The story of surf casting legend Harry Aiken

The summer heat comes in waves. With hotter temperatures, the fish will shut down and the catch frequency decreases. Fishing early morning predawn or later evening into dark is the best bet for hotter days.

The recent cool-off turned the spot and croaker bite back on at the Cape Henlopen Fishing Pier. Flounder fishing there went dry for a while with the heat then picked back up as things cooled off. There are more flounder around the inland bays, the surf and offshore. That action has been better and consistent. However, anglers will find less keepers around the inland bays compared to offshore. That doesn’t mean you can’t catch keepers in the canal and inland bays, just that it is harder, or annoying picking through the smaller fish.

Jigging has been the best with gulp, but drifting minnows abides. The surf is loaded with flounder as well. I am looking forward to fishing the point bayside again with a fly rod. Believe it or not, I get to go out once in a while and actually fish, too.

The tautog action is fast for short fish at the Indian River Inlet, with some keepers in between. Sheepshead are being caught, mostly on sand fleas. Easy to go grab a bucket of those at the beach. Or, as Christina Puglisi said while catching tautog at the inlet with Laura Foerster, “We picked a bunch of fresh sand fleas today.”

Me: “You mean like off a tree?”

She just laughed, because of me being me. “OK, maybe pick wasn’t the best word.”

The ladies have been pulling fishing trip trifectas; morning surf fishing, then boat fishing, and then to the inlet to catch tautog to finish off the day.
Use Fishbites and squid for spot and croaker. Change up baits when fish aren’t biting on hotter days, and fish deeper water.

Striped bass summer slot season in the Delaware Bay ends Aug. 31. Please remember, only one fish per angler per day. That was changed a couple years ago with the new slot limits.

Offshore anglers are doing well on the usual suspects — the big fish (tuna, tilefish, billfish) way out front and the sea bass, etc., inshore. Triggers are still a bycatch of sorts. Call your favorite charters for a trip. The flounder offshore has been good fishing.

Shark fishing from the beaches has become an issue with people not following the rules for prohibited shark species. I wrote an article interviewing Fish and Wildlife Enforcement a few years ago. The rules and information still apply. Search online for “Shark Fishing In Delaware … The Rules Clarified,” or go directly to www.delaware-surf-fishing.com/shark-fishing-delaware-rules-clarified.

We are in the full-on end of summer fishing: surf, pond, bay, offshore and inshore. Not much changes this time of year, except the frequency of catches. What doesn’t change much either is the heat waves. We hope for storms to cool us off and the water. Instead of a long, drawn-out fishing report of the same things happening, I want to tell you about a friend of mine, a living legend.

The Indian River Inlet has a new addition. On the southside facing the inlet near the sidewalk access at the top of the parking lot is a bench with a sign: Catching Waves. The history of Delaware’s surf fishing is explained on the sign with a timeline. There is a QR code to get more information on your smart phone. Next to the sign is an unassuming bench, just like any normal park bench. Soon it will have a plaque installed, because the two people it honors are legends in Delaware’s surf fishing community: Harry and Dottie Aiken.

I want to thank Director of Delaware State Parks Ray Bivens and Representative Steve Smyk for making this bench and the dedication happen. Long story short — because the how is a very long one — they called me and asked, “What could we do for Harry Aiken?”

I said the best thing would be to name the unnamed surf fishing crossings (middle and south) at Fenwick Island State Park after Harry and his wife Dottie. That would be fitting in so many ways, it would take a few pages to tell you why.

They eventually opted for the bench and the sign. Thank you, gentlemen, I know you made my friend Harry Aiken, the GOAT of surfcasting, very happy.

Why is Harry the GOAT of surfcasting?

That story involves a small leather stitched ball and Yankee stadium.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with my friend Harry Aiken and talk surf fishing.

He will tell you, “I don’t tell fishing stories, I tell truths.”

He does, as well as any angler.

Harry has been fishing the Delaware beaches for over 75 years, before parks even existed.

I was so excited I was going to talk to the man who knew every nook and cranny of the beaches and Indian River Inlet. What sort of secrets would he divulge to me? What knowledge could I extract from his lifetime of memories to help improve my surf fishing?

Harry is that guy that pulls up on a beach, grabs a rod and starts yanking in fish, one after another. This is usually in front of people who have been fishing all day without a catch. When asked how he did it, he would tell them, “You’re fishing in the wrong spot,” and then show them where they went wrong.

I have heard this story from many a surf angler. “Yeah, we weren’t catching anything and then Harry Aiken pulls up and starts hammering fish, leaves with a bucketful of kings, meanwhile we are still on the skunk. How does he do that?!”

Well, I had the opportunity to find out the how, when and why one day years ago. I met Harry at his house in Georgetown, sitting around the kitchen table with Bait and Tackle, his two Bombay cats from his shop Ole Salt Bait and Tackle.

So what is the first thing I ask the grandmaster of the Delaware surf, our own living legend of surf fishing, a world champion surf caster, the GOAT? “Harry,”

I said, “Tell me about the baseball.”

He just smiled. ...

On June 8, 1968, Harry Aiken cast a baseball out of Yankee Stadium, over right field, between games during a double-header between the Yankees and the Orioles, in front of a stunned silent crowd. No one, then or now, has ever hit a baseball out of Yankee Stadium. Harry Aiken cast one out of the park, twice, with a surf rod.

