-brown epoxy shrimp fly. I’m
first on the platform. We begin our drift along the edge, still the only
boat around. I’m blind-casting. The water is 8-feet deep around the
sandbar. If there were a high sun, I’d be able to see bottom, but I can
only gaze at the gray fog and the darkened water. Wallace assures me
there are fish here.
He poles effortlessly, his pushes imperceptible as the tide floods. I
soak up the salt air to clear my head of the wreckage of another sum-
mer in the trenches at a summer camp that supplements my pay as a
teacher. Time on the platform is my reward. This day, this hour, this
next cast — this is my summer vacation.
We drift the bar, and I get no bumps. I trade places with Manning,
who sets down his camera and underwater housing. Fishing this way
is the best because I get to watch a better angler cast and can learn
from his moves. Manning is tall and lean. He’s athletic. You don’t
carry 60 pounds of gear on your back every day if you’re not in good
shape, and it translates to his cast. It’s powerful. He punches air, the
73
Throwing flies to hungry stripers
on Maine’s flats was a cathartic
experience for the writer.
way legendary fly fisherman Lefty Kreh told us to, and sends the
shrimp 90 feet with ease. Then he hooks up. The first fish of the day is
an unruly schoolie that Manning strips in. The fish spits the barbless
hook boatside, and I’m back on the platform. I want a fish, but I real-
ize there’s a whole day ahead of us.
The sun begins to penetrate the morning fog. We’ve run across the
bay and set up near an outlet to the ocean, where there’s a rocky island
with a small lighthouse and plenty of seals. “Put a few in there,” Wal-
lace says from the console.
I cast toward the island as Manning sets up a photo of a lone lobster
buoy against the dull light. A slight breeze ripples my shirt as I cast.
It’s warm and inviting. I forget about the work irritants I left behind
in New Jersey. I’m casting toward a beautiful island, and I’m perfectly
content. This is why I come to Maine.
“Tide’s about to shift. I think if we run back inside, we’ll pick up
some good moving water near this rip I like,” Wallace says, watching
the sun’s position and the water. I never saw him check his watch.
Guides like him develop a real feel for their local waters. Twenty
minutes later, the fog rolls back in and covers us. We have yet to
see another boat.
Wallace positions the skiff along another edge. Deep water runs par-
allel to a stretch of sandy bottom — a perfect ambush point. Manning
is first on the rod. He casts smoothly into the haze. The water comes
alive. It’s the first time we’ve seen anything resembling surface activity.
“Incoming tide now,” Wallace says with a smile, knowing that the shift
in tide opens a buffet for hungry stripers. Boils and bass are everywhere.
74
Manning casts toward one of the bigger
breaks. Two strips, and he’s on. His rod
bends to the water, and he’s forced to get
the fish on the reel. It’s about 28 inches, but
the fish is rotund from gorging on baitfish,
shrimp and lobster.
We switch out, and I step up to the casting
deck. There’s still surface activity to my left,
but the fog is heavier. Somewhere in the
distance, I hear the faint ring of a bell buoy
just before I let the cast fly. I begin my re-
trieve. The line feels heavy. The epoxy shrimp
wobbles a bit. Two more strips, and there’s
an explosive take. The striper whisks away
the slack line and is on the reel in a flash.
This fish has some size. “Let it run when it
needs to,” Wallace says. He hasn’t raised
his voice or changed his demeanor since we
stepped aboard. He is perfectly calm, content
to take others on the journey.
The fish takes a few long runs, but I can
only see a few feet into the fog. When I fi-
nally bring the fish to the boat, it’s more than
30 inches and pushing about 15 pounds. A
nice fly-rod bass. “Let’s do an underwater
release photo,” Manning says.
I maneuver myself so he can get the
perfect shot. This fish will look spectacular
underwater. A really good angler would’ve
bent his knees a bit to ready himself and had
the wherewithal to switch hands dexterous-
ly. Instead of a beautiful, underwater release,
Wallace takes a cellphone photo of me
falling backward and the striper leaping back into the green waters,
telling us all to have a nice day.
I have no idea what time it is, and I don’t care. We’ve spent the
morning alone on Casco Bay chasing bass at every turn, but as the fog
lifts and the sun pokes out, we have an opportunity to fish for stripers
Florida Keys-style.
Wallace stands atop the platform, gingerly pushing us along a
stretch of beach. If you took away the shaker siding on the beach
house to our right, we could be off Abaco. The water has gone from a
muddy green/gray to a cool, ice blue. I never thought there was a place
like this in Maine, but here we are.
Manning is up and waiting for his shot. “Ten o’clock. Moving right
to left,” Wallace says.
“I’ve got him,” Manning replies.
I haven’t seen a thing. Manning, who has sight-fished the Northeast
and the Caribbean, barely flinches and places the fly exactly where
Wallace instructs. The water explodes. It can’t be more than 3 feet deep.
The thrash of the striper’s tail stirs up silt and pebbles. It is the perfect
stalk, cast and catch. Manning and Wallace execute it with perfection.
Back at the ramp, with the prospect of a long drive back down I-95
in my head, I shake Wallace’s hand and thank him for a glimpse into
this unspoiled world that he’s found up here among the lobster traps
and oyster beds. Sometimes the universe drops you right where you
are supposed to be, and I’m certain that Manning and I were meant
to be here on this day to experience the fishing. We certainly had the
ideal person in Wallace to show us around.
Anglers Journal
Wallace has a deep knowledge of his
home waters. He always seems to
know where the fish are hanging out.

