Ray Hardy--Passionate About His Fishing

The thing I remember most about this man (who owned a roofing company in Virginia Beach) was the fact he grabbed every opportunity that presented itself to get in some fishing time. He'd come wheeling into the West Neck parking lot in that familiar, big Bronco at nearly any hour of the day (just depended on when he could spare an hour or two from his job), drop his boat in the water at the ramp, and take off. He'd return a little later, load his boat on the trailer, and be gone just as fast as he had come.

For the most part, Ray fished year-round, even when a sheen of ice covered the shallows in West Neck Creek. On those occasions when there was ice, and we arrived at the launch ramp about the same time, we took turns going first and breaking a path through the channel to the main creek for the other one. And if we happened to bump into each other on the water before one of us called it a day, we always compared notes on how the fishing had gone.

One of Ray's friends was Dewey Mullins, who, while running the service area for Princess Anne Marine, rigged the Winner bass boat that Ray bought and spent so much time in on the water. As Dewey often would tell the story, he had a difficult time getting Ray to understand the necessity of running his boat hard.

It seems that, for some time, Ray handled his new boat with kid gloves, and as a result, the motor would get to needing a tune-up. Dewey would fix the problem and hand the boat back to Ray, reiterating that he needed to start running the motor hard.

In due time, Ray finally listened to what Dewey had been saying, and then it became a matter of "Katy, bar the door!" You'd hear Ray's outboard screaming as he flew through those twists and turns in West Neck Creek. I didn't have to wait until he came into sight to tell it was him. Only one person drove a bass boat that way on West Neck back in those days.

Ray's bass-fishing prowess on the local scene was well-documented. It was good enough to earn him a whole series of segments on WTKR-TV Channel 3 back in the 90s. He consistently demonstrated that he knew where to find 'em and how to catch 'em.

And his angling skills weren't limited only to freshwater. As his nephew, Chuck Hardy, Jr., explained to me, "We spent many fall and spring days and nights down on Hatteras surf fishing together. He was pretty much the best uncle and fishing mentor a young boy ever could have asked for," continued Chuck. "It's because of Uncle Ray that my dad and I still fish out of West Neck to this day."

When Ray passed on June 6, 1998, at the age of 59, some of his ashes were spread on his favorite spots in West Neck Creek, and the rest were spread at The Point on Hatteras. His daughter, Emma, recalls that she never caught a bass in all her fishing adventures with her dad while he was alive. She noted, however, "After we spread his ashes, I caught a bass in one of his favorite West Neck spots."

Ray was a regular patron of West Neck Marina for a lot of years, dating back to the days when it was run by the original owner, Bill Brown. I consider it a distinct privilege to have known him and to have swapped fishin' stories with him on many occasions.

My special thanks go to Ray's nephew, Chuck Hardy, Jr., and to his daughter, Emma, for helping make this story possible.