By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
There were plenty of times during low tide when members of the Ocean City Fishing Club would look down toward the ocean and see only shallow water underneath their massive pier – or, even worse, nothing but beach sand.
But now, the club has rejuvenated the pier by extending it an additional 113 feet to bring it far out over the ocean, even at low tide.
Frank Pizzutilla, 80, a longtime club member and former president, said the water at the very end of the pier now ranges from 6 to 11 feet deep, giving members opportunities to fish round-the-clock.
He noted that it was pretty hard to fish before – when there was little or no water in which to cast a line.
“At dead low tide we had about a foot of water. We couldn’t fish for two hours before low tide and two hours afterward, so we lost four hours of fishing,” Pizzutilla said of conditions before the pier’s extension.
Ocean City’s beach replenishment projects over the years have widened the shoreline so much that sometimes there was sand underneath the pier where there used to be water.
“We would have people walk in front of the pier on the sand,” Pizzutilla said.
Those walks in front of the pier have ended. Where there was sand before, there is only water now.
With the extension, the pier now stretches a total of 748 feet from the Boardwalk at 14th Street, over the beach and out into the ocean. It is the longest the pier has ever been in the fishing club’s 108-year history.
Established in 1913, a year before the outbreak of World War I, the Ocean City Fishing Club is famous for being the oldest continuously operating fishing club in the United States.
Over the years, the pier has been battered and severely damaged by hurricanes and nor’easters. The Halloween storm in October 1991 essentially cut off the ocean end of the structure. Pizzutilla also said the pier was severed in half many years ago when a barge slammed into it.
The fishing club members kicked around the idea of extending the pier for years before the project got underway in 2016 when Pizzutilla was serving as president. It took two years just to secure the federal, state and city regulatory approvals needed to build the $500,000 project, which was financed by the club’s 210 members.
Construction got underway this winter and recently wrapped up. The contractor, Marine Maintenance, drove 32 timber piles, each 60 feet long, deep into the sand to serve as the underpinnings for the pier’s extension.
At the end of the pier is a 29-foot-by-50-foot deck that gives plenty of room for fishing. The deck also affords stunning panoramic views of the ocean and coastline that unfold for miles and miles.
“It’s breathtaking. It’s absolutely beautiful,” Pizzutilla said Sunday of the view as he followed the coastline south toward Cape May, using the water towers of each shore town as landmarks.
Although the fishing club is private, it has held a series of open houses to invite in the public. The open houses are a good way for residents and visitors to learn more about the pier and the club, all while experiencing the sweeping ocean views.
To gain a greater sense and appreciation of just how immense the pier is, imagine it standing straight up, like a building.
At 748 feet high, it would make for an impressive skyscraper. It would even eclipse the 710-foot-high hotel tower of the Ocean Casino Resort, by far the tallest building in Atlantic City.
Over the years, tournaments, casting contests and inter-club fishing team competitions have played a major role in the club’s activities. Jim Lanshe, 75, a longtime club member, said the pier’s extension will help to revitalize the tournaments and other activities.
“Now when we come out here, there will be even more excitement for the people who are fishing,” Lanshe said while standing at the end of the pier.
Another club member, Wade Evans, got his first look at the extended pier Sunday when he brought along his wife, Suzanne, and their 13-year-old son, Benjamin, and 8-year-old daughter, Willow, for some fishing.
Evans, 48, of Medford, recalled the times he would spend at the pier as a child when his father, Joe Mike Evans, brought him for fishing trips. The views of the coastline and ocean when he was a child were spectacular, but are even more captivating now that the pier has been extended, Evans said.
“The view has always been beautiful. Now, it just got much better,” he said.
But what really elevates the project to a higher level is what it has done for the fishing, Evans added.
“This is fantastic,” he said. “This has definitely improved things for the club members. Now, we can fish anytime.”