Anglers Journal 75
 A Last Great Place
JON CAVE KNOWS THE ST. JOHNS RIVER AND ITS FISHERIES AS IF THEY WERE HIS OLD FRIENDS
BY CHARLIE LEVINE

??
 For decades, Jon Cave has
explored the vast floodplains
of the St. Johns River.

??
IAN SASSO PHOTO
As we run south, away from the launch ramp at C.S. Lee Park in Gene-
va, Florida, the narrow ribbon of dark water begins to burst open into
a massive floodplain. My eyes adjust to the vast, wide-angle landscape
as I slowly turn my head, letting my mind create a panoramic image of
the mosaic. Tall grass swaying in the breeze as far as I can see. Ham-
mocks of sabal palms and cypress trees drooping with Spanish moss
provide the only dots of shade in an exposed vista.
When you live on a pancake, as I do in central Florida, you must go
to the beach or look inland to find an expanse of wild country such as
the one unfolding in front of me on the St. Johns, the state’s longest
river. Otherwise, the horizon is typically busted up by another new
Walgreens that somehow sprouted up overnight like a daylily. Not
here. Not on the oasis that is the St. Johns.
I was sitting in the bow of Jon Cave’s aluminum jonboat, powered by
a 15-hp Mercury outboard, as we carved our way through a meandering
stretch of water. Cave is a former guide who lives near this section of the
river. These days he is an in-demand fly-casting instructor, and his mind
is almost always debating some nuance related to his favorite pursuit.
“I don’t know if it’s even healthy, but I have kind of a one-track mind
in that I mostly think about fly-fishing,” Cave says with a laugh. “I
don’t have a lot of outside interests. I like to paint, but I paint fish. I like
to take photographs, but they’re all fish. My circle of friends are all fly
anglers, but that commonality makes for a great friendship.”
While Cave, who is in his early 70s, is a fly-fishing purist, he is by no
means a snob. He grew up in Indiana when fly-fishing wasn’t nearly as
popular as it is today. As a boy, he’d go to the Western Auto store to
look at fly gear and dream about fishing smallmouth streams. His eyes
were opened when he met guide and tournament caster Ed Mueller.
“He could be cantankerous, but because I loved fly-fishing, he took
me under his wing a little bit,” Cave says. “I’d buy him breakfast on
Sundays, and he’d teach me. I loved it. I always loved it, and I wanted
to get really good.”
Sitting in Cave’s boat, I feel like a younger version of the man driving.
IAN SASSO

Every time I’m with him, he teaches me a useful technique. Joining us is

Ian Sasso, a filmmaker and another one of Cave’s students. Sasso took

78 Anglers Journal
 No trolling motor. No sounder.
No problem. “There’s something
beautiful about fitting into the
environment,” Cave says.

