The bass boat veered into an abrupt 90-degree turn, exposing its port side against the rushing tide and breaking seas. The skipper was yelling instructions to the angler kneeling on deck, bent over the gunwale, his heavy rod braced against the coaming. The massive linesider, straining against the restraint of the wire line, was now within reach of the long-handled gaff, which did not miss its mark.
“Keep pressure on that line and keep your heads down. I’m moving out before we lift her in the boat.” It was darker than the inside of an inkwell, yet the crusty Cuttyhunk guide was not about to give anything away as he pulled out of the roiling rip and got out into less turbulent water. This was not a one-handed striper; the skipper lifted the gaff while the angler took hold of the heavy mono leader, their joint effort rolling her over the rail and into the crowded cockpit. The big linesider was far from subdued as she thrashed about the deck, looking for something to snag with the heavy trebles protruding from the metal lure imbedded in her massive jaw.
“Hand me the bat and watch your feet. She’s still plenty green. She’s a strong forty, might even go fifty. One word out of either of you about what we’re using and you will never work this deck again.” The seasoned anglers had heard this before, and while the skipper was busy extracting the silver Russelure from the bony maw of the striper, they shared a knowing grin.
That was a firsthand account shared with me many years later when one of those fishermen told me about the deadly banana-shaped lure. One of the worst-kept secrets of the Cuttyhunk guides was their lures of choice. If it wasn’t a big Goo-Goo Eye swimmer or an eel-skin rig or plug, it was probably a Russelure.
I saw my first Russelure wedged in the mouth of a dead striper on ice in a guide’s fish box. When that man caught me staring at his lure, he cussed me out and threatened to toss me off the dock. I made up my mind that, as soon as possible, there would be one hanging on the lip of my lure bucket. I didn’t know anything about the lure except that it caught fish, and I had never seen one for sale in any of the tackle shops I frequented. This was long before computers, so I spent hours in the research department of the library, reading texts that were several years less than current. My research ended in a dead end.
This is where my recollection gets somewhat murky. Russ Malone, my fishing partner of over 30 years, was the beneficiary of a charter trip to Cuttyhunk…
