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Jack Frech "The Professor "
By Fred Schwab
Jack was accepted into the club on 4/10/62 and remained a member until his resignation in December of 1975. He, his wife Marion and two daughters lived in Mineola, had a summer home in Southhold, and about 1971 purchased a house on Nantucket, presumably for retirement years. As a marine Captain during WWII he participated in landings on Okinawa, Peleliu and the Philippines. He was an elementary school principal in the Great Neck school system and
retired during 1976. Jack served on the Board 6 times and was Club President in 1965. He was also an active member of SOS for about two years during the latter half of the 60’s. he won or tied in a total of 17 contests, not a record for a member in terms of total contest wins, but the most for monthly club events. He won the club’s heaviest of species award for bass in 1966 and 68, and for bluefish in 1965, 1972 and tied for that honor in 1967. He amassed the highest annual amount of Schaefer points by a club member 10 times and club points 5 times. He never broke the 40 pound mark for bass while a member, but he told me that he had caught two bass of 49 pounds. At least one of those was taken at the south end of Turtle cove during the “great” Montauk bass blitz of 1958.
Jack was flat-out the fiercest competitor that I ever fished with and that is saying a lot because during the latter half of the 60’s there were a lot of hard fishermen at Montauk and in High Hill, and a number of them were fierce competitors. During much of the 60’s he contributed a great deal to the club, doing How To’s on making and using artificials, a specialty of his. He didn’t just make plugs but tinkered with designs of his own, but in place of the standard brass screw eyes he used sinker hangers which were epoxyied into the plug. While the club’s members were competitive before Jack came along, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that his presence indirectly helped to raise their level of fishing intensity, and of course, his use of the wet suit eventually led to High Hill as a group, being the first club to use that approach in the surf. For over two years during the latter half of the 60’s Jack and I were fishing partners when at Montauk, which was every weekend from early September into November. It was a good partnership while it lasted.While I got him to fish less during the day for bluefish and more at night in the rips with a darter for bass, admittedly I learned a great deal from him. The most valuable lesson came under the heading of discipline, something which he probably brought to fishing from his days in the Marine Corps. We developed a fixed routine. Fish an entire tide or the night trough, get some sleep, then to Kronuch’s if we had any fish to weigh, return to the Fort or some other quiet place along the beach. Lay our wetsuits out to dry, replace our shocker line, strip down and lubricate the reels with special attention given to the drag system and check for damage to the felts on our sneakers.
Then and only then, we would turn to the task of breakfast, which more often than not was after noontime. The coffee that we drank through the weekend would be from a huge pot which was the Friday leftovers from Jack’s school cafeteria, we just kept reheating it and by Sunday it would really curl your toes. After eating our breakfast/lunch (?), we’d check the rest of our gear and end our chores with everything in order for the coming night war in the waves and rips. What was left of the day would be spent taking a nap or trying to determine where to fish that night. Before starting a night of fishing we’d eat, usually a couple of thick roast beef sandwiches and always something with meat protein if it was to be a cold night. I do not remember us ever varying that routine except when a successful night of fishing ended on or about the time Kronuch opened his shop. On those occasions we’d drive to town, still in our wetsuits, weigh the fish, then back to the Point to sleep and the rest of our routine.
Adopted from a book "The Complete History of the High Hill Striper Club " by Fred Schwab, edited by Zeno Hromin.