THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 20, 1994 TAG: 9407190163
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY GARY EDWARDS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 166 lines
Elizabeth Oliver sat and looked out over the water, calmly waiting for the fish that she knew would hit her line any minute. She had been waiting silently for two hours.
Suddenly, she felt the line pull.
She called out to the mate, ``We got him.'' And after a few minutes of fighting, Elizabeth reeled her catch over the side of the boat. The 20-pound tuna landed with a flap on the deck.
She looked her catch over and declared, ``Well, I guess I'll go eat lunch now. I was hungry but I didn't want to get out my seat.''
Ho-hum. Just another day at sea for a veteran fisherman? Hardly.
Elizabeth is 9, a rising fourth-grader at Thoroughgood Elementary School. She's a little more than twice the tuna's size.
And she was one of eight Virginia Beach students who spent last Friday bobbing around in the Atlantic, 60 miles east of Rudee Inlet, as part of ``Hooked on Fishing Not Drugs,'' a nationwide program sponsored by the Future Fishermen of America.
Students were selected through a citywide essay contest held earlier this year through local schools.
``We had them write an essay on the topic, `The evils and perils of drugs.' Some of the stories were powerful, kids with brothers in prison because of drugs,'' said Dr. Jim Wright, who has been a local sponsor of the program for several years. ``The teachers chose the best ones and those children were invited on the `Hooked on Fishing Not Drugs' trip.''
Wright, who operates Atlantic Coast Diet Center and hosts a weekly fishing program on cable television, also gets help each year from Beach businessman Leslie Creech and the Virginia Bluewater Gamefish Association.
``We're the only organization that takes the kids deep-sea fishing,'' said Creech. ``The others fish from the shore of lakes, or have casting contests from the shore, things like that.''
Creech has been involved for three years. He and his association find boat owners willing to donate their vessels for the day's expedition. The association picks up the tab for the fuel. Charter boats also have taken the parties out, donating their crews' time and earnings to support the pro-fishing, anti-drug effort.
Elizabeth and three other young salty dogs - Jaime Hampton, 10; and Tessa Pitel and Amanda Breasbois, both 11 - sailed out of Rudee Inlet at 6:15 a.m. Principal Al Wilder of Salem Elementary School accompanied the girls aboard the Anna Lee III, a 52-foot sport-fishing yacht owned by William Van Buren.
Captain Tommy Powell cleared the jetty at Rudee and pushed the throttle forward. The twin 820-horsepower Man diesel engines rumbled and the Anna Lee headed seaward at 27 knots.
Four more Hooked on Fishing students left the dock at the same time, sailing aboard the Pursuer, a 50-footer operated by Ray Temple.
Van Buren sold his interest in the Daily Press, the Peninsula newspaper, to the Chicago Tribune six years ago.
``My wife died from cancer the same year. I started deep-sea fishing to overcome her loss,'' said Van Buren. ``I also needed to do something to combat boredom after 50 years of work.''
His Hooked on Fishing guests didn't fight boredom. They spent the 2 1/2-hour ride exploring the vessel, asking questions of the crew, munching brown-bag breakfasts and looking excitedly out the cabin portholes.
By 7 a.m., the condominiums and hotels of the resort strip were barely visible in the morning haze.
The boat was bound for a spot south of Norfolk Canyon, which lies on the slope of the continental shelf, where the landmass that North America rests upon drops off from several hundred feet to thousands. Onshore, the forecast called for triple-H weather - hot, hazy and humid - a day that made sea breezes sound perfect.
Not exactly, agreed Powell and first mate Larry Davenport. The stiff southwesterly breeze could make for rough waters, swells that rock the boat and ruin the fishing.
For a few unlucky souls, the 4-foot swells rocked more than the boat. Minutes after the Anna Lee slowed to troll the ``slope waters,'' Amanda suffered her first bout of seasickness. The bright-eyed, cheerful rising sixth-grader at Independence Middle School had to forgo holding a reel in favor of holding her head and stomach.
