Preston skewers fresh chunks of 

 mullet on his twinned hooks, walks 

 swiftly to the water's edge, then 

 launches the rig over the breakers. I 

 watch the spiraling mass of lead, hook 

 and bait cartwheel into the sky, losing it 

 in the white glare above the horizon, 

 then scan the water where I think it will 

 land. The splash, which sounds like 

 popcorn popping, is 40 feet farther than 

 I expect. 



For a long time I watch Preston fish, 

 holding his rod with one hand, index 

 finger curled around the gossamer line 

 to feel the nudge or jolt of a take, and 

 staring over the water as if by sheer 

 force of will he could compel some fish 

 toward his line. It seems a featureless 

 stretch of beach — no sandy points 

 jutting into the water to offer refuge 

 from the current, no sandbars to funnel 

 bait and hungry fish, none of what 

 fishers call "structure" to attract and hold 

 fish. All I see is the incessant roll and 

 pitch of surf. 



But Donnie Ross is catching a few, 

 so I wander down the beach to where he 

 leans against a Ford pickup truck flecked 

 with rust, its bed a wild jumble of 

 tackleboxes, waders, miscellaneous pails 

 and boxes, and a wide cutting board 

 covered with a skim of blood and fish 

 slime. Ross wears battered khakis with 

 the legs rolled up, and his bearded face 

 peers from under a gray sweatshirt hood. 

 I watch him cast, notice carefully where 

 his spiraling rig of hooks, bait and sinker 

 enter the water with a noisy splash, and I 

 begin to see the structure he is fishing. 



It is like letting my eyes adjust to 

 darkness. At first there is nothing but the 

 shapeless black, but after a few moments 

 forms appear in the void, lines and 

 patterns that slowly evolve detail. Just 

 beyond the breakers, some 30 feet from 

 shore, the brown water of the churning 

 surf gives way to a broad swath of ever- 

 so-slightly clearer water, a riverine seam 

 with a greenish cast that flows another 

 30 feet wide before changing again to 

 turbid seas. Ross casts to the back edge 

 of that green seam, he tells me, on the 



theory that larger predatory fish cruise 

 the transition zone, ambushing bait fish 

 that wash out of the darker water or hold 

 in the clear. 



His gambit pays off — he catches 

 bluefish after bluefish, small individuals, 

 but some large enough to keep and 

 therefore score in the tournament. In a 

 few moments, most of the team 

 members are shoulder to shoulder with 

 Ross and one another, but only a few 

 small fish oblige. It might be Hatteras 

 and it might be November, but the 

 fishing is slow and Rising Tide is 

 fidgety. The fishers change the color of 

 the bright wood attractors and floats 

 called "doodlebugs" that festoon their 



intricacy. I can hold the long rods and 

 gleaming gold reels in my hands and 

 comprehend their array of gears and 

 spools and handles. But when it comes 

 to all of the wire leaders and oddly 

 shaped hooks and brightly colored balls 

 and bobs, theirs is work unseen, out 

 there under the swell and crash and 

 foam, and an alien language to me. 



Consider sinkers, the lead weights 

 that at first blush appear the most 

 prosaic of the surf fisher's armament. 

 When Bob Shook pulls in two young 

 red drum, called "puppy drum," on 

 back-to-back casts, I walk over to see 

 what he is doing that others aren't. Right 

 away I notice that his sinker, a round 



The angler's armament: Sure, you can catch fish with just a rod and reel. 

 But why would you want to? 



bottom rigs, switching from red to white 

 to chartreuse and back again; they try 

 lighter rods, switch sinkers and hooks, 

 baits and floats. 



The esoterica of surf fishing has 

 always been baffling, mystical in its 



coin of lead, is shaped unlike any I've 

 seen before. The quiet man's eyes 

 twinkle for a moment, in instant 

 comprehension of the depth of my 

 query. "You could write a book on 

 sinkers," Shook says. 



10 AUTUMN 1998 



