Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2023 i Anglers Journal

“When the bait schools shatter the surface and spray upwards in the sun, they make a sound like the tearing of a cotton sheet.… The gluttony ends with the same unity it began. Another coded message stills the sated school.”John Cole Striper: A Story of Fish and Man “Every once in a while, angling provides an episode one can keep for life.”Thomas McGuane The Longest Silence “The casts were mellifluous and silky on calm days, determined on windy days. I no longer felt a discord between my hands and my desires; the rod simply ceased to exist.”Guy de la Valdène On the Water…

No cream in Hattie’s chowder clear broth with salt pork, yellow onions and stone-cold quahogs she shucked with a grunt. Widowed early, a glacial erratic unsmoothed, Hattie didn’t hug or cry, she chopped clams and celery, while shell-shocked Cap peeled potatoes. Once a yacht skipper and ice-boat jockey, the Great War wrecked his nerves but not his smile for a new wife who let him feed skunks from his shaky palms on warm nights behind the warp-shingled kitchen. Depression days thin as marsh reeds, though Watch Hill money trickled in — the Yacht Club, Ocean House, Henry Ford, Clark Gable, gentle Einstein asking for a light. Golf, tennis, hurricanes and shifting gravel inlets. People loved Hattie’s molasses bread and lobster rolls, the way she baked East Beach bass. Local fishermen…

I first fell in love with the Conch 27 watching Jose Wejebe throw a cast net from the bow of his boat on the television show Spanish Fly. After I went for my first ride on a Conch, I fell hard and started to keep my eye out for one. In 2008, I bought my boat, a 1994 Conch 27. The boat was built by Edey & Duff, which originally built sailboats in Massachusetts. The company moved down to the Florida Keys and started building boats there. Edey & Duff built Conchs until the early 2000s, and eventually the molds were bought by R&R Boatworks. One thing I’ve always said is you either have money or time. I don’t have a ton of money, but I’ve made time to do…

“So what’s so great about Joe Brooks?” challenged a burly teenager who I assumed was a shop helper in Jim Poor’s Anglers All fly shop in Littleton, Colorado. “I was fishing just downstream from him once, and I caught as many fish as he did.” Jim and I stared at each other in astonishment across the counter. Neither of us knew what to say. The young man had just interjected himself into our pleasant conversation about my Richmond, Virginia, neighbor and fly-fishing mentor, Joe Brooks. Barely refraining from shaking his head in dismay, if not disgust, Jim shared a look with me, conveying that such a remark deserved no reply, and picked up our chat where we had left off. It was late June 1972, and needing some fly-fishing supplies,…

A light rain was falling, the wind was out of the east, and the bite for the last few days had been slow. It was late October, and 25-knot gusts were forecast for that night. Did I really want to drag my tired bones off the couch and out into that mess? Fall is as fleeting as the vestiges of my youth. I knew that in another month, I’d miss all of it — the cold drizzle, the gusty night winds, the fingerless gloves, and the bucking rod when the last migratory striped bass came to hand. When you fish hard, your bittersweet feelings mix with relief as another season circles the drain. You’re tired and nicked up and ready for a breather until spring starts the cycle anew. As…

Judy Leach made a valiant effort. Every time customers came into H.L.’s Live Bait & Tackle in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, she told them to sift through the Polaroids the shop had collected over the years and take any photos of themselves, friends or family members. “I have decided to close permanently,” she posted on Facebook in 2019. “It’s just not the same without Danny here.” Judy’s husband, Danny Leach, had documented customer catches from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, and as far as I was concerned, there was nothing more valuable or important in H.L.’s shop than this body of work. Some photos were claimed, she told me during one of my regular visits, but the average guy popping in for shiners was too eager to get on the water.…

I’ve caught huge tarpon, bonefish and permit, 50-pound king salmon on a spey rod, and five species of billfish on fly. But the one fish that has eluded me is a giant mahi-mahi on fly. In the late ’70s, I caught a 38-pound mahi on fly in Cozumel, Mexico, while trying to catch sailfish. I’ve always wanted to hook a monster mahi weighing more than 50 pounds, but that’s not an easy task for two reasons: First, you have to find a 50-pound mahi, and second, you have to convince it to eat a fly. Both hurdles seem insurmountable, but after years on the water and lots of research, I’ve come up with a plan. Two close friends of mine hold fly rod world records for mahi-mahi, which also…

