Forest and Stream 
FISHING AT NORTH POINT OF BEACH 
WHEREIN STRIPED BASS ARE LANDED ON BOTH BLOODWORMS AND 
SHEDDER CRABS AND TWO FISHERMEN RETAIN THEIR FRIENDSHIP 
By LEONARD HU LIT 
A ge has not dimmed the watch- 
ful eye of Barnegat Light. 
Years come and go and still 
the old tower that has been 
so helpful to myriads of men who 
go down to the sea in ships gives 
comfort and guidance. 
When first erected it was situated 
far inland at a point deemed safe 
from encroachment by the ocean, but 
the inexorable hand of time. in which 
rests the destinies of land and water 
alike, has ordered the cutting away 
of the beach front until the famous 
old light now stands at the water’s 
edge and two years ago it was con- 
demned by the Lighthouse Board and 
its removal ordered. As a matter of 
fact, the buildings at the base of the 
tower have been torn down prepara- 
tory to the demolition of the tower 
itself. Subsequent surveys and ex- 
pert engineers’ advice have caused 
Congress, however, to appropriate a 
large sum of money for the construc- 
tion of a series of jetties and bulk- 
heads which it is thought will stop 
the erosion of the beach and cause 
new formations of land so that the 
old beacon may be saved to future 
long life. 
There are perhaps no more erratic l 
currents along the entire Atlantic 
coast than those which set up at this 
point. This may be due to the vast 
volume of water that sweeps down 
the bed of the Hudson River and 
around the Sandy Hook Channel and 
so out to sea, to meet the strong tide- 
ways of the various inlets of Barnegat 
Bay. This is a far more extensive 
body of water than most people are 
aware of, being approximately one 
hundred miles in length and in many 
places more than seven miles wide. 
Such a body of water surging in 
and out through narrow inlets natu- 
rally creates strong currents which, 
while imperceptible to the eye, affect 
the entire beach front of the State of 
New Jersey. This undoubtedly is the 
cause of the many drowning accidents 
to bathers during the summer and may 
in the near future receive more atten- 
tion than in years past. 
To the average person ocean currents 
give but little cause for thought, yet they 
are important to a vast number of peo- 
ple, working continuous changes in the 
topography of the land as well as 
changes in all inland waterways. 
Barnegat inlet sweeps in and out di- 
rectly at the foot of the famous old light 
and is at that point approximately three- 
quarters of a mile wide during normal 
tides, and so peculiar is the action of 
the water that the writer has known tlie 
main channel to shift from the extreme 
south side to the north shore in the brief 
Leonard Hulit with a record striped bass 
period of three weeks, making eternal 
vigilance on the part of the skipper a 
matter of necessity to avoid disaster. 
Beyond doubt the old bay is one of 
the least polluted bodies of water in the 
eastern States. Having no large rivers 
emptying into it, there is no sewage con- 
tamination from large cities and conse- 
quently it is the spawning ground of 
incalculable numbers of our finest fishes, 
as well as an endless source of other sea 
food such as oysters, clams, crabs and 
shrimps. Neither can it be conceived 
now these conditions may be radically 
changed within the lifetime of any of 
the present generation of men. 
There is much pleasure in the knowl- 
edge that at least one of the more im- 
portant bodies of water shall, for a long- 
period of time at least, remain free from 
sewage pollution as well as from con- 
tamination of factory and oil refinery 
refuse. 
HE fact that age has not dimmed 
^ the eye of the old light was a 
cause of cheer to the hearts of two 
old cronies of rod and reel who, on 
June 31st of the present year, jour- 
neyed to North Point of Beach, which 
is directly across the inlet from the 
light. Details of the getting there 
may well be omitted, save to mention 
that the trip was made by auto to 
Barnegat City by the way of Mana- 
hawkin Bridge, from which point an 
excellent gravel road has recently 
been built which adds greatly to the 
comfort of the trip, besides boatmen 
may be hired for transportation 
across the inlet at much less rates 
than from Forked River or Seaside 
Park. 
And so Barnegat Light cast its 
cheerful rays over the two nomads 
who ensconced themselves in the 
houseboat of a friend which lay in a 
sheltering cove on the bayside of that 
dreary stretch of sand dunes known 
as North Point of Beach. 
Joseph Cawthorn and the writer 
were the two adventurers who were 
no strangers to that desolate beach, 
and fond remembrances of great 
catches in the past far outweighed the 
trials when “no fish” was the story 
to be told, and who is there who may 
gainsay the claim that uncertainty is 
the charmed word associated with 
angling? 
The quest was striped bass, as it 
is well known that when any of those 
favorite fish are at that point they are 
usually there in abundance. With 
us went Cawthorn’s butler, a most 
handy and deft man at all work, and 
so we were enabled to make a trial 
late in the afternoon of the day of 
our arrival. 
Shedder crabs and bloodworms 
were the baits to be depended upon, 
and as is our custom, each employed a 
different bait in order to learn the par- 
ticular fancy of our quarry on that date. 
I chose bloodworm, and Cawthorn was 
content with crab, as he regarded it the 
most killing bait for the occasion. 
Out went our lines to that long line 
of green and white water that came 
tumbling over the point of flat. The 
young of the flood tide was with us and 
things looked auspicious. 
We were seated on an old box that 
had been cast up by the sea, and Caw- 
thorn was pointing to a spot several 
hundred yards up the beach and was 
cheerfully reminding me of the day two 
summers gone when the stripers came 
in, and wouldn’t strike at anything but 
metal squids, and how he dimmed my pis- 
catorial horizon with two fish to my one. 
He was in the midst of a dissertation 
on the peculiar fact that each of his fish 
was a little bigger than mine, when 
