
DATE: Friday, May 16, 1997                  TAG: 9705140145

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  164 lines

FISHING FOR BUSINESS AT THE CITY'S BAIT-AND-TACKLE SHOPS, OWNERS PUT IN LONG HOURS WHILE THE REGULAR CUSTOMERS SPIN THEIR LONG YARNS.

VERNON WHITFIELD catches so many fish, he throws most of them back. It's only fair to the other fishermen, he says.

``I might have a grandson who wants to fish here some day,'' says Whitfield, dressed in a dark blue fishing cap decorated with a small plastic fly. He refused to keep his most recent bass - an 8-pounder. ``If I catch 10, I might keep three or four,'' he says.

The retired South Norfolk resident has been fishing the still waters of the Northwest River near Bob's Fishing Hole for nearly 40 years. ``I used to come here every day before I got old,'' he says.

Bob's Fishing Hole, a combination bait-and-tackle shop and boat ramp, is one of many small businesses catering to fishermen in Chesapeake. While many local bait-and-tackle shops have changed hands over the years, most retain local followings of customers.

Whitfield and his buddy, Donald Warren of Great Bridge, rarely miss an opportunity to swap fish stories. Dennis Derosier, who bought Bob's Fishing Hole last year, says the old-timers are two of his best customers. Warren often fishes from dawn till dusk. Some days, he catches nothing. But once, in only an hour and a half, he caught 22 brim fish that were spawning near a myrtle bush on the river bank.

Fishing, for these men, is one of the glories of retirement.

``My wife is happy to get me out of the house,'' Warren jokes. ``I do all the cleaning myself. She has a fit if I come home and one of them is still wiggling.''

Warren and Whitfield show up at Derosier's small shop nearly every morning, looking for bait, a soda, a sticky bun and some company.

``These two guys, once they get going, there's no telling how long they'll stay,'' Derosier says. He moved to Virginia Beach from Long Island last year, trading his day job as a construction worker for the seven-days-a-week schedule of a small businessman.

Much of the appeal of bait-and-tackle shops like Bob's Fishing Hole comes from the local personalities, Derosier says. He opens at sunrise and closes at sunset, putting money aside for the winter when business slows down.

``You work long hours, but it's relaxing,'' Derosier says. ``In the morning, you can see the fish break over the water as the sun rises. . . . Some days you sit here for 10 or 12 hours and you get two or three boats.''

Derosier hopes to make Bob's Fishing Hole ``into a family place'' with picnic tables, grills and room for barbecues.

Although Derosier is a relative newcomer to the business, he has gotten a lot of help

from one of the veterans. Gail Titus, who opened Gail's Bait and Tackle seven years ago, told Derosier where to find the cheapest prices and the best distributors. Titus has helped other new shopkeepers over the years, as well.

Titus, the only woman with her own bait-and-tackle store in Chesapeake, says there's more than enough business to go around. Titus more than doubled the size of her store two years ago when she moved into new retail space in Great Bridge, just a few miles south on Battlefield Boulevard from her store's first location.

``I like to help people out,'' Titus says. Competition from Bob's Fishing Hole ``doesn't bother me. I ain't competitive like some people. I deal with so many different suppliers, I know who's got the best prices.''

Even Wal-Mart sends customers to her, Titus says. She carries more hunting scopes than any of the giant retail stores that have opened recently in Chesapeake, she says. And during the summer, she sells 8,000 to 10,000 crickets a week.

Titus prides herself on opening earlier than any other bait-and-tackle store - at 5 a.m. She says she sells a new kind of worm that no other store carries and that her night crawlers are twice as long as those sold in most shops. And she has Chesapeake's only saltwater weighing station, where fishermen bring their catch for official measurement. All fish longer than 22 inches receive a citation from the state, she says.

Business is so good, in fact, Titus can even afford to take a day off once a week. That's a rare luxury in the bait-and-tackle business. The life of a small-business woman appeals to Titus, who spent 13 years as a waitress before opening her own store.

Her store carries the scent of the small feeder fish who circulate in small tanks in the back of the store. The frantic chirping of 5,000 crickets in cages throughout the store drown out the rhythmic rush of noise from cars on Battlefield Boulevard. A canopy of criss-crossed fishing reels hangs suspended over head. Deer trophies - stuffed and mounted - project from the walls.

