Hooked by a Fishing Tale: Author with Winston-Salem ties finds Massachusetts derby is about more than just the catch

Martha's Vineyard has always had an independent streak. In 1977, islanders there tried to secede from the rest of the United States (they were upset over re-districting). They drew up a declaration of independence, composed a national anthem and designed a flag.

This is where Jaws was filmed. This is where Chappaquiddick happened.

So is it any wonder that journalist David Kinney's hunch was right -- that the island's annual fishing derby would not be about just fish, but that it would make a good story about such larger issues as life and death, and the primitive joy of reeling in a living creature from the sea? Kinney got his chance to find out two years ago, writing a whale of a fish story -- and it's true.

Even if you know nothing about fishing, Kinney's book, The Big One (Grove/Atlantic, 2009) might hook you. Same goes for Martha's Vineyard, a Massachusetts island with a sociology more complex than its popular image as a playground for the rich, famous and preppy set.

Kinney, 36, is a former newspaper reporter whose resume includes four years at the Newark Star-Ledger, where he covered state politics. His work includes coverage of the resignation of Gov. James McGreevey of New Jersey, for which he and a team of other reporters won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005.

Born in New York, Kinney grew up in Winston-Salem after his family moved here when he was still a child. He graduated from Bishop McGuinness High School in 1990 and recalls fishing on Salem Lake. He would rent a rowboat, tool around in it and not catch much. Once, he got caught out on the lake by himself in a thunderstorm and had to row furiously back to shore.

Today, Kinney lives in the Philadelphia suburb of Haddonfield, N.J. His parents, Richard and Barbara Kinney, and three of his sisters, still live here.

He got more serious about fishing in college, at the University of Notre Dame, where he met a friend who took him trout fishing in Montana.

As familiar with fishing -- and reporting -- as Kinney was, covering the derby and uncovering its characters was a challenge. Fishermen are naturally secretive people, he says, a tension that's heightened by more than $250,000 in prizes and what Kinney calls the promise of winning "island immortality."

Derby days

For five weeks each fall, Martha's Vineyard is thrown into all things derby. About 3,000 fishermen compete, from amateurs to the seasoned. Every islander's life is likely touched by it-- even if they don't fish, Kinney said -- from the plumber who asks for access to a private beach or a husband who is gone most nights on the water.

Fishermen compete to land the biggest striper bass, bonito, false albacore and bluefish, fishing night and day.

Kinney laid the groundwork for the book by taking a couple of planning trips to Martha's Vineyard. But some of the fishermen he spoke to originally disappeared when he returned for the derby in September 2007 (though he found plenty of others willing to let him tag along). Maybe it was because they decided they didn't want to be in a book or have a reporter shadow them, or bring along anyone at all, Kinney said.

Some derby fishermen are convinced that there are spies tailing them, trying to sniff out their fishing holes. And then along comes this guy, this outsider with a pole in hand who says he's writing a book.

Kinney didn't just write about the derby. He fished it, too.

"When you bring someone along on a fishing trip, it changes the whole vibe," Kinney said. "It's an excuse to go out and get away from real life. Part of it was secretiveness, I'm sure. I think some people were a little suspicious of my motives. It was really a matter of hanging around and hanging around. Just keep showing up, and you build trust."

Watching Kinney fish, fishermen and women soon realized that he was no threat to them. The fishermen of Martha's Vineyard are in a whole other league, Kinney writes, men and women raised with rods in their hands.

Characters

Kinney said he admires nonfiction books about subcultures, such as The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. "It takes you into this world, and it makes you care about something don't know anything about," he said.

The characters of The Big One are truly that -- complicated, fun-loving, hard-working men and women who all but abandon reality for five weeks at the beginning of every fall to chase fish.

They include Wyatt Jenkinson, 9, whose mother has brain cancer; Lev Wlodyka, the Tiger Woods of the derby, who is caught up in a controversy over the weight of an enormous striper bass; and a wealthy 80-something widow, Olga Hirshhorn, who scrubs fish blood off her own sneakers after a trip on the water and reels in bluefish with glee. "It's a really big one!" her friend tells her during a derby fishing expedition. "No, it's not," Hirshhorn snaps back. "I know what a really big one feels like."

DreamWorks Pictures has bought the movie rigts to the book.

Kinney wanted to use the derby to explore larger issues -- from environmental concerns, class conflict and the changing landscape of an island that's become well known for its big houses and celebrity visitors.

Martha's Vineyard is not the Hamptons, but there's no denying the exclusivity of an island that's home to a golf club that costs $300,000 to join.

"It's a mixed blessing for people," Kinney said. "Their livelihood is summer people. The Vineyard … historically, it's been a place where, even while there have been wealthy people, they sort of came and tried to fit in, and I think people fear that's being lost as people come in and build giant, giant houses and close off access.

"The Vineyard is a place that cherishes its long story. As long as it's a community where 3,000 people can still show up and fish for five weeks, then at least that part of the Vineyard's soul will remain intact."

■ Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com.

■ David Kinney will read from his book, The Big One, at Barnes and Noble Booksellers, 1925 Hampton Inn Court, at 7 p.m. Thursday.