Back in May, I made the long ride up to Plum Island for the Surfcasting Demo Day at Surfland Bait & Tackle in Newburyport, MA. Let me start by saying that Liz, Martha and their crew of knowledgeable anglers do it right. They had their whole lot set up with tents and tables for vendors and kept us all fed; from bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches and a full spread of doughnuts for breakfast, to snacks galore all day and then a veritable truckload of pizzas to put an exclamation point on an awesome event.
Surfland has a unique feel, a place like no other I’ve been. It’s rooted in another era, with its classic 1950’s style signage and old school bait shop vibe, but it’s packed to the gills with all the things we’d expect to find in a modern-era tackle shop. There’s something nostalgic about this dark and slightly cramped space that leaves you feeling like you’ve teleported back 30-plus years and then, when you snap back to reality, you immediately long for that version of the past.
It’s hard not to detect the ghosts of the past in this place. Apparitions of the golden age of surfcasting and striper fishing, giant bass being dragged through the door, stories of broken lines and bent hooks echoing in the salty air, kids who grew up in the shop surfcasting with their dads, bringing in their own kids, millions of gallons of coffee consumed, billions of BTU’s of hot air exchanged in the stories that antiqued these walls. Surfland is almost a religious destination for anyone that loves surfcasting or fishing for striped bass.
If you really want these feelings of nostalgia to wash over you, you only need to look up at the ledge that crosses the sales floor and separates the cathedral ceiling of the rod area from the lower heights of the lure walls. There, in a procession of 8-1/2 x 11 black and white photos, is an unwritten history of 50-pound stripers dating back to the 1960s. There’s a stream of emotion that emanates from these images, you can actually feel the elation each angler felt as they stood for their photo. Many of these people are gone, but their memory and achievement is kept alive on the Fifty Wall. They are smiling their biggest and most sincere smiles in these photos. The dates paint a real picture of the eras when these giant bass were most prevalent and they also offer clues as to when the Plum Island area is most likely to give up that next giant striped bass.
My dad used to say, “Don’t old photos just… make you feel funny?” He was referencing the way they freeze a moment that just keeps getting further and further from the present. Looking at this wall of anglers and their lifetime achievements of finally breaking the 50-pound barrier, I strangely felt connected to them, as if I were looking at family members from a generation removed. I think I’d liked to have known them all. And it’s hard for me not to try to tell the rest of their stories, I imagine them all coming through the doors of this striped bass institution, and being greeted by name by Kay Moulton, the matriarch of Surfland who we lost back in 2018. I imagine the sincerity of the congratulations from the group of anglers in the shop who really understand what goes into landing the fish of a lifetime. And I imagine that, for those who chose Surfland as their home base, the ultimate achievement would be seeing their picture up on that ledge; I know it would have been my goal.
The Fifty Wall is one of those rare collections of black and white, irrefutable history, and the fact that this chronology of giants has been kept intact for all these years, is proof that this family-owned business, exists and subsists because they truly love this sport and the community that ‘builds itself’ around it.
