Barnsie – the author of this work – “Slime Time – The Art of Catching Fish” (TAO-CF) was certainly a fascinating character, - the most interesting character I’ve ever known, and there is no second compared to him; Barnsie takes the cake.
Those who didn't know him, or only knew him from a distance, considered him a hermit and a hobo, a derelict or bum, and he treated most strangers with indifference or by being rude, but if you got past that first shield of armor you got to know the real Barnsie, who graduated from the school of hard knocks with honors. To some he looked like Rasputin, but he had a funny smile, a finely developed sense of humor, and when the situation moved him, a quick laugh like Ben Gunn, marooned on Treasure Island.
I can’t remember when I first met him, as he just seemed to be there once in awhile, coming around 819 Wesley (Ocean City NJ) to see the next door neighbor - old salt Chris Montagne, who my brother Leo fell in with on daily early morning fishing trips. And then he was just like a fly on the wall, sitting back in the corner playing around with his fishing equipment, never bothering anybody.
From what I understand he had been married, and may have a son, used to be a drinker, but that was before I met him. He did smoke cigs and occasionally pot, drank coffee and while he didn’t mind being around drinkers, he never touched the stuff for as long as I knew him.
I guess I got to know him better when he moved into the top floor apartment at 819 for a winter, rent free, at my mother’s insistence. I didn’t know why, except that I knew she liked to eat the striper filets he would give her, as did everyone who he shared them with. Then one day my mother’s artificial hip slipped out and she couldn’t walk and was in a lot of pain and screamed for help and only Barnsey, who was upstairs could hear her, and came to her rescue.
That was the winter Barnsey carved the Osprey with Weakfish in its Talons. Did I mention that Barnsey was an artist? A self-taught artist who was very good at everything he did.
He did sketches of wildlife, historic buildings, he did an album cover for jazz organist Dan Fogel, and pen and ink sketches of the Anchorage, Corletto’s Marina and an Asbury Avenue coffee shop.
Barnsie's sketch of Corletto's Marina, as seen from the Anchorage Porch.
One color sketch of an owl was particularly striking. Barnsie said it was of a former next door neighbor of his when he lived in a tree house in Sculville. He later pointed out the location of the tree house to me, in a grove of trees off the marshes at Job’s Point, that Barnsie called Greenhead Point because of the greenhead flies that conjugate there in the summer.
"Barnsie" was his local nickname, as his real name was Robert Barnes. Now if it seems farfetched that he would live in tree house, you should also know that Barnsie had another nickname – “Caveman.” He picked that on up in Colorado where he lived in a cave when he took months long sorjourns away from the Jersey Shore. In fact, Barnsey died in Colorado and is buried there.
While here though, when he wasn’t fishing, Barnsie was either sketching or carving something, including whittled arrow heads with wildlife – eagles and hawks on them.
In any case, when he lived on the fourth floor at 819 he carved a wooden life-sized Osprey with each feather individually crafted and painted and fit into place, flying off with a weakfish in each of its talons. Barnsie said he actually saw an Osprey hit the water and fly off with two weakfish and the image was burned in his brain.
It took him many months to finish the project, and I drove him to the crafts store for fresh supplies whenever he ran out, but by the time he was finished he had created a really remarkable piece of work.
We took it over to Gregory’s bar in Somers Point and he put it on the bar and people came over to Ooooh, and Aaaahhh over it. Barnsey got some work out of Gregory’s, carving an image of the front of the old hotel and the name and date the Gregorys took over 1946 on it, which is still hanging up on the wall of the bar.
Gregory’s is also home of the Tight End Fishing Club, which also sports a one-time world record striped bass, and most of the avid fishermen in the area, many of whom bring in their fresh stripers to show them off, and sometimes allow them to clean it and cook it and share with the crowd at the bar.
As to what to do with the Osprey, Barnsie said he wanted to sell it – for $10,000, as he had put so many hours into creating it he had to get what it was worth out of it, and that’s how much it was worth if he was paid less than minimum wage. So I arranged for a local fine art gallery on Asbury Avenue in Ocean City to take it on consignment and raise the price a little bit for their commission, while Barnsey took off for Key West.
Barnsie knew a guy who had a house on the beach in Key West and the guy let him camp out in his backyard, so Barnsie spent the rest of the winter fishing in Florida. While hitchhiking back in the spring he caught a ride with a guy in a Caddy who took him home, gave him a shower, a meal and a guest room and put him on a plane to AC the next day. It turns out the guy was an Amway millionaire who collects hand-carved wood figures and Barnsie had showed him a photo of the Osprey and the guy agreed to purchase it for $10,000, and would pick it up the following week.
It was a hard story to swallow when Barnsie first told me on the ride home from the airport, but I went over to the art gallery and they had a lot of gawkers but no buyers and so we took it out of the gallery and put it on the fireplace at 819. A week later the Amway guy drove up in his car, checked out the Osprey and took it home with him.
