28

sports

Hg<^ld & lanlcm 1 Ftbruafy '84

outdoors

with Lou Rodia

Fishing Parties Once Used Sail Boat

Somewhere in the many books and magazines I have accumulated about fishing there is a drawing of a prehistoric man lean ing over a bank at the edge of a stream trying to catch a fish with his hands. That, according to people- who study these things, was theway pre-historic man caught, fish nearly two million years ago. As the brain developed, and according to logic, the next step was to spears and later on. the bone gorges and eventually to 'the hook and line Today's modern fishing equipment combines the machine age. the' industrial revolution and the space age to give us :great fishing equipment. One has to wonder sometimes, who really, in-, vented the first reel. Old drawings' show a rudimentary reel being used in China 5,000 years ago. Yet, the reel is considered relatively hew. The first book written on fishing is the work entitled "Treotyse of Fyshynge Wyth An Angle" by Dame Juliana Berner in 1496. In 1653, Izaak Wallop s "The Compieat Angler" was written and it- has been reprinted a number of Aimes since because so much of the information has compiled is still valid .today.

MOST OF THE early fishing was in fresh water and salt water fishing became a recent development Early salt water anglers used hand lines to fish and even commercial fishing was done in that manner. Old books show the "mother" ship with the two : or one-man dories which left in the morning and fished with hand lines through the day. The tarred "hand line"' was still in. use up to 15 to 20 years ago on some .party boats. That's the ‘tackle’ -.that was provided when you came aboard with, no rod and reel. We fished with tarred handlines for black drum in Delaware Bay through the.late '40s. Anyone was remembers -prd-Worlld War II. equipment remembers linen line.'Linen was used 5,000 years ago. One purchased line by the thread instead of the modern day poundage markings. Twelvethread Jihen line was rated 36-lb. test, for example. Linen line was 1 terrible to fish with. It had to be dried after each use or it rotted Shortly after world War II someone decided to put nylon to use as a fishing line and from-nylon we went to monofilament and dacron. It was monofilament line which accelerated the

boom in spinning tackle. Spinning gear pre-dates World War II in Europe. and many GI's had thdir first exposure to spinning reels as part of their wartime travels in England, France. Germany and Italy. FISHING RODS developed from tree branches to the modern fiber glass, graphite and boron rods we' use today. Again, World War II helped speed up these synthetics and it took only a little time to get them in use for fishing. Plastics dominate. fishing gear today. Few anglers have ever fished with split bamboo rods if they are still fishing today. Only the older and perhaps a few more sophisticated of today’s young crop of fishermen have ever fished bamboo. They might remember rods which were made for party boat and bottom fishing in the ocean on pool cues which wrfe rejected at the-pool cue factoiy bemuse they were not straight enough for shooting pool. Here in Cape May County, the his ton.- of party boat fishing is tucked away in the memories of a few who hopefully have saved some of the relics of ‘this richhistoric past. Names such as the Lavalettes, the Cramers, the Robbins

PANTHER SQI AD .— Members of Middle Township High School varsity basketball team, left to right, are: front row, Tim Edwards. Bob Jones. Happy Jlowell. Dwayne Adens, Mike Pergoline, William Heald and Coach Tom Fefaco. Back row are: William Balliette. Kevin McFatiane, John McCann, Chris-Skiers. Larry Fields, Mark Adams, and Eddie Spaulding. ^ • y

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family, and scores of others come to mind. One of ofir acquaintances was a long-since-gone skipper name' 1 Walt Shivers. He recalled fishing parties on a sail boat out of Hereford Inlet. His grandfather was the skippfer. The sailboat had a one-lung engine which had to be used to get the sailboat over the bar.

Bwater Shuts out Dekelco

C A P E M A Y - Breakwater Electric maintained its dominance over the Men’s Recreational Volleyball League as it blanked Dekelco three games in action last week. In game one Dekelco jumped out to a 7-2 lead only to see it evaporate quickly as Breakwater’s Gerry Griffin served for eight consecutive points to vault ahead 10-7. Breakwater extended its lead to 13-7 before Dekelco reeled off three straight points to close the score to 13-10. Breakwater then put the clamps on Dekelco and went on to win 15-1'0. Breakwater never gave Dekelco a chance in game two as Bill Bezaire’s spikes and Herb Hudson's perfect bumps kept Breakwater in full control throughout the game as if destroyed Dekelco 15-0. Breakwater took an early 6-4 lead behind excellent teamwork as Terry Brown set up Lou Dwyer for some picture perfect spikes'to keep Dekelco off balance. Dekelco bounced back to take the lead 10-9 as Breakwater couldn't handle the powerful serves of Dekelco's Dave Matagiese. Neither team could take control from that point as they knotted the score at 10-10 and 11-11 until Breakwater once ag^in used impressive teamwork to score four points and win 15-11. KEEN PLUMBING & Heating continued to improve as it swept Eckel’s Diesel in the second match of the evening. In game one Keen's compiled an early 8-2 lead and never looked back as it limited Eckel's to eight points despite some excellent blocks by Rich Hoff and went on to tfin 15-8. Game two was much closer as each traded leads throughout the game. Bud Keen helped Keen’s cause tfith some nice net play and Dave Barikian had some impressive spikes for Eckel’s. Keen's prevailed, however,, as it scored two straight points with the score knotted at 16-16 to win 18-16. In the final game Keen’s took a comfortable 8-3 lead with good all-around teamwork highlighted by John McVey's spikes. Eckel’s c^me to within one point at 8-9 but could not maintain control of service as Keen's went on to win 15-10. STANDINGS Breakwater Eleftnc M-4 Keen Plumbing & Heating JOT2 Dekelco N 17-17 EckeTiDwaei - 1S-22 '■'recking Crew u-&

