There are fish in the surf that will take the angler half off his feet with the violence of their attack and cause him to shout aloud in the excitement of the combat.

Game and fish are fast disappearing as our remoter sections become settled, as lakes and bayous are drained, and I have been assured that the time is not far distant when we will have degenerated into a race of stoop-shouldered, anemic creatures, fit only for such mild recreative pastimes as bridge, whist contests and pink teas. But I dislike harboring the thought, and I do not believe it, not for a minute. I would hate to think of my children, and of my children’s children being deprived of those healthful, zestful and entirely innocent recreations that have been such a big matter in my own life, and that have done much to make this very earthly sphere of ours such an entirely satisfactory dwelling place.  

True, a good day’s shooting, or a fair catch of trout or of bass, nowadays entails the expenditure of considerable time and money, to the city dweller at least, yet am I buoyed up by the knowledge that one form of sport exists, and with a bit of sane supervision will remain to the sportsmen of the country, and to their descendants for as long as the ocean rolls and its waves beat upon our shores… 

Surf fishing is by no means a new development of the angler’s art; in fact, it is one of the oldest we have any record of, but only of late years has it begun to achieve real popularity. No method of fishing in which I have indulged affords greater diversion or is more productive of satisfying results. I will go further, and will say that no sport, not even the hunting of big game, has more enthralled me in those pleasurable throes of excitement, which only the outdoorsman knows, than have the battles I have waged with those great and goodly fish that so frequently take into their capacious jaws the bait of the surf fisherman.  

To feel the lift, the gentle mouthing, and then the irresistible tug and run of a thirty-pound channel bass; to sense the jarring rush of the striper; to see the enormous length of a shark leave the waves in headlong leap, while the line runs like water from your reel; these experiences are sufficient to send the blood pounding through the body, and to lift the sportsman into the ultimate heaven of happiness… 

Surf fishing owes its charm to a number of easily perceived allurements, but mainly, I think, to the fact that nowhere else does the element of chance enter so strongly. One casts a fly, and he catches trout, and trout only. In bass or muskellunge fishing, it is usually bass or muskellunge that come to net or to gaff, as the case may be…. In the surf I have captured them of a dozen species ranging from a kingfish no more than a pound in weight up to a 35-pound bass (and on the same tackle) in the space of a single tide.  

Once the hook is cast into the ocean, no man can say what finny fellow will venture in from the deep to inspect the bait. It may be some dainty creature, carrying the opalescent colors of corral strands, and with a flavor to its fat sides to delight the senses of a gourmand. Or it may be some weird and rare denizen of the ocean bed, or even a great bass or drum, and not infrequently a shark, which will test the fiber of one’s rod. But whatever the fish may be, they all afford good sport, and with scarcely an exception they may be eaten with a relish. No other fishing is quite so apt to bring tremendous, and even startling, results. Upon more than one occasion I have seen a sufficient number of weakfish, croakers, bluefish and bass beached by a single rod to afford an epicurean feast to a hundred people.  

As to the fighting ability of these fish that come inside the breakers — and this would be the first question asked by the average fisherman, I can assure him that there are those among them that will take out five hundred feet of line at a single rush and that, unless the angler protect his hands with thumb stall or drag, will blister the fingers that attempt to halt them. Aye, and more than once, if a man persist in the sport, will he see the last of his 900 feet of line disappear from his rod tip as his quarry makes a final run.  

There are fish in the surf that will cause the rod to jerk and quiver in the grasp as though it were beaten upon by a heavy sledge. Fish that will take the angler half off his feet with the violence of their attack and cause him to shout aloud in the excitement of the combat. Yes, they are worthy antagonists, these fellows of the blue water, and none need feel compassion in giving combat to them, though we may honor them for their gameness.  

When I wade into the surf, and swinging the rod forward, see my weight and bait disappear beneath the water, then there comes a feeling that it is hard for me to describe. A feeling of expectation, certainly and of hope, and yet with it, something akin to awe. I perceive the wide ocean before me, reaching to my horizon and to an infinity of other horizons beyond. The waves come rolling in, to break far out, to gain in volume and to break again at my feet. Gulls dip and swerve, and hover in their feeding and their wild cries sound above the roar of waters. And as my eyes sweep over the scene and consider all those great creatures who dwell beneath the waves, and who even now may be investigating my bait, then, as I say, a sensation of something near to awe comes to me. I feel my own unimportance in the scheme of things, my presumption in casting this ineffective hook and slender line into the deep. There are tremendous fishes there in the water before me.  

Many times I have been asked to express an opinion concerning the strength and agility of saltwater fish as compared to those that range in freshwater…. The tackle used in the pursuit of salt- and freshwater fishes and the methods employed vary so greatly that it is hard to compare them with justice to both species. Yet I know that I have landed muskellunge of 30 pounds on a six-ounce rod and completed the job in less than 20 minutes. Also, I have never known a freshwater fish to force me to give more than 50 feet of line. Yet in the surf I have seen a channel bass of around 30 pounds take 500 feet of line in a single run, and this while the fisherman checked him with all the strength of his two arms, while the 28-ounce rod fairly creaked with the strain upon it. Consider, too, the fact that the saltwater fellow battles against the force and the buffets of tide and wave as well as against heavier tackle.…  

On the whole, I am convinced from my own observation that there are at least a dozen saltwater fishes that if hooked up in a tug–of–war with the best we find in freshwater, would drag them where they willed. So far as the smaller of the saltwater species are concerned, the weakfish, croakers, etc., these I grant you will make a less spectacular fight than do either bass or trout. But try the same fish on light tackle and I believe you will agree with me that there is little to choose between them, and that from a standpoint of strength and endurance, the palm must go to those denizens of the blue water…. 