Life along the New Jersey barrier island known as Long Beach Island is so distant from the pace of New York City and Philadelphia that it feels like another planet. The 18 miles of beach, dunes and breaking waves moves to the rhythms of tides, storms, surf and fish migrations. Once the summer tourists disappear, the off-season is like loosening the drag on life. Yet fishing continues to shape the island, as it has for generations. “The community embraces fishing,” says Steve Palmer, who with his wife, Carole Ann, bought Jingles Bait and Tackle in North Beach Haven five years ago to live the fishing life and keep open a neighborhood mainstay of almost 50 years. “The last few years, we’ve had kingfish in the surf all summer. That’s great…

It is no secret the marine market has experienced unprecedented demand over the last two years. To say we are in a seller’s market is quite the understatement. The annual Market Index report by YachtWorld calculated a 13% increase in brokerage units sold over 2019 with a 21% increase in value. The strong upward trend is also prevalent when examining quarter 4 of 2020: a 19% increase in units sold with a 25% increase in the average sales price. The average used boat transaction in the Mid-Atlantic region has trended even higher, hitting nearly 30% through April 2021. If there’s never been a better time to sell, then there has never been a better time to hire a listing agent to market your boat. A seasoned sales professional working with…

Block Island’s North Rip surges and churns today off Rhode Island just as it has for millennia. Swells from the Atlantic scrum with the tides of Block Island Sound, battling along a mile-long sandbar that eventually drops away into 120-foot depths. For surf casters, this is hallowed ground. Where the bar rises to meet land at Sandy Point, a washing machine of whitewater creates the perfect hunting ground. Bass, bluefish, false albacore and bonito patrol the drop-offs, preying on baitfish disoriented by this upwelling of currents. Heave a big popper or tin into these waters, or double-haul a Clouser, then hang on. Except now, it is unfishable. Sure, you can still make the long walk over cobble and sand, past the stately granite North Lighthouse, and stare in awe at…

I tried not to look south. There was a long period between the swells, rising like ominous dull-green mountains against a gunmetal sky. It was ugly. We had 30 miles to the shark grounds, but we’d come to an impasse. Capt. Joe DiBella, the owner and restorer of Capt. Frank Mundus’ legendary vessel, the Cricket II, had stopped the boat to speak with the man paying for the charter, my co-worker, whom we’ll call Andy. In DiBella’s opinion, it was too nasty to press on, but he left the decision of whether we should turn around to us. My heart sank. Capt. Quint from the film Jaws — my all-time favorite movie — was based on Mundus, and I was sure I’d never get the opportunity to fish with him…

Standing in a wind-blown lake full of large rainbow trout, I braced myself as another set of chest-high swells rolled in, tops foaming and spray flying. The wind had revved up again, gusting conservatively into the 50s, possibly more than 60 mph. The half-dozen anglers fishing the lake that afternoon stood with their backs to the blasts as spray and coarse sand from shore pelted hooded jackets and waders. The sound came as a whooshing staccato — rat a tat tat … rat a tat tat. We were fishing in the sparse, dry rangelands of southern Argentine Patagonia, about 400 miles north of Tierra del Fuego, the ultimate end of the road. Our group of 12 had traveled well south to tussle with the largest rainbows on Earth in Lago…

If you think you’ve heard it all, you are in for an exhilarating exchange of fish stories with HMY Yacht Sales Professional Jeff Creary. Traveling to the opposite side of the world to land a grander black marlin, chasing showering sailfish in the sting of tropical islands known as the Florida Keys, Jeff Creary has galvanizing fish tales to share with you. We had the opportunity to sit down and discuss who Jeff really is and how he found himself in the marine industry. Originally born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Jeff found himself traveling across the United States to attend school at Florida State University on a swimming scholarship. Shortly after college, Jeff landed in the Florida Panhandle. On the Emerald Coast, a dear friend of Jeff’s, Jack Conzelman…