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hookset
05-07-2010, 05:11 PM
Who have you taught to surf fish or who taught you?

Forging a fisherman
What does it take to become a surf angler? Just some enthusiasm and a ukelele

At any rate, I got an e-mail a week or so ago from a reader who was interested in getting into surf fishing, but found some of the jargon in the Press' fishing section, Hook, Line & Sinker, a tad confusing and short on explanations. My fault entirely. You can get too close to a subject and forget that everyone may not know what you're talking about. This is not a new problem on a number of levels.

Terms like plug, popper, jig and bunker don't make much sense unless you've fished before. So it was suggested to me by my old friend, Mitch Delmar, why not introduce a real novice to the joys of fishing and shed some light on the sport?

As Mitch is a real novice, it was decided he'd get the introduction.
To be fair, Mitch, a writer, musician and graphic artist, is not totally unfamiliar with angling. He fished as a kid, but then found himself in pursuit of other interests — although, I ask you, what is more interesting than fishing?

We agreed to meet at the Public Beach in Sea Bright, near a jetty that I considered a sure thing for spring bass on clams, especially with all these nice fish being landed.

I brought two rods, an 8 1/2- and a 9-foot St. Croix, outfitted with saltwater spinning reels loaded with 20-pound test Power Pro. Power Pro is a braided line that is much smaller in diameter than monofilament of the same pound test. It has much less stretch and none of the memory of monofilament.
I also brought a dozen clams and several bass rigs, comprised of a 3-ounce pyramid sinker on a three-way swivel and a No. 5 Gamagatsu circle hook tied with 40-pound test leader material.
Mitch brought a ukulele.

An odd choice, you might think, but Mitch has a theory about music and fish and unseen patterns in the universe that mere mortals cannot sense, so who was I to argue. He was also wearing a porkpie hat.

And it was here I offered my first fishing lesson: lose the hat.
Not that I have anything against stylish headgear, but it offered little protection against the sun and the snide remark. Always the willing student, Mitch switched to a baseball cap.

Before heading to our spot, we donned our waders. While it was muggy in the parking lot, a few yards onto the beach and you were hit with a chilly southeast wind — pretty much the prevailing wind on Jersey Shore afternoons.

The chilly wind came off the still-cold ocean water. While these spring days can get fairly warm, the ocean is still numbing — with temperatures in the 50s. It's water that will make your feet ache, hence the waders. Hip boots will do the trick as well.

One of the simple secrets of fishing in the surf is putting in the time. If you're uncomfortable, you'll pack it in too quickly.
Mitch wore a pair of breathable waders that protect against the cold but don't trap the heat. Mine were an old pair of neoprene waders that mimic a sauna suit once the sun comes out. They're best in the fall when the water and air temperature are a closer match.

At the chosen spot, we broke out the clams and prepared to fish.
Most novice fishermen, of any gender, will recoil to some degree when it comes to baiting a hook. Not Mitch, who gleefully grabbed the slippery clam, and pushed the tip of the hook through the body and threaded it out the meaty foot. We used elastic thread to tie the clam securely to the hook, which helped when we moved to the casting phase.

Now properly baited and attired, we moved to the water's edge. The wind was still coming out of the southeast and the tide was falling. The current moved south to north
Accessing some dim memory from his past, Mitch recalled the rudiments of casting a spinning reel.

"I just hold the line with my finger, flip the bail and cast, right?" he said.
"Correct, just let the line slip off your finger as the rod moves forward" I responded, and off he went.
I was then treated to a dizzying array of casting techniques that defy categorization. My favorite was the "whirlygig," where the sinker and clam spun around each other like a Spanish bola or a runaway solar system. The elastic thread came in handy.

On one whirlygig cast, the gravitational forces became too great even for the thread, and the hook and bait parted company, hopefully amicably.

During another early cast, the sinker didn't achieve the proper launch angle and the clam slammed into the sand just a few feet from the shoreline in about two inches of water.
"The only striper I'm going to catch with that is one that's walking down the beach," Mitch said.

The erratic display was short-lived as Mitch quickly got the hang of it.

It takes practice to get the feel of the rod and let it do the work. A surfcaster has to let the rod "load up" with the weight of the sinker before moving forward and then let the line slip at the right time to get the maximum distance.

We now settled into the waiting game, hoping a hungry striper would come along, inhale the clam and get Mitch his first striped bass. The wind had turned to the west, and blew hot and muggy. It was good to be wading in the cool water.
This was a good time to get a sense of the waves' affect on the line and to learn how to distinguish that movement from the bite of fish. However, we needed a bite for comparison's sake, and none were forthcoming.
We stood and waited, watching a school of bunker slap the water in front of us.

I explained that bunker or moss bunker were forage fish for striped bass and bluefish and their proper name was menahaden.
"As in "I'll take menhaden?' " Mitch asked.
Somewhere nearby, a sea gull groaned.
And so we waited, exchanging arcane movie trivia, old song titles and memories of a wasted youth.

Close to the end of our patience, a fish hit. It was a fleeting strike, and the fish moved on.

"How come they don't bite again, do they have a short attention span?" Mitch inquired.
"Yes," I said, "that's it exactly."
The bite was enough encouragement for us to return the next day and give it one more shot.

"The ocean is like a slot machine," Mitch mused as we gathered our tackle. "You win just enough so you have to play again." The light was beginning to dawn.

As I was leaving the parking lot, a fellow angler was loading a couple of nice bass into a cooler in the back of his SUV. He had just caught them along the same stretch of beach not 15 minutes earlier. It is a cruel sea.


The following morning we stopped at Giglio's in Sea Bright for some more clams and a couple of sinkers. We told Ernie Giglio of getting skunked the previous day and he reminded us that it's fishing not catching. As often as I've heard that old saw, it offers little comfort.
We returned to the same old spot, only now Mitch had a harmonica. We try new bait, why not new instruments?
It was a beautiful morning with a rising tide. We baited up and tossed our clams.
Mitch got a bite almost immediately. "They're here," I said, expecting non-stop action for the rest of the day.
My expectations were crushed. At the end of the day, all we had to show for our efforts were two skates, which actually count in the minus column. Some bunker had moved into the beach and we tossed some metal at them, but to not avail. The harmonica was of no use at all.
And so it ended, Mitch Delmar's introduction to surf casting.
Ever the philosopher, Mitch said it was probably just as well, and the universe was unfolding as it should. "If we had caught a lot of fish, it would have been too easy."
So would he give it another try, I asked.
"I'll go fishin witch'a again," he replied.
Good, I thought, we had a lot of laughs.

http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20105070341

cowherder
05-07-2010, 06:22 PM
Nice read, thanks for posting.

rip316
05-07-2010, 08:52 PM
Great story.