Fishing with Buck Rogers in the 20th Century

If you follow my blog then you know about my love of fishing the outer banks. Ginsoaked boy, will you testify? On a cold Sunday in January, 1988 I was fishing with Buck Rodgers for bluefish in the surf north of the Kitty Hawk Pier. We had tried a few places farther south earlier in the day with no success. The bluefish blitzes that were the stuff of legend had dwindled in the last years. I fished a lot of them with Frank, Buck’s dad. Then, we both hooked up on simultaneous casts. We both landed 8 lb. plus stripped bass. Someone came over the dune with a camera and took pictures. I saw the guy with the camera again a couple of weeks later and he gave me a photo of myself holding up my catch. This is my first attempt at a self portrait. Always the Aggie, my thumb is up. I did not realize it at the time, but I witnessed the end of the famous bluefish runs. The bluefish are still out there. Commercial fishermen are catching a lot bluefish right now just off shore. I don’t know why they don’t chase bait fish out of the water the way they used to. The stripped bass has replaced the bluefish in that part of the food chain in my chunk of the Atlantic ocean, just east of North Carolina Highway 12 (aka the beachroad). It is very difficult to bring amounts of paint to the canvas that would fit easily on the tip of a pin. Acrylic on canvas 6"X8"

On Rick Nilson painting Rick Nilson.