Anglers Journal 79
The arrival of pelicans
indicates that fish
aren’t far behind. Shad
are the first course,
bass are the main dish.

80 Anglers Journal
 Cave’s class when he was 15 and fell hard into
fly-fishing. Cave told the teenager he could
come over any time he wanted. Now 34, Sasso
took advantage of the offer. “I couldn’t keep
him away. He was a like a fly-fishing pest,”
Cave jokes. “He was eager, and I like that.”
Cave and his younger brother Paul are
both Florida fly fanatics. They fell in love
with the state’s fishery as kids, visiting their
grandparents every summer at their home
in Naples. Paul is still guiding. “I knew when
I was very young that I was going to move
to Florida,” Cave says. “We’d fish on Marco
Beach, and there was nothing there. I just
fell in love with it.”
Cave cut his teeth on saltwater fly-fishing in
the early 1970s, and when he started guid-
ing, he strictly fished the salt but often found
himself stopping at the St. Johns River on his
way back from the coast. He’d catch a few
bass and flush the engine on his boat with
river water. “I still consider myself primarily a
saltwater fly-fisher, but I also consider myself
an all-around fly-fisher,” he says. “That was al-
ways my goal. I feel as comfortable on a trout
stream as I do on a bass river or the flats.”
Cave, who worked as a guide for more
than 20 years, holds a degree in natural re-
sources, specializing in fishery and water is-
sues. He also worked as a general contractor
at times to pay the bills, but all of that took a
back seat to fly-fishing. As he built his guid-
ing business, Cave started to write articles,
and he’d often take assignments to discover
CHARLIE LEVINE (2); IAN SASSO
new fisheries in underdeveloped places, such
as Honduras. But he always found him-
self back on the St. Johns, steering around
oxbows and casting to bass. “Fishing here
is as good as there is,” he says. “We have a
tendency to overlook our own backyard, but
Anglers Journal
if you’re willing to put in the time and look
around, it’s right here.”
The seasons in Florida tend to meld
together with few demarcations, such as
changing leaves or the arrival of tulips, to
close one season and begin the next. Seasonal
changes are subtle on land but evident on the
water. As water temps change, new species of
fish arrive, signaling a seasonal shift.
For anglers on the St. Johns, winter means
waiting for shad to appear. The shad swim
thousands of miles from as far north as the
Bay of Fundy in the Canadian Maritimes to
return to their natal waters to spawn. The
first shad show up on the St. Johns around
the end of January and stay for a couple of
months, until the switch flips and they head
back to sea. For Cave, shad are the appetizer;
bass are the main course. “Bass, especially
Florida black bass, are one of my favorite fish
to catch on a fly,” he says.
The water is high on this late-January after-
noon, and Cave wants to head upriver, which
means running south. The St. Johns is one of
the few rivers in North America that flows
north. It runs for 310 miles, from Fort Drum
Marsh west of Vero Beach to Jacksonville.
With little drop in elevation, the river current
moves like molasses, about 0.3 mph, roughly
the walking speed of a gopher tortoise.
Cave takes us to some of his favorite spots,
where we beach the boat, walk the banks
and cast. He is not a fan of crowds or the re-
cently upgraded ramp for larger boats. With
more boats on the river, he is careful about
sharing his spots.
I find myself transfixed on the views and
wildlife. I spot a kingfisher zipping above the
grass while gators linger along the shore like
lazy hippos. We see some anglers in waders
81
fishing from a bank. “Tourists,” Cave says.
“Locals don’t wear waders — they wet-wade.”
The St. Johns is a broad river full of shallow
bowls and more than a dozen large lakes. The
Seminole-Creek people call it Welaka, the
“river of lakes.” Depths vary from ankle-deep
to a few feet overhead. It’s a dark, blackwater
river stained from rotting vegetation and
dead leaves that leach tannins. During sum-
mer, the water levels drop, and bigger boats
can’t get into Cave’s most treasured spots.
As we slow down, a 7-foot gator lying on a
half-sunken tree lifts its head and eyes us. We
beach the boat a few-hundred yards down-
river, grab our fly rods and step out. I use
the butt of my rod to poke at the tall grass as
I stomp, hoping to scare off any water moc-
casins or small gators that may be underfoot.
Cave points to spots and shares stories as we
fish. “Right here, I tied on a little Clouser and
caught 30 bass,” he says.
We walk the banks like we’re fishing a
trout stream. Cave steps along barefoot, but
I wear calf-high, waterproof deck boots.
The river is full of little creek mouths, some
of which were cattle trails that formed into
small riverlets. Cave says they are “ecosys-
tems of their own.” Nutrients run down the
patted grass and mud before draining into
the river. Those nutrients draw in the bait,
which catches the eye of predators.
Bass here will eat anything from minnows
to dragonflies. “Whatever’s out there, they’re
going to eat it,” Cave says, but they can be
finicky at times. “I’ve seen them get real
picky when they’re keyed in on one thing
only.” Cave enjoys the challenge of figuring
out what that one food source may be and
finding the perfect fly to imitate it.
We fish poppers along fallen timber and
palms. I get hung up repeatedly. I’m embar-
rassed, but Cave is cool about it. He takes my
rod and shows me a trick, snapping a quick
roll cast to pop the fly off the backside of a log.
Cave is tall, and I enjoy watching him cast.
He doesn’t seem to put much effort into it,
yet his casts sail 10 feet past mine and unroll
gracefully with quiet drops. Between my
parade of expletives, he gives me pointers as
I cast. “Tuck your elbow in a bit,” he says,
and laughs when I apologize for hanging up
on a limb. “It happens all the time out here.”
Somehow I don’t lose a single fly.
The bass are not playing along, so we run
farther south to Puzzle Lake to fish a spot
where Cave caught a big sunshine bass last
year. These are hybrids created by mixing
female white bass with male striped bass. As
CHARLIE LEVINE (3)