``One of my customers caught that,'' Titus says, pointing to the sleek stuffed swordfish mounted on the wall above the cash register. ``His wife told him to get it out of the house. He comes in every once in a while and tells people he caught it.''

In a city built on marshes, the fishing is always good, Titus says. She's even busy when it rains.

``These guys all work,'' she says, referring to her regular customers. ``A lot of 'em are in construction. They're all off when it's rainy. And when they have a day off, they want to go fishing. I ask them, `You go fishing in the rain?' You know, when I fish, I don't like to be miserable. But they say, `the fish don't care.' ''

Those who fish and crab for a living don't have much of a choice about when they want to venture onto the water.

Roger Williams bought a share in Johnson's Bait & Crab House just last year. But he has lived and worked

there - making much of his living from the water - most of his life.

Williams ran away from a Portsmouth boys' home when he was 12. He was walking down Military Highway when he spied Allen Johnson's tackle shop beside the road. Johnson, who died several years ago, offered the boy a job - as well as a home, acting as Williams' foster father. Williams even moved into his own house behind Johnson's store when he was 14. He left school after seventh grade and has been crabbing a creek that feeds into the Elizabeth River ever since.

Williams is one of the only shop owners in Chesapeake to catch his own bait - crabs, eels and minnows culled from the water that surround the wood-frame tackle store in Deep Creek. Standing on his time-worn wooden dock, he pulls up a rope and raises out of the water a metal cage teaming with a mass of eels.

He opens a plastic cooler and reveals a pool of minnows. A cardboard box inside the store shakes and rattles with the clunky movements of sand fiddlers, who try in vain to climb out of their confinement, brandishing one enormous pincer high in the air.

Williams supplements his bait, tackle and crabbing business by selling used cars on the side. Rusting metal machinery still lies scattered across the property, left-overs from the days when Johnson also ran a junk yard.

``You make what you can from crabs and bait, then you invest it in the winter in cars,'' Williams explains.

Like many local bait-store owners, Williams can't make a living on bait and tackle alone. Derosier makes as much money from his boat ramp as his bait. Tom Casey, owner of Shorty's Bait and Tackle, also sells used furniture and repairs large appliances such as refrigerators, clothes washers and lawn mowers. Levy Rowland, who runs Rowland's Bait and Tackle in Deep Creek, works during the day as a roofer. Rowland's wife Linda works in the store - opened in Shorty's former location - during the day.

One of the only things Williams doesn't sell anymore is tackle. Large national retailers like K-Mart can sell fishing poles cheaper than he can. He hopes to begin wholesaling his fish and crabs to other bait shops within the year, however. He already sells sand fiddlers in bulk. This season's crab catch is already picking up. Now he's pulling in two bushels a day; soon, he'll be pulling in 10 bushels.

Few have ever gotten rich running bait-and-tackle stores. Williams has spent $20,000 remodeling and cleaning up Johnson's tackle store, which became dilapidated after Johnson died. But running his foster father's shop is like running a family business for Williams. One of his sons already owns his own repair business just down the street, Bill's Radiator Shop. Williams' daughter-in-law frequently stops by with his 3-year-old granddaughter, who races toward her grandfather as soon as she climbs out of the car, wrapping her arms around his leg to hug him.

Williams lives next door to the store with his wife Elizabeth Williams. When no one is working in the bait shop, customers knock on their front door for help.

``I think Allen would be real proud that we kept this business going,'' she says. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos including color cover by STEVE EARLEY

Before dawn, Dennis Derosler waits outside his bait-and-tackle shop

at Bob's Fishing Hole on Battlefield Boulevard South.

A net full of eels exhibits just some of the live bait available at

Rowland's Bait and Tackle in Deep Creek.

Tim Weber, left, and Pete Souls head down the Northwest River after

departing on a misty morning from Bob's Fishing Hole, a combination

bait-and-tackle shop and boat ramp.

Gail Titus, who opened Gail's Bait and Tackle seven years ago, is

the only woman with her own bait-and-tackle store in Chesapeake. She

says there's more than enough business to go around.

Customer Bobby Ricks, left, watches Levy Rowland of Rowland's Bait