William C. Fowler
angler
Washington angler who, fishing the Ocean City surf with his brother Roland Fowler for a week in September 1928, landed the first two channel bass taken at the resort that season — his own 23½ pounds, his brother's 18½ — and wrote to the Evening Star's fishing column to say so. His letter is the entire documentary record of fishing at Ocean City in 1928: a corpus query for the town's name with 'marlin OR tuna OR fishing' scoped to that year returns nothing at all.
In the record (1)
1928 · 1928-09-24
"Our party was fortunate in that we landed the first two channel bass caught at Ocean City this season" — 23½ and 18½ pounds, September 1928.
Evening Star fishing column, 24 September 1928, quoting a letter from William C. Fowler: "It may interest your column to know that the surf fishing at Ocean City now is at its best. I have just returned from a week's fishing with my brother Roland Fowler at this resort and we had excellent fishing every day. Large trout are plentiful. We caught fish ranging from 2 to 6 pounds in large numbers, and another party fishing below us on the beach landed one big trout weighing 9½ pounds. King fish, hardheads and other smaller fish can be taken in good numbers. Our party was fortunate in that we landed the first two channel bass caught at Ocean City this season. The one I caught weighed 23½ pounds and the one taken by my brother weighed 18½ pounds. The last morning before we left we fished for a short while and landed about fifteen nice trout, the largest weighing about 5 pounds." The columnist's own view: "It is rather late for anglers to visit Ocean City, Md., for their fishing…"
Surf fishing, not boat fishing — the whole account is written from the beach. Ocean City's offshore sport-fishing identity, the marlin and the White Marlin Capital, is six years off; in 1928 the record is two brothers standing in the wash with channel bass, and a Washington columnist who thinks September is too late to bother.
Source · checked 2026-08-06