Barnsie was in-like-flint and started checking out the classified ads for used Bertram boats, but ended up spending the money on getting his teeth fixed, since he said he now had a romantic interest in a girl, who was also a striper fisherman.
When Barnsie lived with us at 819 Wesley in Ocean City his favorite fishing spot was at the 12st Pier on the Bay. People often told me that they saw Barnsey there, not just fishing, but catching fish, or riding his bicycle down West Avenue with a large striper spread out across his handlebars, still floppin around.
I guess I got to know Barnsie the best when he got cancer, and I drove him to the Veterans Hospital in Philadelphia twice a week to see the doctors. Did I mention Barnsie was an Air Force veteran? He quit school before graduating but did serve in the Air Force during the pre-Vietnam era, and may have been drafted.
Every once in awhile Barnsie just disappeared, and we figured he was in the Keys or Colorado, where his cave was in the Rocky Mountains just east of Glenwood Springs. He pointed out the location of the cave on a map for me once, and talked glowingly of how it was near a fresh, fast flowing stream – with fish in it, and overlooked the train tracks that ran into town. He told the story of how he once returned there to find a bear asleep in his cave. He said he woke it up and kicked him out, which I wouldn’t believe if anybody else told me.
Then, when the stripers weren’t running and things were slow at the Shore, Barnsie took off for Colorado, and he didn’t come back. He had checked in with the Vets Hospital in Colorado, and they were trying to take care of his cancer, but unfortunately he passed away and was buried in a Veterans Cemetery in the shadow of the Rockies.
Locally, we had a memorial service for him at the 12 Street Pier, where the fish were safer now. There were a few people who didn’t know him but hung out at the pier just to watch him catch fish. I didn’t know how wide a circle of friends Barnsie really had, and a couple dozen people showed up, including attorney Art Ford, who went to school with Barnsie and bartender Jimmy Smartly, who fished with him, is one of the characters in Barnsie's story, and has a collection of his art work. Both Art and Jimmy have boats and if you had a boat and were friends with Barnsie you took him fishing with you because he could guarantee that you would be lucky. While Barnsie would say there’s no luck to catching fish, except bad luck, those of us who knew him know were were lucky to have known him.
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. Robert A. "Barnesie" "Caveman" Barnes, 64, of this community and Ocean City (NJ) died Aug 7 in the veterans' home in Grand Junction, Colo. He was born in Somers Point, NJ.
Mr. Barnes attended Ocean City High School, served in the U.S. Air Force (1956-58) and worked as a carpenter, craftsman, boat builder and in other trades. He spent most of his time fishing, particularly in the Great Egg Harbor and in the Florida Keys and Colorado.
He wrote an, as yet unpublished manuscript "Into the Slime: The Art of Fishing."
Mr. Barnes was a member of the Praise Tabernacle Church in Egg Harbor Township and Sonlight Foursquare Gospel Church in Glenwood Springs, Colo.
Memorial services will be held at noon Sunday, Oct. 13 on the 12th Street pavilion on the bay in Ocean City and at 1 p.m. at the Tight End Fishing Club at Gregory's Restaurant in Somers Point.
Burrial was in Western Veterans' Memorial Cemetery in Grand Junction, Colo. Arrangments by Rifle Funeral Home in Rifle, Colorado.
A Tribute to Barnsey
You miserable old Buzzard,
You were like a crusty old clam,
hard, abrasive, not too pretty
on the outside, but soft inside.
You are probably digging up
the streets of gold up there
or living in a jewel encrusted cave
with some angels, or maybe down
at the banks of the River Jordan -
Cussing people out.
They will learn to like you up there,
as we all did. You will be missed.
Take care old friend.
Your Friends at Fish n' Stuff
Ocean City New Jersey
Robert A. Barnes
Mark 1:14-20
A Fisher Among Men
Just as the words in this gospel was written so many years ago, they still ring true today.
Barnsie had joined a church and came to know the Lord in his later years.
Perhaps he realized that the time had come to accept and believe. It is truely through God's grace that he was given faith and a renewed spirit.
Just as the fishermen left their nets to follow Jesus, so has Barnsie.
He is not only a fisher among men, he has "caught" the biggest keeper of all - everlasting life int he Lord's Kingdom.
Well, while moving boxes of books and papers around, a folder fell out with an incomplete, early and unedited version of “Into the Slime: The Art of Fishing.”
When checking the tide and moon charts and the weather, Barnsie would often clap his hands and say, “It’s slime time!,” meaning it was time to go catch fish.
While Barnsie called it “The Art of Fishing,” he also said that it isn’t about what most people consider fishing – throwing a hook into the water and sitting back in the sun and enjoying being on the water – it was about The Art of Catching Fish, hence the title “Slime Time – The Art of Catching Fish.”
By Robert A. "Barnsie" Barns, aka “Caveman.”
Once a rare and lost unpublished manuscript, it is now available for everyone to read and learn the art of catching fish from a grandmaster.
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