As I look back and conjure up some of those multitudinous pictures that the words surf fishing bring to mind, there are a half dozen or more that stand out exceedingly clear and sharp upon my mental screen. And strange to relate, those are not the red-letter days, the days of exceptional catches, but are marked rather by some untoward happening or other, or by some strange and unusual exposition of nature.… 

There had been a great run of striped bass along the Jersey shore. Tide would be full about 8:00 and, as the best of the fishing ordinarily came the last couple of hours of flood, Art and I landed upon the beach a half hour or so before sun-up with our outfits and a goodly mess of clams all nicely cleaned.  

Other fishermen were on the beach before us that morning as the glimmering campfires above and below us attested. One or two shadowy figures were in evidence, also, as we waded into the surf and made our casts.  

After a bit, a glint of rosy light showed low in the sky, which spread and brightened perceptibly with each minute that passed, and almost before we were conscious of the fact, it was daylight. A blue-gray morning, with white spume drifting in from the sea and the low breakers sending their froth about our ankles. I knew the lay of the beach, and I had chosen to fish a deep hole while the tide was making, for I have a theory that bass are in the habit of feeding in deep water during low and half tide, and moving to the flats for clams and mussels at flood.  

A hundred yards north of us I saw our nearest neighbor working with a fish, and presently he stooped and carried up the beach a small specimen of seven or eight pounds. I had raised my head to call my companion’s attention to this interesting development when I saw his line straighten with a jerk, and at the same instant his rod flashed backward. This fish made a short run of 50 feet or so, then swam parallel with the beach until Art had worked him into a roller that carried him gently high and dry up on the sand. This was another small fellow. Not large enough to put any strain on the tackle or the fisherman, but an excellent weight for the pan.  

I changed my position after that capture, and cast into a swirl of green, frothy water that marked a flat. For an hour or more I held the rod, only bringing in my cast at intervals to renew the bait, for clams, besides being the natural food for stripers, are much relished by crabs, which were plentiful at this point.  

Presently I was joined by a grizzled old fellow who had put in the night a-fishing without result. A garrulous old chap of long acquaintances, he proceeded to enlighten me upon the habits of saltwater fish in general, and in particular upon the peculiar traits of stripers. He assured me that there was not the slightest use in fishing at this time of tide, to which I replied by baiting afresh and making a short cast into the ruffled water.  

Seeing that I was not one to profit by his advice, he proceeded to recount for my edification a recent experience. It seemed that a day or two previous he had hooked what he claimed to be a gold medal fish, which means one of 25 pounds or better, and had worked him into the undertow after an exciting combat.  

“The waves were running high,” he said, gesticulating with both hands in order to show me the exact height and shape of the waves in question, “and three times they brought that there fish in, and laid him at my feet, and three times they took and snatched him from my hands. At last I sez to myself, ‘Do or die.’ ‘Do or die,’ sez I, and the next time the fish was fetched in, I up and grabbed the line with my two hands and laid back on her.“ 

I do not know, I probably never will know, whether that line held or whether it gave way under the strain put upon it, for at that point in his narrative I felt a lift, and as the hook was set, my line shot out from the reel. For an instant my companion stood with bulging eyes and with widespread arms delineating the last scene in his recent encounter.  

Then: “By gosh, you’ve hooked into one!” he shouted, and leaped into the air with the agility of a boy. “Now take it easy, an’ don’t get excited,” he counselled, snatching his hat from his head and slapping it against his thigh. “Give him line, an’ don’t snub him or you’ll lose him sure pop,” he warned me as the fish bore seaward. And all through the battle the old fellow persisted in shouting his advice and his admonitions to be calm, to none of which did I pay the slightest heed, for my mind was fully occupied with the work before me.  

One long run the striper made, then worked southward toward a long jetty that reached into the ocean, and only by vigorous pumping did I succeed in turning him in the opposite direction and keep him from fouling. Another rush, but shorter this time, then foot by foot I worked him toward shore.  

At last he came close in to the breakers where the beach shelved off abruptly, and from that point I did not seem able to budge him. Back and forth, to and fro he swam until at last, as I felt his struggles lessening, I put a bit more strain on the line. He came to me then on a curling wave, and slipping my fingers beneath his gills I dragged him up the beach.  

There was a ringing yell in my ear, and a heavy hand swatted me betwixt the shoulders.  

“I knew you could do it,” a voice shouted. “I knew if you followed my advice, an’ kept calm like I told you, you’d land him, and he’s a medal fish, sure as you’re born.”  

This is surf fishing, as it is practiced at a thousand points along our shores, though not always with success to equal the example I have given. And yet, not infrequently, the results will be far more satisfying.  

A man may spend a day on the beach and come home at evening with an empty basket, and yet count the day not wasted. Many things there are to be caught besides fish: the sunlight, the salty breeze that sweeps the dunes, healthful exercise. And also, there is a certain satisfaction of the soul that comes to most of us when old ocean rolls before our eyes.  

There is a vastness about it, and yet restfulness. Power and strength are expressed in every breaker, and yet the sonorous beat of them lulls us to sleep. The omnipotence of it all assures us of our own insignificance and unimportance in the scheme of nature, but at the same time it satisfies us of the futility of worry and complaint over the small irritations of life. Personally, I believe that after a day or a week beside the blue water I come home a better man, and if the results are not permanent, it is no fault of my tutor. At least I am sure that I return happier, and more contented and younger in spirit and in body.