Some
may call it luck, others fate, but when Tom Greene started work as a
fourth-grader and 11-year-old sweeping the floor and dipping bait
shrimp at Boca Tackle in Boca Raton, Florida, on June 6, 1959, his
world changed forever. His passion for sports fishing became both
his vocation and his recreation. It’s true to this day. Whether he’s
on a collector’s hunt for antique tackle, reeling in blue marlin in
any number of the world’s billfish hotspots or simply at home in
Florida manning his shop or fishing for one of his fondest catches –
snook – Greene is as passionate today about fishing as he was over
fifty years ago when he first started.
A native of South Carolina, Greene’s family – which included his
mother, father and seven siblings – moved to Boca Raton, Florida,
when he was 10 years old. With only a little money and lots of
mouths to feed, Greene’s father bought a fishing rod for $4.95 at
the local Piggly Wiggly. The whole family shared the rod, along with
several cheap cane poles, in order to put food on the table. When
his father became blind and his mother took sick, Greene found
himself in the role of family caretaker and breadwinner. He caught
fish after school for dinner and earned money by working in the
tackle shop as well as guiding for some of the early rich and famous
Boca crowd. His uncanny guiding abilities caught the notice of
fishermen far and wide. He also showed up on the IRS’s radar screen.
In fact, Greene may be one of the few 15-year-olds to be audited by
the IRS because he was head of a household with five dependents at
the time.
Greene didn’t just do menial jobs when he first entered the industry
after Bill Kane gave him his first job at Boca Tackle. His work in
the fishing world took on a more meaningful direction when he
started building and designing his own custom rods. You could say he
was a tackle expert by the time he was a teenager. That’s one reason
why a rep from the Palm Beach Country’s Education Program tapped him
to teach a course. He taught basic skills like bait-rigging,
knot-tying and how to wrap leaders as well as more advanced subjects
like how to throw a cast net. Greene still loves to teach and does
it everyday.
“I always say ‘tell me how smart you are this year and how dumb you
are next’,” says Greene. “Fishermen need to stay open-minded. You
can’t get stuck in your ways if you want to catch fish.” Greene was
in his early 20s when he borrowed money from customers Joe and
Barbara Munson and opened his own tackle shop.
“Joe had a 54’ Striker, the Salt Shaker, at the time and he’d invite
me along to fish,” says Greene. “Of course, I outfitted his and all
the boats at the time with rods, reels, tackle and bait. Since I had
the tackle store to run and couldn’t be gone 6 or 7 days at a time,
I’d make it only 3 or 4 by jumping on his private plane, flying over
to the Bahamas, fishing the tournaments, and be back on Monday
morning. Joe fished all the Bahamas Billfish Championships. We won
it in 1983. We won several other tournaments too both in the Bahamas
and the Keys.”
It was in the 1980’s that Greene got involved with Fred McLane and
Caruth Byrd, two producers who were filming a new TV show called
Fishing Fever. He, and father and son captains, Art and Andy
Bellisari, did 25 shows with them in Florida and the Bahamas. The
storyline followed famous stars and what they caught. James Conn,
James Haggerty, Robin Conrad, Lynda Day George and Slim Pickings
were a few of the star anglers Greene got to meet.
Through the years Greene has enjoyed some incredible fishing
experiences.
“I fished out of San Salvador in the Bahamas in the early days,
where we caught 10 wahoo all over 100 pounds in one day,” Greene
recalls. “I was also one of the first Americans to fish in Venezuela
in the 1970s with Capt. Barkey Garnsey, where I caught sailfish and
white marlin on 4-pound test. I’ve fished with Capt. Peter B. Wright
too out of Australia on the Great Barrier Reef. I’ve also fished
aboard the Northern Lights out of Hawaii. I outfitted their whole
boat.”
Greene got an invite to fish the USVI Open/Atlantic Blue Marlin
Tournament (Boy Scout Tournament) in St. Thomas in 2008 aboard St.
Maarten-based Nicholas Perini’s 73’ Donzi, Somoya, after outfitting
it with $100,000 worth of handbuilt rods, reels and tackle.
“I
was one of three anglers,” Greene tells. “There was one purple and
black lure that I built and wherever I put it we got fish. It was
crazy on the first day. Thirty minutes after lines in, I put that
lure in and got a 500- to 600-pounder, then another one about the
same size and finally a third about 200- to 300-pounds. I was in the
chair for 8 ½ hours that day. We were just off Anegada because that
was where the fish were biting that year, backing down in 6 to 10
foot seas because a storm was coming. We had 14 bites on that lure.”
Greene, who has an incredible knowledge of fishing tackle and
techniques, has built lures that have hooked-up 1000-pound plus blue
marlin in Bermuda. In addition, in a three year period on three
different boats, his custom rods have won anglers the White Marlin
Open, in Ocean City, Maryland, and $3 million in prize money.
Today,
he owns Custom Rod and Reel, in Lighthouse Point, Florida, where he
owns likely the largest collection of antique fishing reels. Reels
that date back to the 1850s and were built by gunsmiths and watch
makers. He also continues to innovate. One of Greene’s latest
inventions is the ‘Reel Crankie’ line winding tool. It’s a device
that’s especially handy for deep-drop swordfishing. It attaches
directly to the existing reel handle mechanism and isn’t used to
fight the fish, but to retrieve the bait and drop-weight so as not
to have to manually re-wind the line back on the reel from a deep
depth.
One can only imagine how many fishing tales Greene has accumulated
through the years. Late last year, with the help of editor, Steve
Kantner, a book’s worth of Greene’s tales was published. The 15
stories in Net Full of Tails are a delightful chronicle of Boca
Raton during the days when fishing was hip and of a young boy and
man’s unbounded enthusiasm for the outside world and all manners of
fish that swim in it. While the book is dedicated to his son, named
Marlin, there aren’t any marlin stories. I’m sure Greene will get to
those in volume two, but in the meantime snook, tarpon and bass
fishermen will surely delight in and relate to these ‘tails’.
|