we enter the lake, the water widens but is

super shallow, and there’s only one marker, a
leaning white section of PVC pipe that seems
to have been haphazardly placed in the

82 Anglers Journal
 Anglers walk many sections of the
St. Johns, Florida’s longest river,
and fish it like a trout stream.
middle of nowhere. When water levels drop, it’s
easier to find the river channel, but I have no idea
where it is as Cave steers. He slows down as the
water gets skinnier by the minute. A massive flock
of white pelicans sits along an edge of tall grass, a
sure sign that shad aren’t far away.
Cave cuts the engine and uses a wooden closet
rod to pole the boat. “I pride myself on the fact
that this boat is simple,” he says. There’s no GPS
and no trolling motor. As he poles, he calls himself
“Jon Kota,” referring to a Minn Kota trolling mo-
tor. He also uses a long paddle while standing. “I
like doing stuff myself,” he says. “There’s some-
thing beautiful about fitting into the environment,
and I get that feeling with a paddle in my hand.”
As the sun begins to dip lower in the sky, we
work our way back toward the ramp and find
a sizable school of shad cutting, or “washing,”
across the surface. These fish are not here to eat;
they have something else in mind. The fish are
mating. The underside of a shad is sharp, almost
like a serrated knife, and the shad cut each other
as they do their dance.
When Cave was guiding, catching 25 shad a day
was the common high-water mark. While he says
he has had enough of shad fishing, these fish are
proving hard to hook, and I can see Cave savoring
the challenge of figuring out what combination of
line and fly will work best.
Cave carries a mix of flies that he has tied, in-
cluding patterns he developed more than 30 years
ago. The shad fly he ties on has a big head, and
Cave attaches it to a sinking streamer line to get
it down in the water column. He tells me to use a
floating line and a heavy fly so we can determine
the depth at which the fish are biting. I watch
Cave vary his retrieve speeds until he comes tight
to a decent shad that thinks it’s a tarpon and leaps
out of the water. Cave is smiling. “They want a
slow retrieve,” he says. “Almost still.”
We fish till dusk turns to dark, then stop at
another creek mouth not far from the ramp. Fish
cut and jump across the surface around the boat,
but they’re still playing hard to catch. I manage
to hook one on a Clouser. Cave fishes a smaller
fly. I like how the shad jump and dig as they fight.
They’re fun to catch, but they’re no bass. The
appetizer has been served, but we’ll have to come
back later in the year for the main course.
I stare at the last remnants of the sunset and soak
in the setting. The open grasslands look more like
the Serengeti than a swath of floodplain sand-
wiched between the population centers of Orlando
and Florida’s east coast. This section of the St. Johns
has not changed much in hundreds of years. The
shad were here then, just as they are now. It’s a last
great place in a state under perpetual development.
“The river cuts through the noise — the real
world versus the synthetic world,” Cave says.
“The St. Johns is a treasure to this country. It’s no
different than the Yellowstone or any of the great
fishing rivers.”