I remember my grandfather telling me about this when I was very young, about 10 years after. I was a month old when Harry accomplished this feat.

I have heard this story from many an angler here, but I have always wanted to hear the entire story. Now don’t get me wrong, I had a million questions to ask Harry and we will get to those in good time. I was dying to hear about the cast that made Harry Aiken a living legend.

He didn’t just go to Yankee Stadium and cast a ball out of the park. His casting abilities, skills and accuracy was what brought him to New York that year.

In the ‘60s, the American Casting Association held casting and accuracy tournaments up and down the East Coast on the town beaches. They were sponsored by The Ballantine Beer–Garcia Tackle company. They used these tournaments as a way to promote their products. Back in those days, it was mostly accuracy contests not distance casting. since these were held near piers and boardwalks as public events. Like any promotional event, these eventually run their course, but these accuracy tournaments went on for quite some time.

Harry entered a casting contest held in Rehoboth Beach in 1964 and found out he could cast very accurately; he came in fourth that day. That afternoon, he went home and set up a practice field in Georgetown. He formed up a team, the County Casters Club. With his wife Dottie, John Bister, Elaine Bister, Leon Johnson, George Brown and Jim West, the Delaware team was born.

He met John Bister one day at a football field, while he was practicing casting. Bister wanted to know, “what kind of fish he thought he was going to catch in a football field.” Harry explained what he was doing, John joined the team, and they have been friends ever since.

During these tournaments, Harry broke the world record three times, that he set three times. Finally, with a perfect score of 100 out of 100, there was no way to break that score.

He was called the “GOAT” — Greatest Of All Time — by many surf casters up and down the East Coast. He still is to many of us surf anglers.

Not only was Harry a world champion surf caster, Dottie held the state championship for a year and was the highest scoring female caster. In fact, when Harry’s crew showed up at the tournaments, people already knew who would be placing and winning.

Back then, long casters hitting a 450-foot cast was a long cast. Harry’s longest was 605 feet in a tournament.

So how does a Georgetown, Delaware, boy wind up casting for the “fence” at Yankee Stadium? What kind of gear do you use to get that kind of distance? I mean, look at the gear now compared to those days. I wanted to know, too.

During the American Casting Association tournaments, Harry met Sal Muley, a promoter for Ballantine Beer-Garcia Tackle, and he wanted to take this casting tournament on the road, so to speak. He was looking for an event to fill in the dead time between baseball games and before games. He came up with the event Cast A Ball.

Teams of surfcasters or baseball players would cast for base hits and Harry would cast clean-up. When Sal showed him Yankee Stadium, he asked Harry if he could cast a home run. Harry being Harry, said, “No problem, give me a couple of weeks, and I will cast it out of the stadium.”

Harry noticed that the baseballs would just shudder and drop at about 320 feet. He needed to figure out a way to make that ball take all of the rod’s energy from the cast and not drop. He took some baseballs home and practiced.

He discovered if he could make the ball spin, it would travel farther. Little did he know just how far. When he came back a few weeks later, he was ready to cast for the fence. He knew he could easily hit the target for a home run. He was casting as clean-up for the Cast A Ball teams.

It was not required to cast a baseball out of the park for the home run. But Harry decided where is the fun in that? He wanted to go for "the fence.”

At the first-ever Cast A Ball demonstration, on his first cast, Harry cranked that surf rod. But his foot slipped forward and the ball went into the 12th row of the second level of the stadium. Impressive? Absolutely, but not for Harry.

While the crowd was still bewildered from the first cast, Harry looked at Sal Mulney and said, “This next one is going somewhere, I don’t know where exactly, but it is going somewhere.”

Harry dragged that ball along the ground, got the spin he wanted and put everything he had into that cast. The ball took off like a shot, with the full energy of the surf rod. The baseball cleared the stadium and was still climbing when it went over the wall at 344 feet out and 120 feet up. The bewildered crowd was now stunned into silence. By the time Harry rounded second base, the stadium of 43,000 people went wild realizing what just happened.

No human has ever sent a baseball over the wall at Yankee Stadium, and this guy just did it with a fishing rod. No one ever found the ball, so they don’t know how far it actually traveled. Harry will tell you it probably landed in a passing coal car on the train nearby and went even farther.

From that point on, Harry was known as the man who cast a baseball out of Yankee Stadium. A legend. He even pitched a few casts in practice to hitters and, of all people, struck out Mickey Mantle, twice. So says the legend of surfcasting.

The Cast A Ball event traveled to other stadiums. Harry cast two balls out of Yankee Stadium, four out of Shea, two out of Kennedy, and one that hit the rim of the Astrodome. To this day, no one has ever done this, nor do I believe anyone ever will.

Long casting nowadays hits distances over 900 feet, with modified equipment. Harry did it with a basic surf rod from the ‘70s. He may have told me about that rod he built, but that is for another day, maybe.

I think the only cast that would top Harry’s feat today is to send a baseball out of a football stadium, the long way.

In one day, Harry Aiken opened and closed a chapter in the story of baseball as a surfcasting legend. To me, that is just my buddy Harry being Harry.