rmr f

e King Fish of Del. Bay Loyal Followers Of The Drum Are Legion

It’s now the midst of the 1981Drum season, and I’m going tfl try and relate, through my experiences and the stories that nave been handed down to me, what makes the humpbacked fish such a gamester here on our Cape of Nature. I’ve been fishing for drum since 1952, but my father and his father fished for the big fellows in the '20s and '30s, and clear up till World War II. I am also going to put things down about drum that may help clarify Some of the stories you hear about them. A Ipt of fellows will tell you that drum bite better at night, but I’m not positive this is fact. When Drum fishing first started here on the Jersey Cape, the, loyal anglers were mostly farmers who, after tilling the fields all day, got in their rowboats and went fishing til) dark - which made this the most popular time to go drumming. As years went by the habit gained popularity amongst working men, and so we seem to always fish for them from late afternoon into early evening. In v later years we’ve been fishing for them later and later, and sometimes it's an all night affair when the tides are right they can be caught during the day, however, whenever the tide is right, and I know of times in the past, during Memorial day weekends, when some big catches were made. MY DAD WAS ONE of the old

time drum fishermen, and he pursued it with a passion. He and George Spalding Sr. of Court House would start in the early spring up around Reeds Beach, and systematically follow the drum as they moved front Peirces Point to Norburys Landing to Town Bank, and finally down in the Rips off Cape May Point. He left me with a priceless bit of knowledge — fish spoils faster than pork. After catching a drum they would run a rope through its gills and tie the fish overboard with its throat latch cut so all the blood drained out, and they would leave it in the water to keep it cool until they got home. Back home, the first thing they did was clean their fish, and put it in the refrigerator. In the old days the veteran fishermen rowed with padded oarlocks out back of the first set of flats, and drifted until they heard drum. Then they would carefully lower their anchor and start fishing. Quiet was the watchword, and woe unto you if you dropped a clam in the bottom of the boat as you were opening them to start fishing. My Dad waj drifting up the Bay one night from Town Bank when he discovered the famed Green Shanty grounds, and after catching eight drum he topk them ashore at a new place called Bleidom’s, which later became Soboleski’s, at the foot of North Highlands Rd. in the Villas. After

RECORD DRUM, all 102-3/4 lb«. 57 taa. o( It, is weluhfd in by John Trumbtlly ot Clarksboro on May 25 last year. He caught the humpback on surf clam using 50 lb. tes, line Just east of the 14 ft. Light. Trumbelly had been drum fishing the bay for ten years

Ik for two nights, a

repeating

crowd descended upon Dorothea Bleidorn and rented all 21 of her rowboats. This was in the early ‘30s and from the impact of this business, there sprang up peirs like Bob Neely’s, Bill Sheppards, Sigmund Woyce’s, and several others who catered to the rowboat trade by giving them a place to land their boats and tie up out in

the Bay.

THEY ALSO USED TO catch drum on the beach in Stone Harbor while they were out on the bars digging clams for baiWffhey

didn’t have, clam dredging boats then, and when they couldn’t find surf clams they used large sounds clams for bait. Totten recall hearng them tell about spotting the drum standing on their heads with their tails out of the water nuzzl-

ing bait out of the bars!

Most of the fishing in those days was by handline, but some fellows like my Dad had bamboo or hickory poles with the old knucklebuster reels (star drags weren’t available then). They liked to fish the last of the ebb and the first of the flood tide, and they

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