Plum Island yesteryears

[Roccuschaser]

I grew up in Newbury, my father used to take me fishing on the PRWR back in the early 60's. He had an old CJ3a. Most beach buggies back then were 2wd panel trucks converted to campers. In 1965 my father bought a new jeep pu and put an 8' camper on the back, up to this time nobody had run such a heavy, large buggy on the beach, allot of the old timers said it wont work it will just sink in the sand, well they were wrong, it not only went smoothly over the sand but pulled many 2wd buggies out of holes. From the late 60's till the mid 70's my father was courtesy patrol on PI he was #137, when I got old enough I ended up with an old 4X4 chevy and put an old coachman on it I was #136. We attended the PI clean up for 20 years or more together. My father retired from the beach in the mid 70's but I continued into the mid 80's. Things started to change allot and not for the good of beach buggies all the old feds who liked us were retired and replaced with new officers, they didn't like us to the point of being harassed. It was for this reason I hung up my polls. I miss those days allot most all the crew I grew up with are gone now including my father but my memories of PI and all crew will live on forever. Mean while my polls that landed many bull and cow bass hang from my shop rafters next to my fathers an ever reminding of the good old days and the memories of the good old times and people I had the pleasure to meet and fish with.

[nance1597]

How very nice of you to share your story with us. Thank you.
I would love to see old pictures of PI.
We are still there and we drive the beach in the Fall. The fish are still there too, just not as big as yesteryear, but the same is true for everywhere.
It is still a beautiful place and we need to take advantage while we still can. It will be gone soon enough.
Thanks again for sharing! ;D

and I bet there are still a few oldtimers out there from your past.

[Roccuschaser]

I could go and on about stories from the old days. I only have a few pictures from those days as my sister ended up with all the photo albums, she moved to Colorado and past away, I tried to get her to send me the albums before she passed but I never got them. Maybe the few I have I can get scanned and converted to digital. Sept. was my favorite month for fishing PI, I used to fish the Ingamar for those of you who don't know where that is it's about 1/2 to 3/4 mile south of parking lot 3. I pulled many big bass out of that spot, if you fish hard from dusk till sunrise you will get big fish out of there. The Ingamar has a great story, at least the way it was told to me so I'll pass it on to all of you so the story can live on. Back in the late 1800's PRWLR was owned by the Parker family of Newbury, they used the salt marsh area to raise pigs and harvest pums, in the fall they would round up the pigs to bring to market. One winter a huge northeast storm hit the PI area and a clipper type ship called the Ingamar got washed up to the shore of PI. It was dead winter time. The crew thought they had landed on a deserted island and had no idea they were only within 5 miles of civilization. Most of the crew perished from hunger and hypothermia. There were at least 2 other ship wrecks on PI but I could never pin point them. Last I knew of the Ingamar is at low tide from time to time a piece if about 6X6 stump of wood sticks up out of the sand.
At this time I would like to mention some of the names of some of the original Beach buggy crew from the 60's maybe some of you here may remember them and I'm sure I can't remember all of them but here are the ones I remember in no particular order.
Angilos "Luckey" Garner
Bill and Betsy Jackson
Bob and Lou Larcome
Bob Smith (still active with PI Surfcasters last I knew)
George Mellow
Eric Porter
Fred (last name not coming to me but he went back to the 50's drove everything from model A's to Pontiac Catalinas on the beach)
Frank Delripple
Johnny Zare
Bill and Bunny Turner
Joe Carolitas
Ronnie Lemieux (no relation)
My father Ray Lemieux
Carl Eaton
Kenny Knowels
Al Lancaster? (can't remember last name but was Kenny's fishing partner)

There were a few others but can't recall their names, there were some that came and went but the list above were regulars there year after year. Maybe if some old timers read this they can add to the list. But as you can see there was quite a crew back then. I don't recall the MBBA coming to PI till the late 60's. I still have a Jeep and since last time out on PI have married and am a grandfather twice now. Some times I think it would be nice to get a duck stamp, put some rod mounts on the Jeep roof and take the wife out to PI and get the lines wet and let her see what I enjoyed for so many years.