Anglers Journal 83
 TEXAS TARPON
FISHING WITHIN SIGHT OF THE MEXICO BORDER, ANGLERS TANGLE WITH
TRIPLE-DIGIT SILVER KINGS ALONG LOWER L AGUNA MADRE BY KELLY GROCE

??
PETE MILISCI PHOTO
Texas tarpon are no lightweights.
The state record is 229 pounds, and
the author and her guide released
fish up to 180 pounds last August.
 t was a hot, sticky August morning in south Texas
as we motored at idle speed through the darkness. The only sound
we heard were surface slaps rippling out from a massive bait ball
and periodic explosions as pelicans dive-bombed into the fray no
farther than 20 yards off the bow of the 24-foot Skeeter. Condi-
tions were on target for intersecting massive, migratory tarpon.
With his headlamp providing our only on-board light, Capt.
Brian Barrera threw his cast net as we approached the South
Padre Island jetties to load up on silver mullet. Bait was plentiful,
and Barrera filled the live well with little effort, which typically is
not the case. Finding the right bait can be a grind that runs late
into the morning as the day heats up. We got lucky.
When it comes to choosing what bait or lure to throw, Bar-
rera, a native Texas guide who has found a niche in targeting big
tarpon, lets the conditions dictate what he uses. “Through my
15 years of tarpon fishing, I’ve learned to let the water tell me
what to fish,” he says. “It’s important to be in tune with what’s
happening bait-wise. If there’s more mullet in the water, we’ll
use those. Sometimes it’s menhaden or pinfish. This leads to
more hookups than an angler who is dead-set on using a certain
technique or lure. You must roll with what the ocean provides.”
Feeling optimistic about our baits, we made our way toward
the beach. The tarpon were beginning to move about as we
motored north toward the Port Mansfield jetties. The presence
of bait intermixed with the slick surface of the Gulf of Mexico
presented us with ideal tarpon conditions. Mother Nature began
her show with a jaw-dropping sunrise. As the fireball peaked over
the horizon, I could see the bait moving, birds diving and pods of
160-pound tarpon rolling.
The ’poons weren’t the only creatures milling about. Along the
beach I could make out Border Patrol trucks on their morning
patrols. This is a daily sight along the Port Mansfield coast and
Padre Island National Seashore, a 70-mile stretch of remote
beach with dunes covered in a variety of cactus, Spanish daggers
and other south Texas flora. Rattlesnakes, coyotes and white-tail
deer also roam this secluded beach. It’s not far from the Mexico
PETE MILISCI (LEFT); KELLY GROCE

border and the mouth of the Rio Grande River, so it is not un-
common to find an occasional “square grouper” (marijuana bale)
or witness other border activity, but we weren’t concerned with
any of that. Our focus was on migrating fish.
South Padre is a barrier island nestled on the Lower Laguna
Madre. Spanning 130 miles, this pristine bay system is one of
six hypersaline bays in the world. There are only two inlets, or

