Fishing Clubs Enhance Fishing Experience

Charley Soares

 

Dragging a dripping wet 40-pound striper up two flights of stairs at 2:00 AM is likely to draw some attention, particularly from the local constabulary. The official weigh in scale of the Linesiders Bass Club was located at the top level of the two-story building in the Flint section of Fall River. There was a Coney Island hot dog restaurant located on the first floor of that building and although our fish usually attracted favorable attention the scales and gurry deposited on the stair treads became pretty rank over time. The early years of the Linesiders club were some of the best times of my life and not just for the great fishing but for the friends I made and the characters we met. 

 

To this day I owe a debt of gratitude to Uncle Arthur Rocha for sponsoring his nephew Russ and me for membership in that once famous fishing club that was always in the thick of the leadership of the nation’s largest striped bass tournament.

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I had always admired and emulated the men whose photos I saw in the local newspaper with stories about their catches and their clubs standing in the R. J. Schaeffer fishing contest and those were the people I wanted to be associated with. Whenever I met them on the water or on a city street they were identified by the clubs emblems on their shirts and jackets. The day I was sworn into that club was a day I’ll never forget with some of my childhood heroes on hand to welcome me aboard. The Linesiders had a modest roster but it consisted of numerous fishermen with extraordinary angling prowess.

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The total number of members on our rolls was never the most important issue as we welcomed all potential members, some who never fished or at least not competitively but they enjoyed the Sunday night meetings, the awards banquets and the clam boils that encouraged the bonding with other people who shared a common interest and relationship. Although we had a few junior members when the Schaeffer saltwater fishing contest ended, the membership had grown older and striper stocks had plunged so after a year of meetings when only the board of directors and a few members attended meetings we decided to disband, sent the balance of our treasury to Bob Pond and Stripers Unlimited then went our separate ways.

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In the past twenty years since the stripers have returned with abundance new fishermen have also come out in huge numbers most of them first time striper fishermen that were greeted by a bountiful and obliging resource. 

 

Some of the old timers who might have considered it a very good week when they were able to catch three or four stripers over 16-inches are now catching and releasing numerous bass from 25 to 36-inches in a single day. The resurgence of this important marine resource has spawned numerous fishing clubs up and down the East Coast. These are the type of organizations that afford fisherman the opportunity to connect with people of similar interests and for many an opportunity to introduce future fishermen into our great sport. These same clubs conduct outreach programs that introduce and encourage woman and children to fish while performing benevolent works such as donating fresh fish to food banks and introducing inner city children to fishing.

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I’ve had the opportunity to speak and visit with members of fishing clubs from Maine to Florida and the meetings that were the most rewarding were those where everyone knew and interacted with each other. Last week I made a presentation at the Buzzards Bay Angling club of Mattapoisett where I was greeted with a full house of enthusiastic fishermen. That club has made it an objective to recruit not only men but women and children because they are the future of fishing as we know it today.

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Ten years ago it was my great good fortune to be the guest speaker at the 50th anniversary celebration of the Massachusetts Striped Bass Association. Over a lifetime of fishing I’ve seen so many fishing organizations go by the wayside however the Mass Bass Club has persevered and today remains one of the most prominent organizations of its kind.  This year Mass Bass celebrates their 60th anniversary and as a fisherman and journalist who understands that organizations such as theirs are the fabric of recreational fishing I wish them well and may they be blessed with another 60 years of  promoting and fostering recreational saltwater fishing.   

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