Capt. George - 10-23-2003 at 04:12 AM
On our return to the Cape, we headed to the outer beaches. A friend of ours, Frank Puza, had a small 4 wheel drive Scout...I was about to embark on a
whole new world of surf casting....It was a hot July afternoon that we found our way onto the "back beach".
(NO SIGNS back then, how nice.) We were going over our tackle, I wanted to check out the action on a couple of Atom 40's. I walked to the waters edge
and made a short cast to to wet my line, a dozen turns of the handle, and bang, I was into a bass! My first cast on a lower Cape beach, heaven??No, it
would be the last bass I would see until the September moon.
Back in those early years most big fish were taken on rigged eels. We would find out just how important the proper method of rigging was. July and
August turned into a battle of frustrations as we watched the regulars make some big scores. September began the same way. Unknown to us, Nat Piazza
(Rest in Peace)
was watching how hard my brother and I fished. He was the best rigged eel fisherman and "surf caster" that I met in my life. Nat was watching us ruin
some good eels, he said, " get out of the way, I can't take it any more". He showed us his rigging method.
My close buddy Paulie Hoercher, my brother and I took eleven bass up to 40 lbs. that very night (Thanks Nat). The following month I bought my first
buggy, a 69 Blazer, the first year they came out, what a truck! My wife Pat, our infant son Georgie and I would live in that truck on the outer
beaches at least ten days a month from April through October..Clearly the best years of our lives, total freedom.
(Baja, here I come) to be continued