For over 25 years, 77-year-old Florence Miller has spent her days on the middle Chesapeake Bay, catching white perch, cow striped bass, and everything in between on one small gold spoon and an Ugly Stik rod. I sat down with Miller and learned how simplicity has made her such a successful angler, and why fishing is about more than just the catch.
The last thing Florence Miller expected to catch when she walked out onto the pier one frigid afternoon was a striped bass nearly the size of her. Gusts of biting wind stirred the water, and the Choptank River was foaming with white caps. Miller decided this would be an ideal time to practice her casting.
With 77 years of experience under her belt, nothing would stop her, of course. She rose from her rocking chair, grabbed her trusty Ugly Stik, threw on her old Syracuse sweater, and headed towards the water.
The wind was at her back, and as she cast her one-sixth-ounce, two-inch gold spoon, it sailed a mile.
Not bad, Miller thought to herself as she waited for the lure to sink. Then she began practicing her retrieve. Not too slow, not too fast, just ri– wham.
Something smacked her spoon, almost ripping the rod from her hands, and took off on a massive run. The fish zipped right, then left, and then right again, like a bat out of hell. Miller held on for dear life.
“Honey, get the net!” she hollered to her husband, who was half asleep at the kitchen table.
The fish was tiring now, or so Miller thought, as she finally got the beast close enough to the pier to see a shadow before it took off on another run.
She gasped, “That’s a monster!”
“Do you need help?” her husband called out calmly.
“Get. The. Net!” she grunted back, cranking hard and trying to gain back some line.
After another ten minutes battling with the beast, Miller’s arms went numb. She handed the rod to her husband and hollered, “Get that sucker in!”
And that he did. At last, the couple managed to net the fish and pull it up to the pier, together. Both of their mouths hung open in awe.
The 48-inch, almost 50-pound striped bass was by far the largest Miller had ever landed, and she was relieved to see it swim away strong upon release. She managed to pull this catch off without expensive gear or the hottest new lure. Her pure and absolute love of fishing is what makes her such a successful angler.
Now, you may have caught bigger, better, and more fish than Florence Miller. You may be more skilled, knowledgeable, and have nicer gear than Florence Miller. You might even ask yourself why you should care about Florence Miller’s story.
Many modern anglers are consumed by social media, the latest tackle and technology trends, and the supposed “rules” of angling. Miller has been using the same seven-foot, medium Ugly Stik; 2500 Penn Fierce spooled with 12-pound mono; and two-inch gold spoon for years, almost exclusively casts from shore, and breaks just about every fishing norm you can think of.
At 77 years old, she has more fun fishing than anyone I know.
Her approach steers clear of the chest-pounding, showboating nature of modern angling and is based in family, community, and simplicity. If we take a minute to listen to and appreciate the older generation of anglers, perhaps our own experiences on the water will grow more meaningful and lead us back to our fishing roots that blossomed into passion.
So, who is Florence Miller? In her words, she’s “just an ordinary girl originally from Norwalk, CT, and she has loved fishing for a long time.” On the banks of Lake Candlewood over 70 years ago, she began her angling journey as many of us did, throwing worms under bobbers for panfish. But her obsession truly came to fruition when her path led to Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Miller began dating her husband, Phillip, in 1997. That very same year she got her first taste of fishing the Chesapeake Bay estuary. Phillip owns a house on the mouth of the Choptank River, complete with a pier, that to this day is Miller’s stomping ground.
“I’m lucky that I’m able to fish on the Eastern shore,” Miller tells me, her eyes filled with genuine appreciation.
Her Process
Luck is a word we anglers throw around a lot. We tend to think of ourselves as “lucky” if we catch a trophy, or if the weather holds out, or if the tide is just right on the day we plan to fish. Miller thinks of luck differently. She considers herself lucky just to have access to fishable water. Luck is always a matter of perspective, and many “unlucky” anglers might just be more fortunate than they believe themselves to be.
