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It’s taken me a while to accept what happened. I thought Tim would be one of those guys that were around forever. When I was a young hungry surfcaster in the 1970s he was someone I revered after reading about his exploits chasing striped bass on the pages of The Fisherman Magazine. The first time I met him was at a seminar that was held on a cold February night in Mystic, probably around 1980, the slide show seminar was about chasing stripers in the RI surf.
I was able to speak with Steve McKenna yesterday and reminisce about Tim, a conversation I really needed, thank you Steve. As Pat Abate stated, Tim was very private and other than fishing we didn’t know much about his life. He took care of his mother until she passed a few years back. I can remember him calling me and asking what part of the Newport Cliff Walk would be easily accessible so he could take his elderly mom for a walk. For the past 10 years or so we spoke almost every week during casting season – I looked forward to his Friday morning phone calls seeking the weekly Newport surf fishing report. Although he loved chasing striped bass he was absolutely addicted to Cod/Pollack fishing and was always looking for new wrecks to investigate. He asked me if I had any old Navy charts that would show him new potential wrecks. I have an index to articles written for The Fisherman Magazine that covers the time period of 1975 – 1994. I was able to count 231 articles that Tim wrote, many of those about wrecks.
Once I told Tim that I was into a bite of large stripers that kept throwing my plugs. I just couldn’t keep them buttoned. Two days later, unannounced, I received a package in the mail from Tim. It contained some custom Andrus Jig heads with extra strong hooks and 9 inch black Berkeley Power Grubs along with a short handwritten note stating, “Next time those bass throw your plugs tie on one of these.” The next tide I used those worms to hook and finally land a handful of cows. Just last year I wrote an article about Red Gill teasers. Two days later I get a box from Tim with a dozen different teasers that he had used over the years. Again a very short note was included, “Dennis, give these a try, they’ve worked well for me.” Most of the time Tim was a man of few words – he wouldn’t say a lot – but he would tell you enough.
Tim also loved watching football, if there was a Monday night game you could be sure he wouldn’t be out casting, well at least until the end of the game when he might take the long walk to Naps.
Just last Friday Timmy called me and we had our final conversation; I figured he was starting the weekly surf reports. Nope, he just called to chat and see how things were going. He also talked about the phenomenal Tarpon fishing he was able to get into this past winter. He told me I would love it as it was 10-40 pound fish, some bigger, and all surf. “You HAVE to come down here and fish next winter,” he said. His description of the fishing had me so excited about the prospect it was difficult to get back to work after I hung up the phone.
Tim was also someone that inspired me to write about what we both loved to do – chase striped bass in the surf. After writing few articles for his magazine he asked me to do a Block Island article about the great bite of the 1980s. I started writing that article and it ended up becoming my book project about the Snowstorm Blitz. Tim assisted me with it along the way. Now as my project nears completion I’ll have some edits to make. The most difficult key strokes will be adding my friend “Timothy Coleman” to the Dedication Page.
Rest in peace my friend.
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