Waltz Through Time: Where the Fishing Flourished

NEWS & VIEWS > LOCAL HISTORY

By Jim Waltzer

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Jun. 22, 2010

Where the Fishing Flourished

She was a grandmother who tended her tomato patch and made brisket sandwiches for her grandson who would come to the seashore for the summer. She decried the racket that was television, preferring a good book or a round of contemplation. Most of all, though, she was a gambler. She fueled her stock portfolio with the high-octane risk of a margin account, ultimately making her positions whole with the profits. But Wall Street gyrations were not enough to scratch the itch.

The local fishing club, you see, had slot machines and took action on the horses, and this was what really gave her a kick. Let Texas Instruments soar from 14 to 256. The real excitement was a fistful of quarters or a two-buck bet on some nag at Gulfstream. And while she was at it, she just might get her gear, throw a line in, and show up the men.

At the Anglers Club of Absecon Island, women were an afterthought. Oh sure, they had a separate clubhouse room, and their own fishing tee so close to shore you ran out of water at low tide. But it was a man's club, men who baited their hooks with cowhide thumbs, hitched up their trousers, and cast into the deep. On the broad tee at the ocean end of the pier, they could smuggle a beer and curse their luck with impunity.

OK, it wasn't as hard-bitten as all that. It began, in fact, as something of a "gentlemen's" club (not that kind of gentlemen's club). Atlantic City sportsman H. Willard Shaner, the foam licking his knickers, was fishing in the surf one day when he cast his eyes downbeach and visualized a private pier for enthusiasts like himself. Soon after, he and 20 like-minded anglers got the nod from the Margate commissioners to build on the oceanfront between Essex and Douglas avenues. A private bond sale financed the new pier, which reached 300 feet in length when completed in 1923.

Beyond its latticed entrance, the Anglers Club had more than a touch of class. Members replaced fishing outfits with formal attire for the annual Moonlight White Flannel Dance, which featured fine food and strolling musicians. The fishing had its own glow - more than 10,000 recorded catches one season. Membership reached 200 when the club was a decade old.

Fishermen, however, know that nature is capricious, and the Big One was gathering to smack the Anglers Club and the rest of Absecon Island. The Hurricane of '44 destroyed the pier and the boardwalk in Margate as well. Undaunted, the membership rebuilt at the same location - the entrance moving a few steps to Exeter Avenue - and the new pier exceeded its predecessor in length by 100 feet.

Despite the anglers' improved vantage point, landings began to decline in the 1950s as offshore Russian trawlers presumably made off with the fish. That condition persisted well into the '60s, and many discouraged members stuck to the clubhouse to play poker or yank the one-armed bandits. But to a young teenager, legends held sway at the Anglers Club. There was former lightweight boxing contender Lew Tendler, whose restaurant was Atlantic City's equivalent of Jack Dempsey's in Manhattan. There was Sig Heller, nearing 100, who had prospected for gold in the fabled Klondike before the turn of the century. And there was a man named Frank Young, the club's first black member, who had forgotten more about fishing than the rest of the world knew.

They all stood equal before the rod and reel.

An unexplained fire took the men's tee and a healthy length of gangway in 1988. Members rallied once more, raising funds and rebuilding, and a smaller Anglers Club rose in 1991. The ranks, too, were somewhat reduced though women had gained full membership by now and fished out front.

Fishing, of course, was timeless and familiar sights remained. The clubhouse blackboard still tallied the haul and announced prizewinning catches. The cramped porcelain basin awaited the soaping of thick hands flecked with fish scales. Cigar smoke wafted into the locker room, where anglers tugged on Windbreakers and inventoried their tackle boxes. The bait shop was rife with bloodworms. Outside, a visitor leaned into the wind and made his way to the front. The ocean sloshed below and the pier swayed with the surge. He remembered the combatants lining up for an interclub contest on a bright Sunday morning, maneuvering at the rail as the PA speaker shouted instructions. The beach thinning as it rushed upstream toward the horizon's aged majestic hotels, winking in the sunlight.

Images never die. In my mind's eye, grandma is still up there, collecting her winnings and reeling in a doubleheader. You go, girl.