Capt. Karl Anderson

This article originally appeared in On The Rip, the magazine of South Jersey Tournaments.

Beach Haven is known as the Queen City. Sitting at the southern end of Long Beach Island, a narrow spit of land that borders the Atlantic Ocean along New Jersey’s coast, Beach Haven is long known as a sporting destination. On her west side is the beautiful Little Egg Harbor and to the north the storied Barnegat Bay, both known for their historical fishing grounds and the wintering place for waterfowl migrating down the Atlantic Flyway.

In the latter 1800s folks began coming to Beach Haven from Philadelphia and New York via railway to Tuckerton and then across the bay via sailing catboats and steam powered boats. Eventually a railway line was built from Manahawkin over the bay and down to Beach Haven bringing guests to the grand victorian hotels of the day, the Baldwin and Engleside. The town grew as the well-to-do society folks began building cottages and homes for summer retreats.

With the influx of guests, visiting sportsman soon realized the abundant bounty the bays and marshes held. Local baymen started carrying passengers for hire to catch croakers, fluke, weakfish, bluefish and striped bass as well as guiding hunting parties in the fall and winter for the excellent duck hunting in the area. By 1882 some of the charter captains bonded together and started the Beach Haven Yacht Club, they would later build a clubhouse with a dock on the bay and over time host the largest charter fleet on the east coast, perhaps the world with upwards of 40-boats in the years leading up to World War II.

Around 1915 one of the clubs captains, Tom Jones on his Miraamy brought the first bluefin tuna to the dock. Jones was instrumental in developing tackle and trolling techniques and by 1922 was regularly catching the football bluefins from the abundant schools on the Barnegat Ridge some 20-25 miles from the Little Egg Inlet. Through today’s great scientific and tagging efforts we now know this is part of a large spawning ground for bluefin along the east coast.

Around 1916 a William Baxter ran the tackle department for New York based Abercrombie and Fitch. As a way of increasing participation in fishing and selling more tackle, Baxter organized the founding of the Beach Haven Tuna Club, based on the great game fishing and charter fleet there. The BHTC was the result of a merger between the New Jersey Fishing Club and the Beach Haven Anglers Club, the BHTC was the first member club of the newly organized International Game Fish Association.

In his 1937 book titled “Atlantic Game Fishing”, author, angler and sportsman S. Kip Farrington writes about the fishing on the east coast and had a good deal to say about the fleet at Beach Haven, “It is possible at Beach Haven to charter some of the leading fishing captains on the East Coast  men who fish in southern waters in the winter and on the Ridge in the summer. All have good boats, are crack navigators, and cut beautiful baits. They tie up next door to the clubhouse, which, incidentally, is well worth seeing as it has a fine collection of mounted fish, pictures and books.”

He goes on to call a few of the star captains out, “Captains Rudy Steinhauser and Tom Jones, who fish off Palm Beach in the winter months; Harold Driscoll, who helped develop the new fishing off Bermuda in the seasons of 1935 and 1936; the Joorman brothers; the two Nichterlines; Tom Lane, and Lyman Allen are probably the best known. They all have the tackle that is needed, and their charges run about $30.00 a day, including bait. Many of the boats are twin-motored and were especially built for rough weather.”

Farrington goes on to tell of something few people today have any knowledge of, “A novel safety factor which is original with the Beach Haven fleet, is the use of carrier pigeons to send messages ashore regarding fish already caught or the location of fish that have been sighted so that the late-comer going offshore will know what course to follow. Such service might prove convenient in case of a motor breakdown or other unforeseen difficulty. I have sublime faith in all fishing captains, their boats and their motors. Perhaps I am over-confident, but, as a group, I believe these men are as good navigators and mechanics as are to be found sailing in any waters of the world.”

Coming from Farrington who along with his wife fished the world over, accumulated several world records in both fresh and salt water, caught the first blue marlin on hook and line in Bimini and the second giant bluefin tuna in Bimini after Ernest Hemingway, and also authored nearly twenty books on fishing, this was certainly high praise for the Beach Haven fleet.