Anglers Journal 87
“passes,” from the Gulf of Mexico, and the Port Mansfield and
South Padre Island jetties, which makes the water here saltier
than normal seawater. Most of this bay is shallow. The aver-
age depth is 2½ feet, and the water is thick with turtle grass.
Combined with a subtropical climate, the Lower Laguna Madre
is prime habitat for speckled trout, redfish and snook.
The area is known for big fish, especially trout. Lower Laguna
Madre local Carl “Bud” Rowland caught the state’s 37-inch,
16-pound record trout here on fly. But for a tarpon-crazed angler
like me, my intentions from May to December turn to the beach-
front, where the almighty silver king lurks.
We rigged two rods with live bait under corks to float off the
stern while I tossed an artificial from the bow. With the finicky
attitude of tarpon, we wanted to offer a variety of live baits and
lures. Barrera set out the first bait and placed the rod in the
holder. He was about to deploy the second one when the bait
from the first rod scurried across the surface. A second later, the
morning was disrupted by a 180-pound tarpon inhaling the live
bait and setting off the glorious sound of a screaming drag.
Barrera snatched the rod out of the holder, set the hook and
began the fight. As the fish pulled line, it launched itself through
the slick surface, performing no less than six jumps, gills flared
like silver shields, mouth agape, head shaking violently. In the
distance, free-jumping tarpon mingled with pelicans diving into
balled-up mullet that looked like dark shadows dancing across
the water. After a fight of about 30 minutes, Barrera worked the
large fish to the boat. The fish’s jaw looked wide enough to swal-
low an angler’s head. After a round of photos, Barrera revived the
tarpon and released it. When you’ve landed a giant tarpon before
your morning coffee gets cold, it’s a good sign of things to come.
As the adrenaline subsided and we rerigged, Barrera focused
on his fishfinder. “There are two large tarpon to the left,” he
said, having spotted the fish using the side imaging on his
Humminbird Solix 12. My D.O.A. Bait Buster was already in
the water. I slowed my retrieve significantly, hoping to swim
the lure past the nose of one of these fish. About two seconds
later, I felt the thump, thump of a tarpon eat and set the hook.
Berserk is the only word I can use to explain the jumps this
fish executed. Seeing a 150-pound, 7-foot tarpon blast out of
the depths in this remote area is a thrill we enjoyed by our-
selves. There were no other boats in sight — just us and the
silver king. The fish exerted so much energy on its jumps that I
was able to work it to the boat in 21 minutes.
I reached over the gunwale and grabbed the tarpon’s sand-
paper-like lower jaw as one of its massive eyes looked at me.
Gazing into that eye, I wondered what it may have seen on its
migration from the Yucatán, where they reside in the winter.
Having an intimate moment with one of these beautifully prehis-
toric creatures makes me feel most alive. It’s why I count down
the days for the arrival of big tarpon and spend hours under the
brutal south Texas sun.

A LONG STORY
The beachside town known as Port Aransas was once called
Tarpon, Texas. Word of the tarpon caught along the jetties at
Aransas Pass spread quickly during the early 20th century. The
buzz caught the attention of well-known figures, including Presi-
dent Franklin D. Roosevelt, who traveled here to experience the
thrill of fighting a tarpon.

88 Anglers Journal
PORT ARANSAS MUSEUM (LEFT); KELLY GROCE

Fishing for tarpon has a long history in the

Lone Star State, attracting such notables as
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (bottom left).

Anglers Journal 89
 The writer releases a silver
king along the Lower Laguna
Madre, where tarpon tend
to travel in chains.