And yet, Miller seems to have an extraordinary amount of positive fishing juju. I like to think this has more to do with her mindset than any divine or external forces. She has a “special gold lure,” (which is a size 13 Luhr Jenson pet spoon) that she catches everything on, from six-inch white perch, to gator speckled trout, puppy drum, and of course striped bass. And when she goes into a tackle shop or talks with other anglers, they tell her there’s no way that lure catches big fish.
“When they say ‘you can’t catch on it,’ I just say ‘oh yes I can.’ And I do.” For Miller, confidence is key.
This also came to be true when I asked Miller about the best times to fish. While many modern anglers will spend time poring over tide charts and monitoring weather, she simply just fishes when she feels like it. There’s little to no method to her madness. In fact, she laughed when I asked her about her thought process when deciding if she should head out on the pier and make a few casts.
“My process? I’ll just go out and give it the old college try.” She followed up by saying “(other anglers) might have a certain method that they go by, but I just go when I have the feeling… I’ve even gone out in the rain. That’s how much I like fishing.”
The magical, almost childlike innocence and simplicity that Miller brings to fishing is something many of us younger fishermen seem to lose hold of over time. Perhaps it’s time we grasp onto the feelings and experiences that made us all fall in love with the sport, worry less about external drivers, and just fish.
The Joy of Sharing the Experience
Miller often goes out by herself, but sharing the experience with family is what makes her most happy on the water. She has 13 grandchildren, a few of whom are avid anglers as well.
“It’s most rewarding to fish with my grandsons,” she tells me. “I get exceptionally happy when they catch something, too.”
Starting when they were little, it brought Miller extreme joy to see how excited the young boys would get when they caught fish.
“Summers are very important to me. That’s when (the kids) come,” she adds.
She fondly recalls watching from the porch and running out to see what her grandkids had managed to catch. It reminds us that sometimes fishing is not about the individual, but about family, or the community as a whole.
Her most loyal angling companion, however, is named Casey.
“I have a buddy that fishes with me all the time,” she smiles and tells me. “And he’s a four-legged buddy.”
Casey is a Tibetan terrier who loves nothing more than to sit with his mama and watch her cast. She often talks to him or sings while they’re out on the pier together. Seeing the two of them out there, rain or shine, is heartwarming to say the least, and is reminiscent of the value of friendship in fishing.
Miller is a meat fisherman, but not in the traditional sense. It is not her style to keep a limit of fish, but rather only what she and her family can eat, or what she can share with friends. Usually, she’ll give it up after catching just enough for dinner. She frequently gives fish away to neighbors, too.
“I think you have to have a good fishing ethic when you do fish,” she expresses. “I always say when I throw (undersized fish) back, ‘I’ll get ya next time, when you’re bigger.’”
Miller does not care about a “dock of death” shot or filling the icebox. She prioritizes sharing her catches around the dinner table with family and friends and does not care to boast how many fish she can catch.
“I’m not trying to prove anything to anybody or set a record. I just love (fishing),” she says.
Florence Miller is the antithesis of the modern angler, and a representative of our fishing roots. Her basic methods and relaxed mindset are a direct contradiction to the glamor and showboating that is consistently flashed in our faces on social media. She makes fishing more approachable and less intimidating.
Just Enjoy It
I asked Miller what advice she would give to any angler, novice or expert. “Just enjoy the moment,” she tells me. “Whether you catch fish or not, just enjoy being out on the water. When it’s not fun anymore, then you shouldn’t be fishing.”
That may seem simple and obvious; however, I’m sure for most of us it still rings true. How many times have you been out on the water and found yourself so wrapped up in your own head that the fun has gone? I know I’ve been there.
Miller has lived much longer than I have, and I’d venture to guess she’s got more years under her belt than many of you reading this, too. I’m not sharing her story with you today to convince you to change, to dumb down your tactics, or to erase everything you know about fishing. I’ve told her tale in the hope that we as anglers can think less about our own pursuits, less about the fish themselves, and more about the moment; the times we get to spend fishing with friends and family.
“I’m lucky to be able to fish as often as I do. That’s the main thing. I’m very lucky.”
By Adam Greenberg