Classroom for Casters

Elsewhere, college students were putting away their books and preparing for vacation. At Nags Head, N.C. last week, 97 students were just arriving for class. Old anglers anxious to learn new tricks and novices who had never wet a line lugged tackle from as far south as Florida, as far west as Illinois for a short course in sport fishing, sponsored by North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering. They were the kind of pupils a professor prays for--housewives, doctors, lawyers, mechanics. None had a thought of cutting a class; all were anxious for final exams, the chance to check theory with practice in the deep-running Gulf Stream ten miles offshore, in the surf on the white-duned Carolina beaches, or on calm, clear Carolina lakes.

Pigfish & Alley Cat. The very enthusiasm of the students was ample testimony to fishing's fast-growing popularity. But the faculty have facts and figures as well. Today some 30 million Americans fish the country's lakes, streams and seacoasts; last year they spent nearly $800 million for equipment, including 11 million rods and 8 million reels, plus more than $1 billion in other costs. One of every four men is an angler, one of every eleven women. The big boost that has made sport fishing big time, say the Nags Head "professors," is a threefold improvement in tackle:

P: Tubular Fiberglas rods, almost impervious to water damage, are available at less than a third the price of laminated bamboo.

P: Spinning reels, which pay out line from fixed bobbins and are never bothered by backlash, have made all kinds of casting simple for the beginner. Long popular in Europe, spinning reels now make up 75% of all reels sold in the U.S.

P:Light, monofilament line helps even inexpert casters to toss a lure as far as necessary. It has less air resistance than older, braided line, and is almost invisible to fish.

Lures of all sorts have been wondrously perfected. There are plugs with small propellers, plugs with built-in batteries and small flashlight eyes, plugs with odorous oils supposedly tantalizing to fish, plugs with a hole for Seltzer tablets that leave a trail of attractive bubbles along the bottom. "At one time," said Instructor Henry Lyman, publisher of Salt Water Sportsman, "someone discovered that bluefish would strike at the shankbone of an alley cat. For years when the blues were biting, you couldn't find a live cat in town. There are even lures out now with built-in fish calls. Or you can remove the dorsal fin from a live pigfish, drop him in the water, and his little squeals of discomfort will often attract sea trout."

Bluefish & Shark. Conservation experts at the course were careful to point out that, for all the improvements in tackle, they have little fear that streams or lakes will ever be fished out by sportsmen. The more fish caught, they maintained, the more the survivors can find food to grow to maturity. "Even state laws limiting the size and number of fish that can be taken are unnecessary in most cases," said North Carolina State's wildlife biologist, Dr. Ed Lowry. In almost all species, prolific egg production eventually results in far more adult fish than can be taken by hook and line.

While they tried to practice what the professors had been preaching, the students managed to snag an expected number of fly lines. Now and then an errant novice conked some careless spectator, as he tried surf casting with a dummy lure. But when the Gulf Stream boat put out, almost everyone was ready. More than a dozen fishermen (including a few instructors) got seasick, but the class came home with a total of 397 fish (ranging from a 65-lb. shark to a 1-lb. bluefish). No one was disappointed--not even the empty-handed angler who resorted to the simplest fish story of all, and often the truest: "I didn't catch a damn thing the whole time I was here, but I don't think I ever had a better time."

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