90 Anglers Journal
 In those days, a fleet of locally built Farley tarpon boats would
line up next to each other in the pass to swing baits in front of the
fish. The open boats measured 16 to 28 feet and held two anglers
in cockpit chairs. They were built by brothers Barney and Fred
Farley, who launched the first one in 1915.
Farther up the coast in Galveston, fishing pioneers discovered
another hot spot on the migration route, which they dubbed
Tarpon Alley. This channel sits a few miles off the beach in the
Gulf, and crews would find large schools of tarpon greyhound-
ing their way to their next stop in 30 to 40 feet of water. Located
only 45 minutes from the Houston city limits, this tarpon hole
becomes a parking lot during the summer, when anglers fish live
baits and Coon Pops, a 2-ounce bullet-shaped leadhead jig with
a long, curly tail that’s attached to a circle hook.
Tarpon fishing is as much a part of life in south Texas as bar-
becue or tacos. With the most consistent bite on the coast, South
Padre Island grew to silver-king prominence in the early 20th
century. The local high school even chose the mighty tarpon as its
mascot. And if you spend enough time inside a local tackle shop,
you’ll hear old salts spew stories of sailfish busting right off the
beach and incredible tarpon action.
“Four decades ago, there were so many tarpon around,” says
South Padre Island native and tarpon guide Capt. Skipper Ray.
“We would fish for them 99 percent of the time at the South
Padre jetties, but most people were only interested in fishing for
edible fish like grouper, kingfish, ling, redfish and snapper, so we
had the tarpon to ourselves. I wish I’d known then what I know
now on how and where to catch them.”
Like many popular fisheries that went unmanaged, the tarpon
population took a big hit in the late 1990s. Increased respect for
these fish, along with a catch-and-release ethic, has helped in-
crease the number of tarpon in our waters after that nose dive. It
wasn’t uncommon to see 10 tarpon on the dock, but catch-and-
release is now the norm, thankfully.
“Texas trout-fishing guide Capt. Cliff Webb caught a giant
tarpon with me that was teetering on the record,” Barrera says.
“It easily blew past the 85-inch length and 16-inch tail girth mark.
I think that fish and two others we caught that same week were
potential state records. To me it’s not worth harvesting such an
awesome creature. To even be considered, it would have to easily
be a record-breaker. But at this point in my career, I would prob-
ably still let it swim off.”
The Texas state tarpon record is 229 pounds.
Tarpon anglers on South Padre are usually the first to see these
migrating monsters as they travel north and the last to see them
on their way back south. When tarpon are present, the fish travel
in long chains, rather than big schools. Like the influx of winter
transients who caravan to the Lone Star State in their travel trail-
ers, tarpon tend to stay here longer than other parts of the coast.
August and September are prime months for pursuing gi-
ants, but it tends to vary depending on the weather. We had an
exceptionally warm December last year, when a 175-pounder
was landed a few weeks before Christmas. Year-round juvenile
KELLY GROCE; PETE MILISCI (2)

tarpon help scratch the itch while the big ones hang out in the
Yucatán for the winter.
I look forward to the sticky, hot summertime bite along the last
frontier of the Texas coast, the Lower Laguna Madre, when giant
tarpon push through. Everything is bigger in Texas, and targeting
the silver king in these remote waters is always an adventure.

Anglers Journal 91
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FISH TALES
& BOAT SALES
MEET HMY YACHT SALES
PROFESSIONAL JEFF THIEL

As a Cape May native, chasing billfish runs deep in the upbringing sportfishing operation that ventured to exotic locations including
of HMY Yacht Sales Professional, and Viking expert Jeff Thiel. We Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, Mexico, Virgin Islands, and the
had the opportunity to sit down and discuss who Jeff really is and Dominican Republic. “Where to next?” A remark frequently used
how his passion for fishing led to careers in the marine industry. when in search of the next hot bite on this sportfishing operation.

