Innholdsfortegnelse for Fall 2022 i Anglers Journal

The thinnest slivers of early-morning light glisten across the water as we come off plane and settle into the slow, rolling groundswell 100 feet off the beach. We scan the surf intensely, looking for the telltale shadows of migrating mullet. A sea of tails and scales abruptly breaks the silence as thousands of mullet explode out of the water. These shoals of fish are doomed. An avian attack force feasts from above while the melee beneath the surface is even more ruthless. Gamefish of all shapes and sizes barrage the mass of bait. The seasons in Florida advance gently. The fall color change is marked by an influx of out-of-state license plates, not leaves. For anglers, the season starts with a cooling Atlantic that comes alive as dropping temperatures provoke…

I bought my Grady-White 282 Sailfish nine years ago. The boat is a 2005, and it has held up well. It was pretty much ready to roll when I bought it, but over the years, we’ve switched out some things, upgraded the electronics to Simrad touch screens and added a set of outriggers. I named the boat Debra K2 after my grandmother, Debra Kerber, who was a big fishing influence on me. My whole family fished, but she started taking me out pretty much when I was born. She also pushed the hardest to get me to go into the charter business. I was landscaping at the time, and she basically said, What the hell are you doing? She knew where my passion lay, and it was only fitting to name…

PRIVATE BASS CLUBS FOR WEALTHY ANGLERS appeared on the Massachusetts islands of Cuttyhunk, Pasque and Martha’s Vineyard in the 1860s. The clubs featured fishing stands supported by iron rods or pipes, wooden planks and guide ropes at select spots around the rocky shores. Locals drilled holes in the boulders using star drills where the supports would go. They also procured the lobster and menhaden used for bait, and did the chumming and gaffing for the millionaire sportsmen from New York, Philadelphia and Washington. Rhode Island had bass clubs, too; the West Island Club off Sakonnet with 12 bass stands was the best known of all of them. Graves Point and the private Gooseberry Island off Newport also had clubs. Martha’s Vineyard was home to at least two fishing clubs, including…

It’s the highest form of good fortune if someone walks into your fishing life when you are still young, all eyes and ears, a sponge just looking for a little direction and know-how. For me, that person was Larry Maderia. I was just 13 and Larry was 18, a senior in high school, when we met. He was my mentor, friend and first fishing partner. A five-year difference in age means little among adults, but it is significant during adolescence. Even then, I sensed that fish talk was a language that bridged all sorts of gaps — even the chasms that existed between 9th graders and high school seniors. We lived about a quarter-mile from one another in the same river village. When Larry didn’t drive himself to school, he…

On the shortest day of the year, midway last century, I pestered my mother into letting me off at a bridge over the Saugatuck River so I could fish the time away while she worked her job at Weston Center. “Catch a trout for dinner,” was all she said. At 9 or 10, I knew little about how the world worked except it was made for my taking: I carried a spinning rod and an early Christmas present, a shiny plastic box of jazzy, bright-colored lures — C.P. Swings and Dardevles — crammed in my jacket pocket. I loved its heft and weight and how its top snapped open and shut with a bossy click and how it held those can’t-miss spinners and spoons like so many bright promises. I…

Ten years ago, Superstorm Sandy struck Normandy Beach on the New Jersey shore, wiping my entire life off the map. The storm took my home and all of my possessions. It even swept away the physical land. An inlet breached where my house once stood. I got out with my life and nothing else. I was 38, and I lost every physical memory of my previous life: Mom’s notes of love and encouragement, the fishing rod Dad made for me. All of my fishing gear either burned up or was lost to high water. I had no Social Security card, passport or birth certificate to prove my identity. My Jeep sucked seawater into the transmission when I drove through the breach in Bay Head before authorities closed the bridges. The…

The pounding of the surf grew louder every few seconds as rollers from the Pacific collided with the boulder-strewn shores of Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. We bumped along slowly, trolling live sardines just outside of the surf zone. The salty, mist-filled air made my skin and sunglasses wet to the touch. The skies were dark with thick clouds that appeared nearly every afternoon during our trip to the Crocodile Bay lodge in the middle of the summer rainy season. We were so close to shore that I half-expected to see a T-rex come roaring out of the vibrant, wild landscape. I had not been to southern Costa Rica in more than a decade, and I was happy to see the Osa hadn’t changed much — the rainforest thick with dark…

The Bass Pro Shop smells of moving water and engine oil. There aren’t many customers around, as the store has just opened. A few, like me, seem to be killing time between errands or appointments. I have arrived early in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a fishing trip. I always seem to arrive early for fishing trips. Much of my fishing feels like stolen time, as if some invisible hand is going to grab me by the shirt collar and fling me back to New Jersey. You’re having too much fun! Stop it. So I show up early to make it last longer. It never works. I’m meeting Nick Raftas of Wild East Outfitters for a day on the Susquehanna River chasing smallmouth on the fly. Raftas guides for smallmouth, trout, muskie…

The Airbnb was named “Tiny House,” a large shed customized with all the amenities one could need in a small space. As far as fishing accommodations go, I was in a five-star hotel: The bed was supple, and there was a refrigerator for beer. I could brew half a cup of coffee, and the bathroom sink accommodated one hand. With trout on my mind, I showered in a crate-sized bathroom and crawled into bed like a child on Christmas Eve. The next morning, my friend and I rolled into the parking lot at Horse Creek, a gravel lot dotted with potholes and refuse. Rain had dappled this northwest corner of North Carolina throughout the night. I hopped out of the truck and stretched, thinking I might throw some streamers in…

Florida is loaded with small, hidden fishing gems from coast to coast, and the nation’s oldest city, St. Augustine, is no different. Red drum thrive along this historic coast in a variety of habitats, from tall grass during flood tides to deep-water structure where they ambush prey from eddies. “St. Augustine has been inhabited for 400 years. The fish have always occupied this area, but they’ve adapted to feed around man-made infrastructure,” says Capt. Sam Vigneault, 25, who moved to the area to attend Flagler College and found himself targeting docks, bridges and channels to intersect with drum, sheepshead, flounder, seatrout and tarpon whenever time allowed. I joined Vigneault on a nighttime outing for over-slot reds feeding on juvenile crabs, known locally as “pass crabs.” We timed our launch to…

I didn’t want to return home and give up the last few hours of Indian summer on this September evening, so I headed to nearby Twelvepole Creek in West Virginia. I was grasping for a way to stay connected to the memory of my father, who had passed that year from an auto-immune disease. He used to take me to this spot when I was too young to even cast. I’d throw rocks in the water. Yeah, I was that kid. I was 20 now, and he was gone. I stood on the rocky side of the shallow river and finally made a decent cast with one of his old musky lures. It landed in a gorgeous piece of slack water that looked like it had secrets to hide. After…

During the past 54 seasons, my father fished from the decks of some of the most iconic hull designs in modern sport fishing. Built from wood, aluminum and fiberglass, these mid-30-foot-class sportfishing boats were powered by Detroit, Cummins, Caterpillar and Volvo Penta diesels, and each one punched well above its weight class. If you were fortunate enough to join Stephen Rhodes II on the fishing grounds, you would have seen giant bluefin tuna, blue and white marlin, monster mako and thresher sharks, striped bass by the thousands, lights-out yellowfin tuna fishing and some of the most amazing sunsets in the Northeast canyons. My father customized his boats on a shoestring budget utilizing his extraordinary mechanical skills and the ability to design and create just about any boating and fishing solution…