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Montauk and Darters
The "Professor's" Special
By Fred Schwab
In addition to the wetsuit High Hill members introduced other changes to surf fishing. For example, Gibbs darters and Bottle Plugs, Atom Striper Swipers and Atom 40’s and Juniors were sold with three sets of treble hooks and everyone that I knew or saw on the beach made no alteration to that. One night in the early 60’s, I believe it was Fritz Hubner and Roger Cronley (62-65), replaced the rear treble hooks on their darters with a single bucktailed hook. They had a great night on North Bar and found that they dropped very few fish. Within days many club members did the same and found that they not only seemed to be dropping fewer fish but that there was an improvement in the action of their swimming plugs. Over time nearly all of the Montauk crowd made the same change. During the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s the plug that caught more fish at night than all others combined was the darter. No regular worked a night tide in the fall without several of different colors in his plug bag. Except on very rough nights 10 of the 12 compartments in mine had a darter with one Atom and one Bottle Plug, just in case (that was in the 60’s and early 70’s). Because darters out fished everything else no one attempted to make a better one, those who fashioned their own duplicated the Gibbs. But a boat fisherman’s desire to try trolling a darter would change that. During 1965 Frank Arendt asked Jack Frech to make a big darter, one that he could troll behind his boat. Frank was a surf angler who had switched to launching a small tin boat from the beach, those who did so were part of what was referred to as Montauk’s mosquito fleet. During the winter of 65-66 Jack complied with Frank’s request.
Sometime after trying the finished product during the 1966 season Frank told jack that a piece of driftwood had better action, Frank’s language was more colorful. Several years prior to 1965 I had noticed that not all Gibbs darters swam in the same manner. Realizing that, I paid closer attention to which one’s produced more hits and spent a lot of timemaking comparisons. Even though the differing dimensions and angles were slight it became clear that the wider darters, roughly a sixteenth of an inch, with the head screw eye set back just a hair further than the norm and with a fractional difference in the shaping angles, had better swimming action. At about the same time the club was trying to negotiate a deal with Gibbs to purchase darters in large quantities at a reduced price. But Gibbs refused, noting that it was against their policy and that they sold only to tackle dealers or businesses. Al Kaich had a business, so through him the club purchased a gross of darters. By coincidence, on the day that Al received delivery we had a phone conversation and mentioned that he’d gotten them. I told him about my discovery, that not all Gibbs darters worked the same. That night at Al’s home we went through the entire gross and found roughly two dozen which were slightly wider. After using some of them Al agreed that the slightly fatter darter caught more fish. In 1966, Frech told us about the failure of his huge darters and noted that he’d made them by doubling all dimensions. We told him about our little secret and suggested that he place less attention to the length of the plug and focus on what gives it it’s action. Specifically it’s width, angles and placement of the front screw eye. That winter, targeting to make a better surf darter, Jack followed our advice and when satisfied with a particular design he produced about 15 of which he gave me 4 or 5. That fall 1967, we used almost exclusively and not only did they catch more fish but you could cast them further than the Gibbs. We managed to keep it a secret until the following year, never using them when someone was nearby. One night on Jones Reef Jack snapped one off, after the rip died the two of us spent over an hour still in our wetsuits, with flashlights searching for that plug along the beach and in the shallows all the way to Scotts. We did not want it to fall into other hands. During the fall of 1968 most club members were making “big darters’, but it was another year before anyone outside the club knew about them and not until the mid-seventies that some company began mass producing them. In addition to the many that I’ve made over the years I still have one from Jack’s first batch. I’ve found a few of the mass produced one’s and tried them, they’re okay but no where as good as Jack’s and the hand made copies of his.
Adopted from a book "The Complete History of the High Hill Striper Club " by Fred Schwab
Original Darter Made by Jack Frech
This originally appeared in The Fisherman's magazine on June 2,1988
Courtesy of The Fisherman Magazine
Reprinting or use of this article is strictly prohibited without consent from LIF Publishing Corp