A tribute to Bobby Matthews

I’ve seen several tributes to Bobby Matthews during the last few days and am sharing this one posted by Andrew Meli on Facebook today:

“Robert Matthews hired me at the Fisherman’s Den when I was 16 years old. At the time I would have never known the impact it would have on my life. Working there, I met all the amazing friends I have today. If I never had that job, I would have never heard of Maritime college, and I would not have the career I have now. I owe everything good in my life to Bobby, all because he gave a kid who liked to fish a job.

We would talk about striper fishing for hours. Even on my days off I would go to the Den just to talk fishing with Bobby. I always considered him to be the best of the best and I know many others did as well. I learned so much from him and all the other guys at the shop. Going to the Fisherman’s Den will never be the same without seeing him behind the counter. But I know somewhere up above he’s on a jetty fishing a live herring, catching huge bass. And I know you’ll be right there along with me on every fishing trip”

All reactions:

Paul Castelli of Atlantic City got frozen out of a long-awaited duck hunting trip to the north, but made up for it by getting into the great striper fishing this fall along with his son Michael and friends..

At Belmar, the Big Mohawk didn’t sail due to the wind forecast, but the crew went out and a ball with the stripers.

The Golden Eagle reported another awesome day of striper fishing as everyone went home with fish.

Capt. Ron Santee said conditions were tougher today for his Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands — especially after the tide change. He ended up in the ocean with a 3-knot drift that kept the best drift total down to five. but the crew slugged away to a decent catch.

Tomorrow looks much better with northwest winds at 5 knots before changing to southwest 10-15 plus gusts to 20 in the afternoon.

Just before publishing,I got a call from Vinny D’Anton about a Monmouth County surf blitz that he got into around 11 a.m. The bass were spread over a very long stretch of beach, and he caught them up to 38 inches on the Lill DOC

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