Squibnocket Bass Stand
Photo Credit Frank Woolner
If you have ever fished Martha Vineyard, or even read about fishing the Vineyard, you have likely heard about the famous striped bass stands at Squibnocket Point. Note I said stands. Years ago, there were actually 8 of them in a line. Built about 1869 for use by wealthy gentleman mainly from Manhattan, who sought large striped bass using peeled lobster tails as bait. Lobster as bait? Well in those year small lobsters could be purchase $1.50 per hundred! Imagine that? These anglers were members of the Squibnocket Fishing Club, which closed it doors in 1888, as the bass fishing declined.
There is a lot more to this history, but I wanted to show you how those stands were fastened to Squibnocket Point. Obviously, there were no power tools in 1869. So you had to drill into those hard rocks by hand. Quite a slow, arduous undertaking in a slippery location awash in seaweed and surf. I bet they drilled small diameter holes first and then gradually widening each of them to accept a vertical cast iron support. These supports became the legs off which you could suspend a platform.
Now these legs needed to be firmly in place, or the stand would wobble and fall with our warning. Dangerous. As the photo to the left shows, this was accomplished by driving spikes in alongside the supports to lock the legs in place. Probably had to be retightened from time to time. And cast iron rusts quickly in salt water, so likely the Club had to clean and oiled the supports regularly as well. In the 1950’s the last two stands were rebuilt. I took this photo roughly 30 years ago, and the cast iron is nearly totally gone.
