We lost a good man yesterday. I first met John Scelfo at one of my first Asbury Park Fishing Club meetings back in 2011. I was the fly guy. The annoying one who showed up at 8th Avenue each morning asking around and trying to find a crevasse between the surfcasters to sneak in and make a cast. I wasn't like them. I didn't fish like them. I didn't catch like them. But I liked them.
The 8th Avenue Jetty in Asbury Park, the unofficial home to the Asbury Park Fishing Club, was a place where many fishermen were made, many big fish were caught, and stories of the big one that got away originated. And all along that were the friendships that lasted decades and still do to this day.
It was John who encouraged me to join the APPFC around 2011. I remember going to my first meeting and feeling sick to my stomach. I think they thought I was a PETA or game enforcement plant at first. It didn't take long to fit in and I think I finally made it when I would take pictures and videos at the annual fishing show at Convention Hall. It was at one of those early shows that John approached me
and in that very distinctive soft but kinda hoarse voice said, 'Here, Colin, you can use these better than I can". It was a box of flies tied by Harry Darby, of legendary Catskill fly tying fame. I have kept this gift from him since and could easily put my hand on it before I sat down to write this post.
John had deep roots in the city of Newark. The below pic just kind of brings my brain back to pictures or videos of Frankie Vallie or the Soprano's or anything else from that time period from America's Italian neighborhoods.
I wasn't a true friend of John's but the way he was everyone he would meet he would make them feel comfortable. He would be the guy to reach out and say hello to that person standing alone at the jetty or bar trying to fit in. Just because he said hello didn't mean you were in, but you at least felt acknowledged and not like an outcast. We had a mutual friend in legendary fireman from Newark, Mickey Martino, and those two are true buds for decades. Now he can tell you all about John.
John loved to fish. From the Jersey Shore to the Catskills, from Cape Cod and the Canal to Mexico, and all points in-between. He loved Nutley where he would settle down and buy a house and raise a
family with his wife Jane. He loved Subaru's. He loved to work with wood and his hands. He started TECH lures building plugs at home for fishing trips, for friends, and anglers around the East Coast. when he wasn't making plugs he was making spoons, dishes and anything else out of wood.
One of my favorite pictures of John is the one below. That's him at 8th Avenue in 1971. It's so like New Jersey striper fishing from the good old days. He has his patches on his jacket. He's got his jetty hip boots on. And he has a lived-lined herring at the end of that baitcaster waiting for a huge striped bass to exit, or try to enter, The Flume. I miss 8th Avenue. This post will make me go and fish it soon.
So RIP John Scelfo. May the moon, tides, bait and bass be going good up in heaven.