Now many of you won't know where the above photo was taken. It was taken in 2010. That was long before some storms, and the big one, destroyed it forever. Well the above is what used to be the entrance
to the beach at Phillips Avenue in Deal. It was a special place. A place to go and sit with a cup of coffee
and relax and watch the surf. It was a place where anglers would gather scouting out the ocean for the presence of birds, bait and fish, specifically those that show when they're around. It was even a place that you could fish from depending on the tide and moon phase. Several times I would be on the beach
and run over to assist the angler perched way up on the wood. Back in those days everything was kept.
Phillips Ave, like so many of the groins in Jetty Country, were so much better back in the day. It was long, had a little dog leg right going out, and created pockets on both sides that were a catch point of
baits that would get trapped by predator fish. One thing you can see is how long that groin was. Well no longer. Phillips Avenue is just a nub of a groin and below is where the beach end now starts. Before I
went to "press" with this post at 5 o'clock this morning I took a quick look at it again. The images above had me doubt it was Phillips Avenue. Was it more Marine Place? The reason I questioned myself was that dog leg. Did Phillips curl
around to the right? Was it that long? Well yes it was. I went back in and looked for more images and found the above taken from 3/4 of the out on Phillips. Journalistic integrity going on there.
Phillips Ave was where I first met Al Walker. He was a regular there, for like 50 years. Leif remembers him as a kid, Leif, not Al. Although he lived in Allenhurst he called Phillips Ave home.
Many of the images I have from Al have some part of the pier in it. That goes for the rest of the boys as well. We would go on to form "The Phillips Avenue Gang" and outside of a good night of drinks with
some food at the original Mr. C's in Allenhurst one late night all we did was fish together. But it was always good to see the guys down there and you could bank if someone down there didn't catch then there were no fish to be had. This "gang" called Whitehall to Darlington ours.
The pier and the beaches on either side of it were shared by the anglers, the locals, and the swimmers and surfers. You can see in the below photo a piece of plywood that went across the opening down to the stairs. That was in the spring of 2011. Weather had beat up the stairs enough to where they were
unsafe and had to be taken down by the town. That didn't stop us from walking along the metal shoring that ran on the north side of the pier leading to the rocks. By the time 2012 came after along winter the
pier was off limits but it still made for a nice backdrop while taking pictures. It was such a great place and the memories of the good hangs, fishing, and fish stories told there are etched in my memory. Gone
is the wood, and many of the older guys who called this home, but my memory of watching and listening to them will forever be a part of my fond memories. Those guys traded secrets, plugs, lures, spots, and techniques because it was all before social media blew everything up. Plus, these were men
were talking about. Loyal to the fishery, and loyal to each other. You had to be in with this gang to get in the know about how it was fishing. In 2012 Sandy put the nail in the pier's coffin. Parts of it were all the way back onto Ocean Avenue. I have plenty of images from Phillips Ave that I couldn't put my hand on
for this post. Maybe the memories are just as good as a photo, although like I've learned over the years in photography, every picture tells some part of the story. I am glad I still have many PHILPS RAW folders tucked away in my hard drives.