Congratulations MSBA on Your 60th Birthday

Ron Powers

 

If you were a Bay State angler in 1950 that spent an inordinate amount of time obsessing over all things striper, you pursued you piscatorial passion dramatically differently than you would in 2010. If you preferred to toe the surf, your weapons of choice were probably a Penn Squidder, spooled with Dacron and lashed to a Charlie Murat surf rod that had the dimensions of a cue stick and weighed nearly as much a the average billiard table.

Boaters often employed the heave and haul method of hand-lining cows with “squids” among rips from the crags of Cape Ann to Cuttyhunk. And as you were tooling around in your Chevy Bel Air listening to Al Jolson you might have referred to elder statesmen of our sport as “big daddy” and described blitzes in terms of “the fish were going ape”.
 

But while finesse was not part of the equation and the jargon seems as if it were part of the Ju
rassic era, the passion was the same and all was right in the world when a striper was struggling at the end of your line. But for the most part you had to go about your pre-occupation as a kind of lone-wolf, desperately in need of pack mates for completion. Community for cow casters was in short supply and this prompted a group of about a dozen of the afflicted to organize and form the Massachusetts Striped Bass Association in 1950. The premise was and still is to promote angling for striped bass among old and young alike, be stewards of the stock and our natural resources and watchdogs of government and civilian interests who would tamper with our heritage.
 

Dignitaries, such as Ted Williams and former Governor Frank Sergeant, have been members of the MSBA, and membership has swollen through the years to the present rolls of over 400. Powerful players and strength in numbers along with committed members have made the MSBA a force to be reckoned with. The organization has had a number of legislative achievements over the years; recently they were instrumental in getting an amenable “saltwater registry” passed through the bureaucratic system swiftly and without much fanfare.
 

But the MSBA is about more than lofty achievements, it is the personal touch that makes the group so special. From the Spray newsletter to the monthly meetings to the hotly anticipated yearly Sportfishing Expo, there is always something to look forward to for the members. One of the more altruistic programs the club sponsors is the Striper Swipers children events that not only expose kids to striped bass fishing and take them onto the field but also involve them in conservation projects such as the Weymouth Herring Run Clean-up.
 

So, congratulations MSBA on your 60th birthday and I must say you do wear your years better than any other senior I know of this side of Johnny Cherico! 

 

                                                            Salute!

 

                                                            Ron Powers