SURF FISHING TIME 
In the Tumbling Foam Between Bar and Shore 
Lies High Adventure lor Anglers of the Surf 
By ALEXANDER STODDART 
J ULY is surf-fishing time. Chan¬ 
nel and striped bass, weakfish, 
bluefish, kingfish, plaice, snappers 
and croakers work their way into the 
tumbling foam, and between bar and 
shore line men and women find high 
adventure. 
In his “Compleat Angler,” Izaak 
Walton omits all mention of sea fishing. 
It was probably not one of the sports 
of his day. In one branch of salt¬ 
water angling, the surf, a code has been 
been building up during the past fifty 
or sixty years. Robert H. Corson, who 
writes entertainingly on matters per¬ 
taining to fishing under the nom de 
plume of “Switch Reel,” has summed 
up the code thus briefly: 
“One man, one hook, one fish. 
“No gaff for game-fish on the sandy 
beaches. Use the good right forefinger. 
“Let the line be as light as one dare 
use and the rod as powerful. 
“Each man his own guide and doing 
his own ‘hunting.’ 
“Learn to read the language of cuts, 
bars, flats and sloughs at low water 
and the quality of the feeding grounds 
from what the seas lay at one s feet. 
“Know that a small bait well placed 
is better than a dozen large ones placed 
where no fish can reach them.” 
TWO-FISTED MAN’S GAME 
Surf fishing is a two - fisted man’s 
game. The fisherman can never tell 
when there is lurking in the surf the 
mate of that record-breaker on rod, reel 
and line taken by Charles H. Smith on 
September 24, 1919, at New Inlet, New 
Jersey, a fish of 65 pounds, 49 inches 
in length and 35 inches in girth. This 
fish captured the record from Joe Caw- 
thorn, whose fish, taken a few years 
previously, weighed 6314 pounds. 
As you stand on the beach, your rod 
supported by the rod belt, you tell youi 
fellow angler of a strike that you once 
got from a channel bass which you esti¬ 
mated must have been heavier than 
Smith’s or Cawthorn’s—a story believed 
by the regular, received incredulously, 
perhaps, by a tyro angler; but you are 
sure that this year, or perhaps next 
year, it will be your luck to set the 
notch up higher and with that fish win 
all the medals and prize-cups of the 
year. 
The battles of the surf give oppor¬ 
tunity for telling and retelling yarns 
of fish over and over again to your 
family, to every friend, to each acquain¬ 
tance. The surf angler is not affected 
by the weather. Loss of sleep a thing 
not to be considered, and meals of no 
consequence. Men go out to fish all day 
and will get up at any hour of the 
night or morning when the fishing is 
good. Ask Dr. Joseph W. Droogan, 
who writes authoritatively on piscato¬ 
rial topics* under the pseudonym of 
“Tamarack,” or Bob Corson as to night 
and day fishing and getting up in the 
middle of the night in order to fish a 
favorable tide. I have seen both of 
them do it on the New Jersey sand and 
on the Long Island rock-strewn shore, 
fishing sometimes twenty hours out of 
the twenty-four and getting merely a 
nap of a couple of hours, and on awak¬ 
ening, telling you that they felt “fine.’ 
SURF FISHING FASCINATING 
Bobbie Inch has hit it exactly right 
when he writes: 
But give me, oh, give me, 
Oh, how I wish you would, 
A channel bass hanging on the line! 
There is one joy, however, that the 
surf fisherman has; he may fish the 
tide until dawn, or he may fish from 
sun up to sun down, praying all the 
time for a channel bass hanging on the 
line, and if then he doesn’t get his wish, 
he’ll pack his fishing tackle in his old 
kit-bag and smile, smile, smile. 
There’s something about surf fishing 
that makes it fascinating. Perhaps 
many things combine to make it dif¬ 
ferent. The ocean conditions change 
with every stage of the tide. The tide 
rips where you may be fishing, if the 
tide is coming in, hollows out the sand, 
the incoming waves may make a slight 
bar and the big fish of the sea will 
chase the little fellows close in shore, 
cutting and slashing the little fellows. 
As the big fish chop up the little fishes, 
dozens or hundreds of screaming gulls 
are attracted to the spot. The sun may 
be shining from a clear sky, but soon 
those little, tiny clouds grow bigger and 
bigger until the sky is changed. 
The sea may be as clear and clean 
and calm as may be when the wind will 
kick up and tidal changes will stir up 
the sea cabbage and lettuce and you 
will spend your time cleaning off the 
line. You are prepared for all sorts 
of weather, and if it storms all you 
have to do is to add your fishing coat, 
likely oil skins, and you weather out 
the storm in dry clothes and merely 
take caution when casting that the sea 
does not suddenly rush over your boot- 
tops. 
But sunshine or shade, rain or over¬ 
hanging clouds, you are having a good 
time casting out your squid or moss- 
bunker bait, tied with cotton thread to 
your hook, and you wait, wait, wait 
for a “pick-up” of a bass. And if the 
“pick-up” comes and you have the op¬ 
portunity of enjoying a channel bass 
hanging on your line, you have a thrill 
that memory will recall years after¬ 
ward. 
In surf fishing you have mental as 
well as physical recreation. Every 
fisherman will tell you that, though not 
every one expresses it so clearly as 
does former Secretary Lansing: 
“The real angler,” he says, “absorbed 
in his occupation, finds that relaxation 
from the vexatious questions of life 
which is so necessary for the renewal 
of mind and body. And then, when he 
returns at the end of the day pleasantly 
tired, hungry and invigorated by hours 
in the open air, there is a content of 
spirit which frees the mind of cares and 
bring refreshing sleep.” 
GOOD JERSEY PLACES 
Channel bass, in season, are taken 
from the Florida peninsula to Montauk 
Point, the easternmost point on Long 
Island, certain shores being better than 
others. 
New Jersey has a dozen places along 
its coast where channel bass can be 
found throughout July and then again 
in September and October, depending 
upon weather conditions, that is, when 
the bass scamper south in their migra¬ 
tory journey. These places are New 
Inlet (just below Beach Haven, which 
Hartie I. Phillips made known to the 
angling world) ; Little Beach (where 
Claude E. Holgate and Bill Smith 
hooked into twenty channel bass in 
three hours) ; Chadwick Beach (where 
William Ashley Leavitt, Jr., took his 
38-pound 2 ounce fish) ; Barnegat Inlet 
(north side, favorite spot of Joe Caw- 
thorn) ; Ocean City (where Churchill 
Channel Bass Hungerford makes it 
pleasant for anglers) ; Corson’s Inlet 
(the gathering place for the Gus Witt- 
kamp clan) ; and Avalon (well known 
but not so famous as its namesake on 
the Pacific). 
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