The occasional white marlin was an incidental catch, yet frequent enough to excite some of the skippers who travelled south in the winters to charter for sailfish. The Schoenberg’s were also a well known family on the coast with father Captain Max on the Spearmaiden and his two sons Hennie on the Henrietta and Herb on the Cadet making the trip south and back north like Jones on his Miraamy and the Black Jack with Steinhauser. The first blue marlin was brought to the Yacht Club docks in 1938 by Captain Watson “Kinky” Pharo on his charter boat Eleanor and excitement on the docks and up and down the coast shined yet another spotlight on the skilled fleet at Beach Haven.

When World War II reared its ugly head, the boats along the coast were restricted to inshore waters and many boats and charter skippers were pressed into service for the war effort. For several years during the war, the experience of the charter skippers and seaworthy nature of their locally built boats patrolled these shores. Little did the skippers know the advancements in electronics, engines and construction techniques developed for the Allies would improve their hunting and benefit their fishing in exponential sums for decades to come. 

After the war the fleet picked up where it left off catching football bluefins on the Barnegat Ridge and bluefish. With the advancement in horsepower and the diesel engine, bigger boats with more fuel and horsepower were being built. This enabled the captains to regularly fish the 20 Fathom curve, Lobster Hole and the Atlantic City Ridge finding the bluefin tuna and more white marlin. But the real push came as more and more private boats entered the scene. 

One such character was Harold T. “Piney” Parker, an attorney from Mount Holly, NJ who did not attend college but sat for and was admitted to the NJ Bar in 1924 becoming a prominent trial lawyer and well recognized sportsman in south Jersey. Parker sought after the white marlin on his boats ABC, recognizing the attraction to these gamey fighters and he began to target them offshore. 

By the latter part of the 1940’s, the Beach Haven charter fleet was shrinking and the private boats were flourishing. In 1949, a group of 27 fisherman banded together to start a new club. They drafted an all new charter and the Beach Haven Marlin & Tuna Club was founded. Captain Bill Howe of the charter boat Augusta, Al Sturch an officer of the AC Tuna Club, Robert Hutt who was Commodore and Parker were a couple of the founding members. Meetings were held at the famed Acme Hotel and Bar on Dock Road. The club grew and by 1962 had their own clubhouse. 

In the summer of 1959 the first boats ventured offshore to the canyons. Dick Ryon and his crew Captain Charlie Beer, Kris Anderson, Barry Baxter, local fisherman from Beach Haven and Barry Parker from Mount Holly fished on the new 17-knot 43-foot Wheeler Anthracite out of Beach Haven in the Wilmington Canyon as did the15-knot 48-foot Morten Johnson built Magnus from Brielle with Captain Ben DeGutis and owner Fin Magnus fishing the Hudson. The 43’ Rybovich Amigo V with Captain Whitey Fulton and owner Herb Clofine from Brigantine were also early to the canyon scene in either ’59 or ’60.

Throughout the sixties as production boat building was growing, especially in south Jersey, the boats became more modern and faster. The canyons became more accessible and fishing was very good. In 1970 the BHM&TC started the White Marlin Invitational Tournament, it was the brainchild of Captain Joe Bossard who ran club member Bob Gaskill’s Bee Dee. Attracting anglers from up and down the coast, many members had fished alongside boats from other ports and invited them to come to Beach Haven to sample the good fishing, a nice clubhouse and good camaraderie. 

The tournament became known as a first class event and flourished through the 70’s and into the 80’s with good food, a good bar and good fishing for white marlin alongside an impressive line up of club member boats including Parker’s ABC, Ryon’s Anthracite, Don Leek’s Wild Duck, Walter Johnson’s J&T and Bill Spolar’s 42’ Merritt Cat’s Meow. Today, the tournament is fished from several ports and remains as a favorite event on the schedule of tournament fisherman. 

From it’s early fishing roots Beach Haven rose to be the pinnacle of sportfishing destinations yet like so many other things times change, fishery cycles change, the destination changes and peoples needs change to do the things they like. There is still good fishing in the area and like many generations before, the town remains a summer hub for families with beach goers, amusement seekers, water sports enthusiast’s and fisherman.