Dad passed away

[AndyS]

He lived to be 83. I feel funny posting this on the NJF site but it takes me to my roots of fishing.
He was born in England and always told me stories of how he would fashion a make shift hook and get some string to catch Grayling and Salmon as a kid. He said sometimes it was tough, you had to hang from the tree branches in order to catch the fish. I went to England one time with my father and he showed me a few of the great rivers, sure enough, the kids were loading up on Grayling. We lived in Pennsylvania for a while and he showed me how to sneak up on weary trout in the lime stone creeks and told me to present my bait as natural as I could. We would go camping at a huge quarry in Dutch Amish country. The lake was big, deep, and crystal clear. I remember getting up before anyone else and running down to the lakes edge and seeing giant carp in the shallows, big bass cruising the shoreline, and lots of trout and perch.
He loved his party boats. Going way back he fished the Piper, that sat where the Sea Devil sits now. I remember doing fluke trips with him, seemed like a few weakfish in the 5 to 6lb. range were always boated along with tons of fluke, I think his PB is 13 lbs !!! We fished the Big Marie S out of Belmar, he enjoyed the free hot dogs and the little trophies the captain would hand out to the kids, little plastic ones, but to a kid it was a big deal. As I got older he took me for mackerel., I remember wading knee deep in mackerel. As I got older yet, we did magic hour trips on the Norma K III , yes, burlap sacks would over flow with huge whiting and ling !!! We fished more, then he moved me up to bluefish, Miss Belmar, Capt. Bill Van just to name a few, using bingle bananas !! He took me on my 1st tuna trip on the Sea Devil (back then I think he was the only party boat going for tuna) Only a few tuna boated but we hit a wreck and I was banging 40lb+ Pollock on whole butters. He also fished on the Shamrock and Gambler for fluke..
Gonna miss him, he didn’t fish much as he got older but we always talked fishing, I gave him reports when ever I could, he liked that.