The entrance to the Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier—Long Beach
This nearly 50-year-old story ranks among my favorite pier fishing stories of all time.
Eye Opener—Belmont Pier Marlin Club
Thursday wasn’t exactly a good day to have lunch with the Belmont Pier Marlin Club, but it was the best offer I had. I mean I don’t want to be a prophet of gloom and doom and I’m not going to mention that nasty word that ends in “cession,” but don’t you think luncheon invitations are getting scarcer?
It was a bad day for the Belmont Pier Marlin Club because the wind was blowing, which is bad for fishing, but, anyway, I made my way to the pier and found Pop Shoat, the club’s executive vice president, leaning over the railing and gazing placidly at the spot where his line slanted into the blue water.
“Hiya, son.” he said, waggling his white beard-stubble in greeting. He unwrapped a piece of newspaper from around a package of sandwiches. “Have a sandwich. That’s your column they’re wrapped in.” “Gee, thanks.” I said, overwhelmed by this expression of esteem. “I read Hollingworth. too,” he explained, “but I save him to wrap the fish I catch.”
“It’s fresher material.” I agreed. There is not an ounce of professional jealousy in me. “Do they pay Hollingworth, or is that just a hobby?” “Dr. Honk Hollingworth.” I said, “is on the payroll as director of our department of vicarious physical education.”
A three-wheel electric auto came dashing down the pier blandly ignoring the sign that said, “No motor vehicles beyond this point.” There were more vehicles beyond that point than on the legal side of it. Some Long Beach electric auto salesman has been making a killing by telling his customers they are driven by rubber bands, maybe.
“What I wanted to talk to you about,” Pop said as he rebaited his hook, “is getting the city to put up a flagpole on the pier for the Marlin Club. Stand back while I cast.” He gracefully snapped an overhand cast that carried his hook far out from the pier and watched his sinker splash into the water. I watched the sign that said. “No overhead casting.”
“I’m no lobbyist.” I said. “Besides, why does the Belmont Pier Marlin Club need a flagpole?” “To fly a marlin flag, in case somebody catches a marlin.”
“I have checked this out with Riley Compton of the Belmont Bait & Tackle,” I said. “You catch mostly small fish—perch, herring, corbina. Now and then you get a 10 or 12 pound halibut. Last year, a big white sea bass was landed. But in the history of living man, no one has caught a marlin off the Belmont Pier.”
Pop pulled a flask from his gear box. “How about a snort?” he said. I glanced disapprovingly at him and then at the sign that said, “Consumption of alcoholic beverages not permitted on pier.” “Geritol,” he said. “Somebody might catch a marlin. And it would bring an awful lot of fishermen to Long Beach if there was a marlin flagpole here and they thought we needed it.
“Mere tourists,” I said. “The dropline trade. They’d crowd the regulars away from the railing.” “That’s happening now,” Pop said.
“The truant officers ought to tighten up on kids playing hookey. Us retired gaffers can’t elbow on even terms against those kids.”
He reached for the Geritol and kicked over the carton of ghost shrimp that was the bait of the teenager next to him. “Sorry,” he said. The teenager gave him a hurt look, “That’s the third time you’ve done that,” the boy said. He picked up his gear and moved down the pier. Pop chuckled gleefully. “Whippersnapper,” he said
—Bob Wells, Long Beach Independent, February 3, 1962
