NEWBURY — It may be a tad too cold to break out the weighters and your sticker-strewn tackle box just yet, but the spirit of fishing is alive and well amid the River Rival Region, and a new documentary is set to warm the casting arm of every fisherman along the North Shore.
Plum Island resident James Waldron, a still photographer and owner of his own self-titled marketing and design company, dedicated three years of his life to capture the culture of Plum Island's fishing community. After 100 hours of shooting footage, another 600 hours going through his recordings, and then another 300 editing the film to completion, Waldron finally released his labor of love and the first film ever to document the fishing culture of Plum Island, "Reel People: Fishermen of Plum Island."
More often than not seen motoring around in Tetnaus, Waldron's rusty aluminum 18-foot skiff, the self-taught fisherman and Chelmsford native explained that his love for fishing initiated when he moved to the shores of Plum Island in 2000 — fishing every which way a person could.
Nearly three years ago on a Tuesday night, Waldron's love for fishing abruptly came to a head while meeting with other Plum Island Surfcasters. Amid a handful of members, a pair of 8 millimeter videos Plum Island resident and local fishing hero Bob Smith had taken during the 1950s and '60s sparked Waldron's imagination and set the course to extend what Smith had begun decades prior.
"When he showed us those films, I just thought they were fantastic," said the 49-year-old Waldron. "It was so interesting, it prompted me to figure out a way to show people exactly what type of people make up this fishing community."
A little before May 2006, Waldron bought an HD Sony camera and began to shoot. His footage spanned two full fishing seasons, and he interviewed 125 people — only two of which turned down statements — who ranged from 5-year-olds to 85-year-olds.
A one-man crew from start to finish, Waldron's journey mapped every feasible fishing spot around the Plum Island area, including Emerson Rocks, Joppa Flats, the Parker River, the Merrimac River, the jetties, and the reservations, including the Polio Camp and High Sandy Dunes, to name a few.
Once Waldron decided he had enough footage, then came the task of editing — a chore that took the majority of last spring and a total of five months to complete.
"It was so much more work than I expected it to be," Waldron said. "It took three years. I thought it would take one."
Reel People was released in November and was shown to the PISC shortly thereafter.
"It was very good, very clever," Smith said. "It was nice to see the footage we used to take on our beach buggies. We showed that at the club one time, and I'm glad it was used to such nice effect."
Earlier this week at Northern Essex Community College, the one-hour film — generally 125 hours of footage is needed for a one-hour documentary — was shown to the New England Saltwater Flyrodders, where 65-year-old John Mulvany, a member of both the NESF and the PISC fishing clubs who has been fishing around Plum Island for the past 30 years, was on hand to view the film.
"He did a great job on the film," Mulvany said. "The way he showed the different types of characters that fish around Plum Island was very well-done; it's certainly nice for the area."
As much as the film talks about fishing, the film's core centers around the myriad of faces spread among the island.
"The film is not so much about fishing as it is about the fishermen around Plum Island," Waldron said. "The people who come from far and wide to visit the area, young and old, who for some reason have this desire to go outside and throw stuff into the sea."
When Waldron first began shooting his film, his first misconception was unearthed early on.
"I thought it was a deep philosophical thing initially, but it really turned out to be a thing for these people to do outside," Waldron said. "It ranges from people who just want to catch a fish, to people who only want to catch that elusive 50-pound striper, and to all places in between.
"The allure of catching the fish is almost secondary," Waldron said. "It's really the appeal of being outside in the fresh air, and enjoying the sea — catching the fish is really sort of a bonus."
Another interesting thing Waldron discovered was the mystique of Kay Moulton's Surfland's Bait and Tackle on Plum Island, and how the shop was a meeting place and Plum Island cultural boom of sorts.
"Surfland is not just a place to go to buy a fishing book, it's more of cultural focal point for the fishermen of Plum Island," Waldron said. "Everyone who fishes around the area knows the place, and the more I looked into it, Surfland really became this integral spot for local fishermen. It serves a more valuable purpose than just a place to go and buy bait."
Moulton, who is a key character in the documentary, was happy to see Plum Island finally getting such worthy treatment.
"It was very good," Moulton said. "The film did a fine job showing who these fishermen are, how they fish, and why they fish; definitely a good study on the island's fishermen."
The film, which will be appearing at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts in early April — tentatively dated for April 4 — will be showcased further when the Firehouse Center's gallery will be adorned with a time capsule of photos tracing back to the 1950s, and people from the film will be talking about Reel People and their experiences fishing on Plum Island.
"I learned that the fishing culture on Plum Island is much larger than I expected, and it's a really important piece of peoples' lives as opposed to just a hobby," Waldron said. "There are some extremely devoted fishermen, and there are those that only go out once or twice a year, but what they share is what links them: a very deep enjoyment of making a day out of fishing."
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