Thiel brings over 25 years of tournament sportfishing knowledge The experience of long travels at sea and handling the challenges
to the table with extensive experience in the maritime world. of yacht ownership are at the core of Jeff’s pedagogy and career
Running numerous fishing programs and traveling the globe has that allow him to stand out amongst other yacht brokers.
molded Thiel into a world-class fisherman and yacht broker.
“Being able to pull from my
Thiel started his career in the maritime industry at 16 as a mate past experiences, helps me “Being able to pull from
on board the “South Jersey Champion” owned by Dick Webber. assist my clients. With all
my past experiences,
my past opportunities and
The lure and history of international destinations soon became helps me assist my
experiences... I would not
a reality for Thiel. “South Jersey Champion” set course to sought
be the broker I am today.” clients. With all my
after fishing locations to fish some of the most prestigious
tournaments on the globe, including tournaments in Jeff’s life-long commitment
past opportunities and
Los Suenos, Costa Rica. to chasing billfish led him to experiences... I would
the prestigious role of not be the broker
“We had just fished a full season in Los Suenos when the
Captain. He has been at the I am today.”
“Tyson’s Pride” pulled into the marina. “Tyson’s Pride” had fished
helm of many sportfish,
all over, with extensive traveling. The operation consisted of a
including new Viking Yachts
globe-trotting 113-foot mothership and a 72-foot custom
and custom sportfishing over the years. With inexplicable
sportfish. My boss at the time- Mr. Webber gave me the blessing
knowledge and attention to detail, he deeply understands his
to go fish with them, with one condition. I had to return as his
clients’ needs. His passion is now able to be shared with clients
captain someday.”
who have become like family. With his travel expertise and
Jeff’s education and prior experiences led to the opportunity to experience, Jeff is here to guide his clients through the entire
travel with and work on the “Tyson’s Pride” a mothership and selling and purchasing process.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT JEFF THIEL AND HEAR ABOUT HIS FISHING STORIES
CHECK OUT HIS INTERVIEW ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL AT HMY YACHTS.
BETWEEN FISH
By William Sisson
Old Haunts
I
stood on a windy hill on an early April evening, smelling
the rain blowing off the sound as it moved up the river val-
ley, shrouding it in sheets of mist.
At that moment, I made up my mind that, unlike the
previous season, I would spend as many days in the field as
possible. Not for love, money or work would I miss another stretch
of productive spring tides. I knew that if I was to be of any use
to anyone, including myself, I had to get back to the edges where
land meets the sea. To those nooks and crannies where I have long
found fish and a measure of peace.
When I wrote that years ago, it was the truth. It still is. Spring
is the season of renewal, but that poses a problem for those of us
who fish like mad. Perspective comes later.
To keep fishing as if it were a second job while also working
full time and raising a family is a grind. It guarantees that you will
run yourself ragged — to catch a tide, to finish writing a story,
to pick up a child after school. You try to do it all, but no one is
applauding your middling performance, certainly not at home.
And maybe not at work, either. Fish refuse to conform to family or
work schedules, even a nocturnal species like striped bass. And if
you’re compulsive about fishing, you’re liable to spring a few leaks.
Looking back on my notes from that spring, I knew I either
returned with decisiveness or risked a slow, spiritual death. You
know you’ve crossed the fishing gods when you lose track of the
tides and moon phases that you once held firmly in your head.
You lie awake at night worrying about tuition money and work,
rather than scheming over fish.
You can dull the static for a while, but you can’t kill it with-
out killing yourself. I was overweight and drinking too much.
I feared I would lose the drive to chase fish deep into the night
from skiff and shore, to lean against a beach log and sleep to the
sound of surf.
I sat in an easy chair, anesthetizing myself with top-shelf
liquor, pretending that its price tag somehow elevated the act of
96
getting sloshed. I saw shades of myself in an article on high-
functioning alcoholics. Is that really what I’d become?
I checked in with a good buddy who has been as dry as the
Mojave for more than 30 years. “You ain’t no drunk,” he said.
“Believe me, I know a drunk when I see one.”
Semantics?
Looking back is tricky business. We tend to doll-up our failings.
I make no apologies for the long stretch when I worked hard and
fished hard, even though that meant not being home as often as I
would have had I simply worked 9-to-5 and golfed on weekends.
Today, I’d be criticized for having a poor “work-life balance”
— even without fishing putting its big thumb on my Boga. It
becomes a lot easier once your kids have grown and your career
starts winding down, but that usually corresponds with a decline
in battery life. Who is fishing harder at 70 than they were at 40?
I tried to keep everyone in my orbit happy. But when the big
fish were on the move, there just wasn’t enough time for every-
one and everything. That’s when I’d roll over anything that stood
between me and the fish. It was then that I felt as if I was moving
from one life to another, slipping back into the house before dawn
like a creature from the abyss. Wrung out, sometimes satiated,
sometimes hungrier. I clearly was not the best version of myself,
but even today I have no regrets.
My wife and I have always given each other the time and space to
chase our dreams. For Patty, that has meant time in the mountains.
For me, it’s been scales and tails. It wasn’t always a smooth road, but
we both believed Joseph Campbell’s mantra: “Follow your bliss.”
I still have an enduring fondness for those crummy-looking
beach towns in early spring, when they’re still boarded up, the
sand has drifted in the parking lots, and the roads are buckled
with frost heaves. Those are the places we used to bum around,
looking for fish and looking for trouble.
When the season arrives in earnest, I will willingly respond to
TOM LYNCH
the sound and smell of the spring surf and the stripers flooding
their old haunts — and mine.
Anglers Journal
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