By Frederick Rowell

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

My grandfather, a dentist in Mobile, was a speckled trout fishing enthusiast, even though he was allergic to trout. Before the Dauphin Island bridge was constructed, fishing trips involved loading an outboard motor, gas tanks, trawl net, tackle, ice box, etc. into a car and driving to Cedar Point, renting a skiff, and outfitting it.  A trip to Sand Island was a big day.  

After the bridge was constructed, launching at Billy Goat Hole on Dauphin Island was possible, and boats on trailers came of age.  Trout fishermen started lamenting the lack of proper trout fishing boats.  My Grandfather’s first trailered boat was a 21-foot flat bottom, tiller steering open skiff.  Rone Negus, also a trout fisherman, built duck sneaks in his off time. Trout fishermen of the day, I recall, included my grandfather, Dr. William (Bill) Rowell Sr., Dr. Johnny Pittman, Rone Negus, Harry Meyers Sr., and Harry Seals, to name a few.  

They discussed what would make a good trout fishing boat.

1. Vee hull to handle the chop and not beat you to death.
2. Easy to trailer.
3. Live bait well.
4. Ability to drag a trawl net (16-foot shrimp net), sort bait, and store the trawl net.
5. Decent fish-fighting cockpit.  

Rone Negus listened, then designed and built a 17-foot wood boat meeting these requirements (predecessor to the popular 17-foot fiberglass Negus).  The vessel has a deep Vee and proud bow but flattens out in the stern for stability and speed in calmer waters.  

The bench seat also served as a live well and the floorboard behind it has a bait sorting box constructed on the flip side. The trawl net used to catch bait, its lines, and boards could be stored in the bilge underneath the floorboard.  The trawl line cleats are amidships to give a smoother ride and help keep the net spread during turns. It provided easy access to the lines when retrieving the trawl net and kept the stern from going under if the net hung up.  

Dr. Johnny Pittman purchased the original Negus boat, and it is still owned and maintained by his son, Norman (who happens to be married to one of my cousins, it's Mobile you know!). The following year my grandfather commissioned his boat, Hull No. 2, and it is known by my father’s CB handle as “Fishing Pole.”  

Rone Negus laid the keel and ribs in my grandparent’s backyard in Silverwood.  Silverwood is a neighborhood near the Dew Drop Inn and the former Nixon Drugs in midtown Mobile. My grandfather, father (Dr. Neal Rowell, Sr.), and uncle (Dr. William (Billy) Rowell, Jr., who was also a dentist) finished out the hull and insides similar to Dr. Pittman’s.  While Hull No. 2 was being completed, my uncle commissioned a sister ship whose hull was laid next to Fishing Pole. This all was sometime between 1955 and 1957.

Fishing Pole originally had twin eighteen horsepower Evinrude, short shaft outboards.  The Vee hull did not extend to the rear. The flattening of the hull at the stern added stability, particularly at rest, but with more powerful motors and speed, waves will beat you pretty hard.  

The original engines were replaced with Johnson 20 HP outboard motors in the early 60s, and in 1970 my father had Mr. Negus raise the transom with a mahogany patch outside the transom, and one of the first 3-cylinder Johnson 60 HP engines was installed.  

Fishing Pole now doubled as a ski boat and became a familiar sight on Fowl River. I estimate over 100 people have learned to ski behind it. All of my posse from Flo Claire, the subdivision across the street from Weinacker’s Shopping Center on Government Street, learned to ski behind it.  

In my teen years, my parents fished three to four days a week.  As soon as they returned from a trip, usually around noon, I would empty the fishing gear, launch into Fowl River and the River Rats and I would ski, barefoot ski, tube, or disk all afternoon.  A motor never lasted over five years due to extreme use.  

In 1975 it was repowered with a 70 HP Johnson.  We were fishing off Fort Morgan and Rone Negus pulled alongside, looked at the boat and new engine, and yelled at my father “You know that the warranty on that boat has expired.”  Lots of elbow grease and the West Marine Epoxy and filler system have Fishing Pole currently structurally sound and pretty Yar!  

