History

Harry A. Beach

Ocean City fishing correspondent to the Evening Star · active 1932

Of Ocean City, Md. From July 1932 he undertook to keep the Evening Star's 'Rod and Stream' column, written by Perry Miller, 'informed of fishing conditions at this popular resort'. His reports give the campaign the 1932 season from inside the town: over ninety channel bass landed in one week and the best red drum season anyone could remember; an 18-pound-1-ounce trout taken with rod and reel near Fenwick's Wreck, north of Ocean City, reported as an all-time record; heavy daily catches of bluefish, trout and hardheads in the bay on peeler bait; and the commercial fishermen's view that the proposed inlet was 'the most important construction project launched at Ocean City in a decade'.

In the record (1)

  1. 1933 · 1933-07-28

    'Not in 10 years has surf fishing been so good' — the summer before the inlet made Ocean City a fishing port

    Harry Beach kept feeding the Evening Star's 'Rod and Stream' column all summer from Ocean City. 14 July: 'And now the kingfish are here. You don't have to go out in a boat to get them. They are being caught in large numbers surf fishing at most any point along the boardwalk.' 28 July: 'Not in 10 years has surf fishing been so good, say old fishermen at Ocean City, Md. A remarkable run of large kingfish has inhabited the water just off the three mile stretch of beach fronting this resort… And something very unusual, as all experienced anglers will readily admit, good size blues are being hooked from the surf. It's been years since blues were so near shore.' The channel bass were running 23 to 50 pounds off Fox Hill Levels; a July northeaster 'did considerable damage to the pound nets of commercial fishermen'. Then in October, after the storms, the beach itself had changed: 'they report that the terrific storms of last month washed the sand down, so that now one has to wade over 100 feet into the ocean to do any surf-casting… Before the storm, 25 feet was plenty.' Nothing in 786 pages mentions a marlin.

    Source · checked 2026-08-10