The Turn of the Tide

The year was 1964 and I had been with the High Hill Striper Club for about a dozen years. The members were diverse in many ways except one, and that was their collective enthusiasm for, and dedication to, the sport of surf fishing. This was the club’s last contest of the year.

I awoke in the bone-chilling cold. It was mid-November and although I was fully dressed, right down to two pairs of heavy socks, the thin blankets I had brought provided little protection against the low 40-degree temperature. Now partly awake, I saw by the light of my flashlight that it was only two o’clock in the morning.

My three fishing buddies and I planned to awaken about 3:30 a.m. to catch the turn of the tide under the lighthouse. Late straggling striped bass in the fall migration were our goal. Pulling myself into a ball to preserve my body heat, I soon drifted back to sleep, only to be awakened by Fred banging on the window of my VW.

“It’s three-thirty. Get up,” Fred Schwab yelled, as he hurried across the parking lot.

Muttering under my breath and feeling insane for pursuing a sport that makes such harsh demands on one’s body, I struggled out of the back of the buggy and pulled on my waders, my jacket, my army belt with all of its paraphernalia; hung my headlamp around my neck, grabbed my surf rod from the roof rack, locked the buggy, and hurried to catch up with my companions.

Fred and Al Rees had already exited the parking lot and were crossing the highway to a footpath that wound through thickets down to the rocks below the lighthouse. As I reached the edge of the bluff, the eerie sweeping beam from the lighthouse revealed a number of anglers already occupying the choice rocks far out in the surf. From there they could cast into the incoming current. Just before I started my descent to the shore below, I hastily reached for my plug bag to select a lure.

“My bag! Where is it?” I shouted to myself. I ran my hands around my waist again but it wasn’t there. “You idiot,” I said, retracing my steps up to the parking lot. There, next to the buggy, was the bag of lures. I snatched it up and some fifteen minutes later was down at the shore. I waded out and began to search for a perch from which to fish. The best rocks were taken so I had to settle for one small, flat rock that sloped slightly backward. Adjacent to it I found a small rounded boulder for my left foot. Together they would require some delicate balancing, particularly whenever an incoming wave broke around my legs.

Waiting, I watched as Al cast up-current, reeled in the slack in his line and settled to a slow retrieve. This allowed his plug to do its job of enticing a strike from any nearby stripers. Meanwhile, an angler on my left cranked his plug halfway in. I took this opportunity to haul back on my eleven-and-a-half-foot fiberglass rod and fired my yellow darter plug up-current as all of the anglers on the point were doing. If this procedure were not followed by all of us, a terrible tangle of crossed lines could result. Still another threat existed in the waters below, should a fisherman allow his lure to settle to the bottom. The entire area was strewn with glacial boulders, large and small, to which were attached long, inches-wide strands of leathery, tough, brown seaweed. Hooking into these could cause still more tangled lines and the possible loss of a lure. I felt somewhat protected against this latter danger because of the brand new 20-pound test monofilament line I had spooled on my surf reel just for this trip.

Al called over, “Any strikes?”

I responded with a “No, not yet. You?”

“No,” he shot back.

Just as the lighthouse beam passed overhead, I thought I saw an angler far out on a large rock land and release a small striper. Some fifteen minutes elapsed and by this time the incoming current was ripping past the Point. It was then that I spotted a good bend in Al’s rod. He skillfully fought a good-sized striper past the boulders, dismounted from his rock, and beached his catch on the dry, rocky shore behind us.

I followed and we pulled out a scale to weigh his trophy. It read 26 pounds. I slapped Al on the back.

“You have this contest all sewed up,” I assured him. While envious, I was nevertheless happy for his catch. This was our last opportunity to win something in the club’s final competition of the year.

I waited for several large waves to break and wash in before wading back out to my rocks. The wind out of the north began to pick up. My wet hands were freezing, making it difficult to keep a firm grip on my rod and reel. Some relief was provided, however, by the occasional wave that splashed the warmer-than-air water over my hands.

Perhaps some ten or fifteen minutes had passed when my pulsing lure somewhere out in the dark came to a stop. My line tightened. I immediately pulled back on my rod several times to set the lure’s treble hooks. In response, an unstoppable force began to peel yards of monofilament off my reel. Al saw the struggle and yelled encouragement. The increasing wind whipped around the Point, making my taut line sing like an out-of-tune harp string.