Fishing Pole was a successful competitive fishing boat.  My mother, Bootsie Rowell, caught three first-place fish in the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo including a 17 ½ pound Bonita in 1965, a 108-pound Tarpon in 1970; and a 60-pound Tarpon in 1975. 

Over the years, all three of my brothers and I have caught first-place fish in the DIYAT – Dauphin Island Young Anglers Tournament (Roy Martin Young Anglers Tournament presently).  On my last DIYAT, we took one of my Flo Claire buds, Todd Brunt, on his first Gulf fishing trip and he landed a first-place 29-pound King Mackerel. Todd has since become a successful Gulf fisherman.

In addition to fishing and skiing, we caught a lot of shrimp using our 16-foot “Jack Davis” trawl net.  Hurricane Frederic in 1979 had a positive impact on the shrimp population in Mobile Bay.  On the opening day of shrimp season in June of 1980, my parents had some friends down to Fowl River and my father was unable to go out shrimping, much to his chagrin.  

I was 19 years old, and my father instructed me to take my cousin’s husband, Tato, shrimping in the Fowl River channel.  Tato was from Spain and was a city boy, growing up on the 11th floor of a condo, and new to most of our outdoor activities.  We went out in Fishing Pole and made a twenty-minute drag and pulled in 20 pounds of shrimp, with little by-product.  It was a Forrest Gump moment (author Winston Groom grew up in Mobile).  Of course, we immediately redeployed the trawl net. 

My father called on the CB radio from his Bronco. I told him he wouldn’t believe me but never in my life, nor his life,  had there been such a clean and large haul from Fishing Pole. He didn’t believe me and put my cousin on the CB radio, and she talked to Tato in Spanish. His response was, “Well Gee!!!!, Fred brought me shrimping and we are catching shrimp.”  

The second drag, I pulled in another twenty pounds of shrimp, left them piled in the sorting box, and returned to our dock on the river.  When I moored, my father stalked towards us with an “I do not believe my son stalk.” He froze in his tracks when he saw the mound of shrimp in the sorting box. 

I looked at him and said, “That’s not all,” and opened the ice box and pointed to another twenty pounds of shrimp.  He was stunned, looked over at his company, and sheepishly returned to play host.  I unloaded my catch, iced the ice box, cleaned the boat, and was finishing up when I glanced up to see their guests’ taillights leaving the drive and my parents at a full run towards Fishing Pole.

In 1989, a week after Dad put a new 60 Hp Johnson on Fishing Pole, he, Mom, and my sister-in-law Karyn went for a ride. Dad made Karyn, a novice boater, drive. In West Fowl River, Dad made her go full throttle and the mahogany patch added on the transom cracked horizontally and the new engine went down to the bottom at full throttle.  

No houses were in sight, so Mom yelled “SOS” in her very projecting theater voice and rallied some guys from a house around the bend. Control cables were still attached to the engine so the strong guys that responded were able to heft the engine into the boat. Negus Marine tried to order a new power head, but Johnson did not know how to price it, so they covered it under warranty.  

Dad had a new transom fabricated by Stauter Boat Works on the Causeway. He and my brother, Neal, installed it. So, Fishing Pole is a hybrid Negus/Stauter/Rowell boat. To this day, Karyn is reluctant to drive the boat.  

I had assumed Dad’s CB handle was “Fishing Pole” due to the successful fishing from our boat.  My father, Dr. Neal Rowell, a Physicist and Astronomer, was also both frugal and handy (i.e., cheap and found ways not to spend money). He fashioned a CB antenna out of 108 inches of wire wrapped around a cane pole from the prolific cane patch at our Fowl River compound.  This cane pole was stuffed into a vacant antenna hole in our hunting vehicle, a 1963 two-door Rambler American.  Fellow hunters, never shy about ribbing my father, would yell out “Here comes Fishing Pole'' whenever he was coming out of the woods.

So now my sibling’s grandchildren are 5th generation boaters in Fishing Pole.  I do not presume to claim ownership, I am merely the caretaker.