Fishing Indian River Inlet has changed over time

I have been fishing Indian River Inlet since I was a wee lad, but on Monday of this past week, I found out I had a whole new inlet to learn.  

I drove down early and parked under the bridge, hoping to fish in my favorite spot just west of there. I walked down to the water to check things out only to find my favorite location was no longer accessible. There were now 8 to 10 feet of huge boulders between the sidewalk and the water. Younger or more agile folks can walk out on those rocks, but this 82-year-old man cannot. 

There was a gentleman fishing at the end of the rocks when I arrived. As I watched, he hooked a sizable fish, fought it for quite a while, before the fish cut him off. We discussed what the fish might have been. I said it might have been a big striper because a bluefish usually comes to the surface. He seemed to agree. He quickly tied on another bucktail with a silver head and white hair. He knew what he was doing. He tied a section of fluorocarbon leader between the bucktail and the running line before getting back to business. I stayed there and watched him for another 15 minutes, but he didn’t have any more customers.

I walked on down the sidewalk toward the ocean, checking out the few anglers who were there on a Monday morning. All the ones I saw were fishing for tog. I didn’t see them catch anything.

I then walked back toward the bridge and the pocket of quiet water just west of the structure. No one was fishing there, but it was fishable from the sidewalk. I have seen and caught flounder from that location.

I didn’t get as far as where the shoreline turns to the north, but that can be a good spot. Back in the day, it was a hot location for trout or weakfish. Some would drift by in boats, while others would fish from the sidewalk. As you might imagine, this did cause the occasional dustup.

On one memorable night, a boater got into it with the shorebound anglers to the point where he jumped into the water and swam to shore. Unfortunately, he came to the rocks at the feet of the late Horse Cochron. Horse was not so named by mistake. The soaking-wet boater looked up at Horse, who said, “What do you want? I throw fist or lead.”

The boater went back to his boat without answering the question.

We used to drift sand fleas for stripers at night. I understand some still do this. Anyway, one night, the late Bobby Rumble and I were doing this when Bobby hooked and nice 5- or 6-pound trout. Now Bobby was from Lititz, Pa., and did have that Dutchman accent.

He hung his trout from the guard rail to keep it away from the rock rats. Along came another Dutchman who asked me if I caught the trout. I said, “No, the fellow closer to the water caught it.”

So, he shouts down to Bobby, “Hey, did you catch this here fish?”

Bobby replies, “Yea, I did.”

“What’ya catch it on?”

“A sand flea.”

“A sand flea? What’s that?”

So, Bobby reaches in the pocket of his rain jacket, takes out a couple of sand fleas and shows the guy.

A little while later another guy comes along. He asked the Dutchman, who is still watching us fish, who caught the trout.

He replies, “The fellow down there says he did.”

“What he catch it on?”

“He won’t tell nobody.”

When we camped at the southside of the inlet, I would fish the very end of the south jetty early in the morning, and in those days, late 1960s/early 1970s, we caught blues on a regular basis. One morning, Bruce Roberts and I got so caught up in catching blues that we failed to notice the tide was coming in and had covered the rocks, barring our way back. We had no choice but to let the next big wave carry us off the end of the jetty and into the ocean side of the rocks. Once in the water, we swam to the beach carrying our fishing tackle and whatever fish we kept. We did get some strange looks from the sunbathers as we emerged from the surf.

My wife Barbara’s aunt and uncle had a truck camper that they parked next to the sidewalk. I was drifting sand fleas right below where they parked. I caught a striper. Barbara’s Aunt Nellie took the fish, fried it up and served it to me while I was still fishing. It don’t get no better than that!