Sails took the fishermen to and from the fishing grounds. Walt.told me that it was a real seaman's delight to* dock the boat with the engine. To get it into reverse, as be explained it, you had to wait until the flywheel was at top dead center and spin it back the opposite way it was turning. There was notransmission or gear shift. DAN BAKER, one of our old friends who is also gone, used to tell stories of how he waded across Turtle Gut Inlet al low tide as a young boy to head down to Cold Spring Inlet, where he fished with a heave and haul squid and a hand line in the surf. If you remember Tuxtie Gut Irfletand know what a heave and haul squid is you have been around a while or you read a lot. A heave and haul squid is a block tin jig tied to the end of a hand line. To cast, you whirled the squid round over your head in about a three-hand line. To cast, you whirled the squid round and round over your head in about a three-foot circle, timing your let go point so that the squid shot out into the surf ahead of you. That was the heave part. The haul came when you retrieved the tin squid hand over hand at-a rapid rate to get is somewhere between the surface and the bottom on its return to the beach at your feet. We saw in today's paper that there is a proposal by Assemblyman Guy Muziani of Wildwood and Assemblywoman Delores Copper of Atlantic City to resurrect train service between Philadelphia and Cape May. That’s what prompted this article. , The railroad helped develop Cape Mtfy

County’s party boat business. In the early 1900’s the Pennsylvania and the Reading Railroads both serviced the county and a fisherman’s express ran from the city to Cold S^ping Dock and to Cape May as well as to the docks at Anglesea, Wildwood’s Otten’s Harbor and Wildwood

Crest.

We rode the old Fisher- ' man’s Express a few times and if the railroad ever .comes back, we might see rods, reels, fish baskets an tackle boxes on the train ,again. In studying the feasibility of fail service into Hie county, it might be one more piece of business which would be available if the trains left the city early enough and had a homebound departure schedule to allow the fishermen to get in th§ir day. Most people who write want to write a book some day. I have managed to avoid that impulse since most of my writer friends who do write them, end up paying to have them published and then spend the rest of their lives selling books to their friends to get even. Or worse, they end up giving them away' as door prizes for fishing club dinners or as Christmas gifts to their friends. Some of the “friends” who gave books fo me should have stuck to neckties. Anyway, if I ever .do write a bock. I might do one of'the history of party and charter boat fishing in Cape May County. So, if you have a few old family tales about fishing in Cape May County waters, or you do have something in the way of docunTentation about the days gone by, -we’d likf-to talk to you. Let me hear from you.

Killerwatts Keep Clamp on 1st Spot

CAPE MAY - It didn’t take long for Library III to realize that Bill Abadie was back in the lineup for the Men’s Power Volleyball League-leading Lighting Dimensions Killerwatts (39-13). Abadie, one of the league’s standout offensive. players, returned this week after nearly a month absence. His consistent front row hitting contributed greatly toward a match victory that saw the Killerwatts take three out of four games on the night. Lighting dimensions stormed out to an easy 15-6 victory in the opener. Bill Arnold. Rick Ferrante and Abadie kept Library off guard through most of the games one, two and three with some aggressive spiking and blocking at net. However, Library’s fatherson duo of Andy and George Butler came on strong in game four to take a hard fought 15-10 victory and remain in third place by a half game over the Whipporwill Spikers. IN THE SECOND match of the evening, the Potter was able to pul a little more daylight between it and Library III in the battle for second place, with a decisive three-games-to-one victory over the

Spikers. Outstanding performances by Joe Halasz, Scott Hiller and Jim McKinley enabled the Potter to take game one 15-9. Whipporwill’s .lone victory came in game two as Rick Hall, Brendan Rosenberg and Tom Swenk caught fire at net. The Spikers took that game by a lopsided 15-3 score. Games three and four were anything but lopsided as only two points separated the winners from the losers in each contest. The Spikers came up on the short end of the stick twice even though both games could have easily gone their way. Halasz'and company grabbed 16-14 and 15-13 wins, respectively. STANDINGS I jghtiixg Dimensions "KillerwaUs" 39-13 The Potter 24-28 Library III 33-33 Tbe Whipporwill Spikecs 22 34

Center Events

SWAINTON — Activities at the Cape May Care Center this week include Bible study 9:16 this morning, bingo 2 p.m. Tuesday, and Mass 3 p.m. Feb. 8.