East Bay Anglers History

Club history

Founders . . .1972

• Robert O. Greene -- Barrington, RI
• Richard E. Greene -- Barrington, RI
• Aurelio Lucci -- Barrington, RI
• Wilfred H. Barbeau -- Barrington, RI
• Henry A. Voss, Jr. -- Barrington, RI
• Louis Lachance -- Swansea, MA
• Gerald R. Souza -- Swansea, MA

by Will Barbeau

The East Bay Anglers Fishing Club (EBA) was started in 1972 by seven local fishermen. 2010 is the group’s 38th year. As one of the seven originals, I helped the club evolve through its entire history.  The organizers were Bob Greene and his brother Dick. Three founders had been members of The Bristol County Striper Club, a group with whom the club has since enjoyed friendly relations. The main reason for starting a new club was a desire to fish competitively beyond Narragansett Bay. In those days, inter-club competition was a dominant feature of sport angling.

In its early years ‘EBA’ was noted for both competitive success in tournaments and political leadership in bass conservation -- leaders in catching and rescuing striped bass.

Catching:

Anglers of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s greatly expanded the pursuit of striped bass. It became a 'high-image' sport. 'Stripers' were abundant enough to support crude tournaments such as the Schaefer Beer inter-club tourney – a competition between East Coast clubs for both biggest fish and club aggregate totals. Even though aggregate totals were always won by the Martha’s Vineyard club, no one was sensitive to the senseless slaughter taking place. The brewery gave out numerous awards, such as a tie clasp I still have for a fifty pound striper.

In those days, there were many competitive fishing events such as the Newport County Striper Tournament – which featured a six-foot high trophy EBA won one year; and the Rocky Point Striped Bass Tournament, an event we dominated for several years. One year, in order to assure a win in the Newport tournament, an EBA group went to Cuttyhunk and caught 2,000 pounds of bass. There was also a Rhode Island state-run tournament at Point Judith – made memorable by the name of its weigh master: Ed Fisher.

And of course, there was always a club competition between members.

East Bay Anglers developed innovations to improve fishing efficiency. Having learned to use a throw-net in Hawaii during WWII, I became the first to use one in this area. My first throw-net by bought by  mail from a store in Miami. They sent up a huge 15 foot shrimp net -- which was useless. We soon found sizes which worked well for herring and pogies. Another idea which spread fast was my fast-water pickup pipe. Everyone who observed me scooping water into my bait well while dashing between schools of pogies made one. I don’t know who first hung a bilge pump on the transom of a boat, but that idea soon followed the pick-up pipe.

EBA members were the first to bring live menhaden to Cuttyhunk and Monomoy. The Cuttyhunk breakthrough occurred on June 12 (or 20), 1972 when four EBA members hired Westport Harbor charter captain Jack Reynolds to take them over with a tank full of live pogies. Bob Greene worked in a retail gas store and provided oxygen for over-road transport of menhaden taken in Narragansett Bay. (Aerators worked well enough for herring, but menhaden required stronger measures.) That event was quickly followed by the discovery of menhaden in Padenarum Harbor, eliminating need for over-road transport. The introduction of live bait fishing to Cuttyhunk had a devastating effect on both the local charter industry (jiggers all) and the striped bass population there. A photo taken after that first trip reveals a dozen bass in the 40-50 pound range.

The same group brought menhaden to Monomoy around 1980. Sand eels and jigs had been the fishing culture on the Cape for years. EBA members noticed schools of menhaden in Chatham’s Stage Harbor, suggesting the potential for a bonanza at Monomoy. This was exploited with great success for several years by renting a cabin overlooking the Oyster River which flows into Stage Harbor. Several boats could be docked in the river, allowing early morning netting of menhaden for use off of Monomoy beaches. These excursions were usually held in mid-October as the fall bass run started. The results were the same: big fish.

Rescuing

EBA first learned of problems with striped bass from talks by Bob Pond. He started both the Atom Plug Company and the conservation group called "Stripers Unlimited." At first, we were skeptical of Pond’s ideas about egg failures in the Chesapeake . .we were inundated with bass. But we gradually observed the falloff of catches, and began to believe him.
Through the seventies and eighties, I was vice-chair of the Rhode Island Striped Bass Citizens’ Advisory Committee, and became one of Senator Chafee’s main contacts with Rhode Island anglers — even working on his re-election committees. Other EBA members (Bob Greene and John Treat) launched a fund drive for striped bass research, to support Bob Pond’s theories of egg damage. That effort may have given Chafee the idea for his research legislation.

Striped bass anglers in the early years knew little about how these fish lived. As example: when bay anglers in the mid-seventies began to see dramatic drop-offs in bass catches they also observed large menhaden harvesting boats in the bay. Putting “two and two” together, they petitioned the newly founded RI Coastal Resources Management Council to ban menhaden boats as a method of saving striped bass. Bob Pond and I made the key presentation to the Council with a recorded presentation (and loudspeaker) using a script written with Bob Pond’s views. The task we faced was teaching CRMC (and an agitated audience) that the striped bass decline had nothing to do with menhaden boats, but everything to do with the failure of bass reproduction in Chesapeake Bay.

CRMC Chairman John Lyons thanked Pond and I. He resolved then that his new agency would henceforth never get involved with on-the-water issues. It would stop at the water’s edge.

Bass conservation was mainly hindered by the states’ rights issue. Each state demanded the right to do its own thing. With grandfathered coastal trap nets in place, Rhode Island was the biggest problem on the East Coast. About five years into the struggle, nationally active conservationist/writer Dick Russell and his friends brought the issue to a larger national audience. However, it was no coincidence that the striped bass research bill was sponsored by Rhode Island's Senator Chafee. It was his state that was the center of the problem. (Dick Russell later published a book on his work: “Striper Wars.”)

I’ve been asked: “Did EBA convince Senator Chafee to sponsor the bill?” My answer: “Don’t think so.” What did finally move the Senator was a book called “Striper” written by John Cole, then editor of the newspaper Maine Times.

How so?

John Cole confided in me that he and John Chafee had been roommates in prep school. It is quite likely that the voice of his former roommate rang louder in Chafee's heart than the years of political activity aimed at him. Was this another example of "the ol' boy network"?

A new direction:

East Bay Anglers faced a big change in 1985 when a group resigned from the club. I’m unsure of their basic motivation. There had been an influx of members with new boats who were hot to pursue bass. They expected the club to teach them how and where to fish. With the on-going decline of stripers, the resigning members were probably resisting the traditional teaching responsibility.
In any case, with club membership down below a dozen, we started our fishing seminars with a dual purpose: to recruit new members, and to learn off-shore fishing as an alternative to bass fishing. The mid-eighties yellowfin tuna bonanza offered an option to the declining striped bass population. I bought a 23 foot MAKO to go off-shore.

The annual Winter seminars enjoyed a steady series of successes, as we moved up through larger and larger auditoriums  and audiences. Club membership increased. When some incoming members sought to bend the club to their own political agendas on fish conservation issues the club adopted the lower political profile it has today. It now supports the state-wide group that is carrying that burden: RISAA.

Take a kid fishing:

Another pioneering area the club undertook was taking groups of young boys out fishing. At first, we took them out on Point Judith head boats. Then, we started taking them out on our own boats. Today, we prefer to donate money to other groups to take youngsters out fishing since our resources are too thin to do so.