The death of Al Pelini has me thinking, which is always a dangerous thing. I didn’t know Al all that well, I mostly admired him from a distance. In the times when big alpha males beat their chests at seminars about their greatness, Al was a polar opposite.
But you should never make assumptions about a person before you meet them or if you don’t know them well…I never seen person his age swim to the rocks in the middle of the night alone. I never seen a man of any age swam further in pursuit of his bellowed striped bass. I never met a man more fearless then Al. Maybe his death is a poetry in motion, passing away in the place he loved the most. For me , and I am sure for his family and friends too, it was too early. Too sudden.
Just last week Bear’s Den shop called me for some books after two years because Al was giving seminar there on weekend. I meant to get in touch with him to ask him if he would consider writing story for the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine but I never did. Most of all, I wanted to sit with him on the camera and capture some of the events his experiences in his past….and there were many. Not everyone gets to catch 60 pound plus striper during the heyday of Block Island, gets to sample the best of Cape Cod fishing and swims to Cuttyhunk rocks and tangle with giant stripe.
But I never did get around to asking. And I know why, fear of rejection. There was a time not too long ago when I had this crazy idea of sitting down with the old guard and interview them o camera. Maybe turn it into the documentary about the history of the sport. I was less interested in their catches than I was in their experiences. And I definitely wasn’t interested in their secrets spots. The questions about the spots wasn’t even on the list.
But after talking to few who were gracious enough to sit an hour for camera like Rhode Island sharpies Steve McKenna and Dennis Zambrotta, I found nothing but doors slammed in my face. I expected some of that, the older generation was not about promotion, about publicity. They just fished. But most of them declined the idea of talking on camera. Heck, some walked away as soon as I brought up the subject. Not just people I don’t know, my own friends, people I fish with, refused to even consider it.
But the Father Time waits for no man…there is less and less of them around every day. And their experiences, the history of surf fishing as we know it today is dying with them. I hope that someone else , at some other time, in some other place, considers doing this. There is a lot written about old lures and tackle. Very little is written about the people who used them. How great it would be if two generations down, a new surfcaster could meet those who blazed the trail for them, in person , on their monitors. How great it would be for our grandchild to say, I heard about those men but never met them. Sadly, I don’t see it happening. Some stories are just meant to be turned into ashes.
Here is Dennis talking about Ted’s Tackle in Brooklyn, NY.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrlAV0k2V7M&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
