Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 26, 1995 TAG: 9506260097
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: DELTAVILLE LENGTH: Long
About the length of a football field beyond the big screened-in porch across the back side of the house is Sturgeons Creek, which opens into the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Rappahannock River.
On a recent evening, while a sunset swept across the sky in the bold colors of an impressionist painting, Norton, his wife, Lucy, and a couple of friends sat on the porch and talked about schools. Not just about Ferrum College, where for 35 years Norton coached so many football teams to victories and championships that even cynical sportswriters called him a legend. But about schools of striped bass, of croakers, of speckled trout - the kind of schools Norton deals with almost daily nowadays.
At 67, the ``bald, fat man'' - he calls himself that - is thick into a new career as a fishing guide. It is Captain Norton, now, not Coach Norton.
He is introducing saltwater anglers to fly-fishing and light-tackle spin fishing, and doing so in a region where a typical charter boat captain uses tackle heavy enough to wench a pickup truck out of a mud hole.
``What's amazing, people down here don't fish like this,'' he said. ``Everybody goes out to 40 feet of water and drops a bait straight to the bottom. They don't know anything about shallow-water fishing.
``And when you talk about fly-fishing, they look at you like you are sick. Of course, you are a little sick.''
Norton is an old hand at fly-fishing. Decades before the movie ``A River Runs Through It'' introduced the sport to the multitudes, Norton could be seen sending hand-tied flies to orange-finned brown trout in the Smith River near Bassett. He was the founder of the Smith River Chapter of Trout Unlimited.
He would grab the attention of students in his fishing class at Ferrum by plucking a pencil or unlighted cigarette from someone's mouth with a fly cast.
Casting to saltwater targets is more difficult, because you have to use a heavy, sinking line to go after fish on the bottom. The 300- to 400-grain line can be difficult to get airborne, even with a hefty 8- to 10-weight rod. When a client wraps a sinking line around his head, Norton becomes a coach again.
``You gotta roll, then shoot,'' he says.
Norton shows a visitor how to use a roll cast to bring the line up to the surface so it can be shot across the water on the next cast.
``It is not like standing in a trout stream,'' he said.
What Norton is casting, much of the time, is a Clouser Minnow, a fly pattern with bug eyes made of lead to get the offering deep.
People often ask Norton, ``What can you catch on a fly in salt water?''
``Anything that eats minnows, so we are catching flounder, croaker, speckled trout, puppy drum, bluefish, striped bass.'' he said. ``I have caught 13 species on flies.''
The flies are dressed so sparsely, with just a wisp of bucktail and a bit of glitter in the form of Flashabou or Crystal Flash, that you wonder if Norton's pension is going far enough. But in the water they match the hatch of translucent baitfish.
``The best thing to do is search with a spinning outfit until you locate fish, then pick up your fly rod,'' Norton said. ``What revolutionized fly-fishing in the bay is a line that goes down.''
The Nortons' home on the bay was built in the 1920s by a commercial fishermen who made a big haul. They bought it in 1958, and for years, Norton operated one of the first summer sports camps in the country out of it.
``The cost was $25 a day, and we would give them produce - watermelons and stuff - and take them fishing.''
When the camp closed, Norton would commute to the bay from Franklin County, fly rod in hand, every time his busy schedule would allow. Following the 1993 football season he came to stay.
``I never got the chance to fish in the fall,'' he said.
Norton has arrived in time to see a resurgence of bay species such as striped bass, croakers and even speckled trout.
``I would say this will be world-class striper fishing in the fall,'' he said. ``When they concentrate and come out of the rivers, you see schools of them everywhere.''
His applause over the return of striped bass, a species that all but disappeared in the 1970s, is muffled by concern that commercial netters, supported by powerful politicians, could send this species back to the brink of extinction.
Norton may be the only angler on the bay catching croakers on flies. This bottom-feeding species isn't high on the list of targets for fly anglers, but Norton says you must remember they are the little cousin of the sporty red drum or channel bass.
``They are just like a red drum,'' he said. ``Same family, same shape, they pull like a red drum. For 15 or 20 years, we didn't have croakers. Now we have plenty of croakers. People are loading up with croakers.''
Also returning to the bay are grass beds, and ``anywhere you find grass you have `specks,' '' Norton said.
He is talking about speckled trout, a species that can make a mountain man feel right at home because, while they are not related to a true trout, they resemble one in looks and fight.
Norton cruises the bay in his 18-foot Boston Whaler, searching his corner of 2,500 square miles of water for dark spots that denote grass beds and heaps of rocks, where baitfish and crabs gather to attract sport fish. ``This is Florida-, Texas-style fishing,'' he said.
It is a good life, but Norton admits that he thinks about Franklin County often - ``I love that place and the people there '' - and in the early fall he expects a flash of football fever to rumble deep inside of him.
But by then the stripers will be on the surface and waterfowl will start arching their wings to glide into bay wintering areas. That should be enough to make a guy feel good about being a captain rather than coach.
Norton can be contacted at Deltaville, 804-776-6807. A two-angler trip costs $225 per day; $175 for a half day. A fisherman's cottage is available for $65 per night.
by CNB