‘We’ll have to go on without him’: A day of fishing with the Springs brothers smiling down

But the lure of one of Nash’s favorite pastimes of spring, trolling for migrating Spanish mackerel, was just too much.

At mid-morning in late April, Nash and I grabbed the planer rods and mackerel tree rods and headed out of Inlet Harbour aboard Nash’s 23-foot Sea Hunt.

Within 15 minutes, Nash had cleared the Murrells Inlet jetties, headed east and arrived at our destination — Paradise Reef, or Three-Mile Reef, located — yes — three miles east of the inlet.

The wind was blowing 5-10 out of the southwest with manageable 1-2 foot waves as we approached the reef, with three other boats on the scene.

Nash slowed down as we approached the reef, which is Permitted Area 09 in the South Carolina Marine Artificial Reef Program and consists of several individual reefs within the permitted area.

One of those reefs — the Dr. Holmes B. Springs Jr. Reef — was put in place in 2003 in honor of a deceased fishing buddy of Nash. Dr. Springs was a well-known physician in Myrtle Beach and served on the Myrtle Beach City Council in the 1960s and 70s who passed away in 2005.

The reef held even more sentimental value to Nash on this day, as another Springs family fishing buddy of his, Dr. Springs’ brother, Wilson Springs, passed away on April 16 at the age of 91.

As Nash and the Springs brothers had done on so many Spanish mackerel trolling excursions in years gone by, we settled in at a trolling speed of about 1100 rpm and motored around the reef.

We deployed a pair of rods with No. 1 planers and 10-foot leaders tipped by Drone spoons on each side of the stern. A center flat line with a four-hook mackerel tree tipped by a silver Clark spoon was set well back to complete the simple trolling spread.

After 20 minutes of little action in depths of around 35 feet, Nash made two moves. He switched to a No. 2 planer on one of the rods to get the Drone spoon deeper and turned on beach music from The Surf 94.9 to get the fish in gear.

Within minutes, the No. 2 planer rod bounced sharply and then eased up, signaling a bite. Nash designated me as the angler of the day, and I quickly cranked in a nice Spanish in the 17-18 inch range.

“They just can’t stand that beach music,” said Nash, clapping and singing along.

With the ice broken, the bites came regularly, most on the No. 2 planer rod and just a few on the mackerel tree.

Later, chaos ensued after we spotted Spanish mackerel ripping into baitfish on the surface a few hundred yards southwest of the reef’s lone buoy. Four fish were hooked up at once, a Spanish on each planer rod and a pair of bluefish on the mackerel tree rig.

With nearly a dozen sizable Spanish ranging from 15 to 20 inches in the box, the Springs brothers were smiling down on Charlie, their old fishing buddy.

At midday, the southwest wind kicked into high gear, as expected. The Atlantic went from a pretty shade of green with tranquil 1-2 foot rollers to an angry sea of whitecaps in a matter of 30 minutes and we joined the other boats in high-tailing it to the safe haven between the jetties.

After some meticulous fileting and with the filets on ice, Nash relaxed and reflected on losing his friend, Wilson Springs, who established H.B. Springs Company with another brother, Albert Springs. Together, they managed the business for over 50 years.

“This past week I lost a great friend,” said Nash. “If you only had one friend in life, you’d want it to be somebody like Wilson “Teedie” Springs. What a great American, a great friend he was to everyone in Horry County. The Springs family has just been a big part of what happened in Myrtle Beach.

“I met (Teedie) 20 years ago when I moved to Inlet Harbour and we became very close friends. We fished together every Thursday and sometimes on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday for that matter. We always ate fish together on Thursday night. We just had a wonderful time. Myrtle Beach has really lost one of its leading citizens — Wilson “Teedie” Springs. We’ll have to go on without him.”