During 1960 when the Club began fishing at the end of the Thumb we wouldn’t help but notice the massive sand pile, which extended beyond the Democrat Point jetty. While it blocked a view of the ocean, every dawn and dusk clouds of gulls would be balled up and diving, not just over the unseen ocean shoreline, but along the sand bars which 
fingered their way westward. We all talked about it, but there was no way to get there. The Moses Bridge was still in the future! In June or July of 1961, High Hill members Walter Cox, Leo Ottesen and Larry Knowles found a way. They rented a boat and motor at the Oak Beach Fishing station which was located a few yards east of the Oak Beach Inn. They anchored in the shallows on the backside of Demo, walked to the ocean and in a few hours caught an impressive number of small bluefish and bass. It didn’t take long for other members to follow their lead. On 8/19/61 the Democrat sand pile was the location of a daytime club contest with nearly 100% participation,…but no fish were caught. I don’t remember just how all of us got over there that day, but shortly after they first trip by Cox, Ottesen and Knowles club member Artie Glass (1955-68), spoke to Carter Henderson, operator of the Fishing Station, regarding the use of his boats. Carter, a former member and honorary member of High Hill (1954-59), agreed to our using his boats for night trips at no charge, it being understood that we supply the outboard motors and return the boats to his dock in a clean condition no later than 7:30 in the morning so that he could rent them to paying customers. At about that time someone made contact with a boy named Tommy Bertram who lived in Oak Beach. Tommy had a Boston Whaler and for $2.00 a head would bring us over to Democrat in the evening and pick us up after daybreak the following day. His father would not allow him to use the boat at night. That was fine with us for it was dusk, night and dawn that we wanted to fish. I believe that it was Tommy that ferried most of us over for that 8/19 contest. At first we were reluctant about using Tommy’s services, he was only about 14 or 15 years old; did he know how to safely operate that boat and would he be reliable? It didn’t take long to find out that his father had taught him well. He was a bright kid, knew where every sandbar and dangerous current was and would not allow us to overload the boat, his limit was 3 guys at a time, and 4 only on rare occasions. 
Fishing was good to excellent from late May to mid-September and you could count on one hand the number of Friday and Saturday nights from 1962 to July of 1964 when no High Hill members boated over to Demo. I believe there were about 6 or 7 members who were regulars, rarely missing their once a week trip, and a similar number who made one or two trips a month. Some preferred Fridays, others Saturdays and on occasion two or three guys who didn’t have to work the next day went during the week. My normal routine was to go on a Friday night as was the case for Andy Wiechert (1961-66), and Adam Miechowski (1961-66). Bob Rance (1958-84) and Frank Arendt (1960-79), preferred Saturday’s but the norm was usually 4 to 6 a night. Al Kaich (1958-72) and his son Steve, Artie Glass, Lou Malek (1953-72), Charlie Engelhard, Al Rees, Tony Wasniewski, Cox, Ottesen and Knowles made the trip whenever they could. Jack Gilmore (1961-70) and Phil Mandel (61-64), made frequent trips but preferred daylight hours. I made 33 trips over plus 3 or 4 which I did not record because there were no fish. Dredging to create a new channel across the Democrat sand pile was scheduled to begin about the same time, June 1964, as the Moses Bridge was to be opened to traffic. We knew that those two events would put an eventual end to our days at Democrat, so many of us squeezed in as many trips as possible from late May to the last week of June. The Bridge was scheduled to be opened on the afternoon of the 13th and we labeled that the day of infamy. About 6 or 7 of us went over for the night of the 12th and while we took a few fish on sandworms, it was slow. On a hunch I walked to the back rip at the bottom of the tide. Using darters I immediately dropped two fish, took one and had several hits. I vowed to return for the night of the 13th and Al Rees and Adam Miechowski did likewise. Outgoing would not begin until after 11pm so we brought along worms to fill the time waiting. A bit before dark the first guy to have ever crossed the bridge and walk to the end came in sight. As luck would have it Al was just landing a small bass on bait and while he intended to release it, in the process this guy would have seen it. Al put it under an orange crate and as soon as the guy passed us he’d release it. 
Well he came over and asked us how we were doing, we told him it was dead and at that very moment the orange crate started bouncing around like a Mexican jumping bean. They guy rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and walked away! We continued fishing with unbaited hooks and eventually the guy disappeared. We did very well in the rip that night, it was loaded with bass to 11 pounds and there was non-stop action on darters for over two hours. My last trip to Democrat by boat was 6/26/64 and the rip was again loaded with bass. On the 19th and 26th of July I walked from the Moses Parking lot catching very small blues along the way both times and noting in my fishing log “dredge destroying everything'. We did not catch big fish there, in fact I’m quite certain that the largest bass was a 16-10, caught by Andy Wiechert on 9/14/63, which took a 3 day Moriches to Democrat Club contest. I don’t know what the largest blue was, by largest was a bit over 6 pounds. Since we did not take a big fish at Democrat one might ask, what was the attraction? Perhaps of greatest significance was the fact that it was a frontier, a place no one else had explored, at least not thoroughly. We had discovered and, for the 3 years before it was destroyed, carefully guarded it’s secrets. HIGH HILL members had it all to themselves; it was ours and ours along. In addition, it was a consistent producer of fish and action of blitz proportions not unusual. While the 1960’s may seem like a long time ago, productive locations not found by surf anglers by then were few and far between.There were a few anglers who occasionally four-wheeled it to Democrat from Saltaire and other western Fire Island communities, but never in the morning and except on one occasion they never stayed after dark. When they were around we actually tried not to catch fish and never used lures or bait, which were most effective. Once rule which we always adhered to was that fish, which were kept, were never left on the beach or on a stringer during daylight hours. They were placed in a bag in the boat or buried next to the boat. Boats were usually pulled up on the beach. Drag marks were always erased!
Adopted from a book "The Complete History of the High Hill Striper Club " by Fred Schwab
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