I 



-VE GOT A BOAT IN 

 THE WATER THAT JUST SITS 

 THERE," PAT PRESTON 

 TELLS ME, STANDING BARE- 

 FOOT ON DRY SAND JUST 

 BEYOND REACH OF EACH 

 WAVE'S SUCCESSIVE WASH 

 ON THE SOUTH BEACH, A 

 FEW HUNDRED YARDS 

 FROM THE POINT. Preston is 

 slender and bearded, and the nails of his 

 hands are bloody from cutting mullet 

 into strips for bait. He and five cronies 

 are the Rising Tide, a team that has 

 traveled the surf-fishing tournament 

 circle for two decades. Each year they 

 fish the four big North Carolina events 

 — the Ocracoke Invitational in May, the 

 "Little Hatteras" or Hatteras Village 

 Civic Association Tournament in 

 September, the Nags Head Surf Fishing 

 Tournament in October and this, the 

 "Big Hatteras," in November. Preston 



the walker of dogs and caretaker of 

 children — surf fishing seems an 

 inscrutable amusement: much ado about 

 the thinking of nothing. All that water 

 and a few little-bitty hooks. Standing for 

 hour upon hour, rod in hand, belly out, 

 feet sunk like old stumps in the sand. 

 And then there's the infrastructure: 

 pickup trucks bristling with rods the 

 length of jousting lances and sagging 

 with coolers and bait buckets and 

 unshaven men. It seems an elaborate 

 ruse designed to keep a person out of the 

 house and away from useful activity, a 

 fine excuse to drink beer, perhaps, or 

 proof that a few folks have entirely too 

 much time on their hands. 



But I have fished enough elsewhere 

 to know that what happens out there on 

 the beach involves a kind of alchemy, a 

 conspiracy of science, skill, long 

 experience and luck that is largely 

 invisible to the untutored. Preston might 



A thicket of surf rods hints that something is frappening off these Hatteras sands. 



has nothing against boats, and he will 

 take to the water to catch a fish. But that 

 is not his first love. "This is what I like," 

 he says, "the sand between your toes and 

 you don't have to think about nothin'." 



To those who do not fish from the 

 sand — the sunbather, the shell-seeker, 



boast that he thinks about nothing, but 

 that is because he has already thought 

 about everything. The best surf fishers 

 seek to cleanse each mote of chance, 

 every speck of happenstance from the 

 business at hand — how else can you 

 explain gear of such quantity as to 



require a half-ton pickup truck to 

 transport it? But all the while they 

 fervently hope that luck will not 

 abandon them altogether, for in the end 

 it is often the final arbiter between fisher 

 and fish. 



Preston is 44 years old, lives in 

 Nags Head and has fished for as long as 

 he can remember. He landed his first 

 fish when he was only 4 years old, but 

 when I press for details he chuckles, 

 then admits it was a freshwater eel. "My 

 first saltwater fish was a sea mullet," he 

 says, as if the others were barely 

 memorable and certainly didn't count. 



At the time, Preston holds a 10 1/2- 

 foot rod mated to a Penn 850 SS 

 spinning reel loaded with 900 feet of 

 line. He built the rod himself, he says, 

 saving maybe $100 over the cost of a 

 custom rod of similar quality. He reels 

 in his bait to show how he fishes. The 

 line from his rod and reel is tied to a 

 bottom rig, a 2-foot 

 length of monofilament 

 with a large lead sinker 

 attached to its terminus. 

 Two 6-inch-long 

 monofilament lines 

 sprout from this main 

 stem like branches on a 

 tree, and each of those 

 attaches to a yellow 

 foam sphere, which 

 serves as a visual 

 attractant, and a 

 stainless steel hook 

 baited with a peach-pit- 

 sized cut of mullet. 



These bottom rigs 

 come in various 

 combinations of line 

 materials and lengths, 

 with or without attractor 

 floats, and they are the 

 surf fisher's basic artillery. Depending 

 on how bottom rigs are outfitted, they 

 can be used to catch red drum, flounder, 

 striped bass, croaker, sea mullet, sand 

 sharks, bluefish — just about any fish 

 that swims the surf. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 9 