``You don't believe it now but you will feel OK again,'' said Davenport. He passed along a tip. If you forget to take motion-sickness medication and become seasick, sit midship and as close to the waterline as possible, the area of least motion on the boat.
Davenport baited seven lines with ballyhoo, mullet and Spanish mackerel. The lines extended from rods set in holders on the fighting chair and in the gunwales. Outriggers, stainless-steel arms that protrude from the middle of the boat at a 45-degree angle, had lines from the gunwales clipped to them.
Powell's bridge-rod line trailed in the water 100 yards off the stern. Van Buren's assistant, Donna Darnley, tended the bridge rod while Powell steered.
``We're looking for certain things,'' said Davenport. ``Signs of life, like birds, seaweed, eel grass, a place where birds and fish are feeding. We're looking for color changes in the water. . . and we're also looking for a calm spot of water.''
The bait was set to catch billfish - marlin, tuna, mahi-mahi and wahoo. These pelagic creatures spend their lives from between the surface of the ocean to depths of 100 feet.
``Everything that lives in these waters is fast and strong,'' said Davenport. ``If it's not, it won't stay alive too long.''
He served as tour guide and educator as well as mate. He pointed out a school of pilot whales swimming 75 yards off the port side of the boat. When Elizabeth wiped salt off the gunwales, Davenport explained evaporation.
At 12:15, Tessa sat in the fighting chair. Darnley felt a strike on the bridge-rod line, passed it down to Creech and Davenport and hopped down the ladder from the bridge to help.
Tessa, a rising sixth-grader at Red Mill Elementary, took the rod and started cranking in the reel with her tiny, freckled hand, the knuckles whitening with the strain on the line.
``This is hard,'' she said.
``You bet,'' responded Davenport. ``The fish is fighting for his life. We're just out for a day of fun.''
Ten minutes later, Tessa said to the tuna on the deck, ``I told ya you weren't going to get away from me.''
Amanda recovered from her seasickness and joined Jaime in the chair, waiting for their fish to take the bait.
Jaime's grandparents live in Ford's Colony in Williamsburg and she has fished for bass there. She will be in the sixth grade this fall at Princess Anne Middle School.
The girls looked up and saw Creech on the bridge. They made a request.
``Come down and sing your fish song and dance the fish dance like you did last time,'' Amanda said. Creech laughed and feigned innocence. He took the Hooked on Fishing kids on a May trip.
``I have no idea what they could be talking about,'' he said.
Before anyone could sing or dance or otherwise coax the fish into the boat, it was time to head in.
``Both of the fish were caught at about 40 fathoms (240 feet) of water,'' said Powell. ``We were running the 100- to 400-foot line and that's where the bait fish have been biting recently. Who knows? They could be biting there again tomorrow or somewhere else.''
Creech, a dedicated deep-sea fisherman, is sure, however, of one thing: A bad day fishing beats a good day working, especially when there is an opportunity to get kids hooked on his favorite pastime.
``There are so many dangers they face,'' he said. ``If we can give them better choices, it's time and money well spent.'' MEMO: [For a related story, see page 7 of The Beacon for this date.]
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
A DAY AT SEA
Staff photos by
MORT FRYMAN
ABOVE: Hooked up with a large tuna, Tessa Pitel, 11, gets help from
Leslie Creech, a Beach businessman who backs the Hooked on Fishing,
Not Drugs program.
RIGHT: Crews and passengers of the Pursuer and Anna Lee II return to
their Rudee Inlet dock.
Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
Elizabeth Oliver, 9, comes face to face with her catch, a tuna that
was one of two fish caught aboard the Anna Lee II during ``Hooked on
Fishing, Not Drugs'' day.
Amanda Breasbois, 11, enjoyed the 60-mile ride east of Rudee Inlet,
but later suffered seasickness.
After a day of rolling seas and slow fishing, Jaime Hampton, 10,
takes a nap on the way back to dock.
Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Eager to show off the dolphin she caught aboard Pursuer, Elizabeth
Stephenson grabbed the fish and headed for her family. Also on dock
were Ray Temple, captain of Pursuer; John Oatman and Larry
Davenport.
by CNB