Blackie Reasors 703 lb world record Hammerhead shark-1975

The uncertain future of the Jacksonville Beach Pier, its reach amputated by Hurricane Floyd and now closed indefinitely to fishing, stirs the memories of those who once called it home.

''Most of the better fishermen around grew up on the pier,'' said Mike Chachos, who began visiting the pier as a 10-year-old in 1962. ''Our senior year in high school, we lived out there.

''We used to spend the night all the time. We had lockers at the pier and kept our cots up there.''

On Sept. 15, Floyd's waves lopped off a 137-foot end section of the 991-foot pier, which opened in 1960. It was the first major damage to the structure since 1964, when Hurricane Dora claimed 600 feet of the then-1,200-foot pier. A section almost 400 feet long was later added.

Pier owner Rhonda Robinson said she had no timetable on when the pier might reopen to fishing. Jacksonville Beach officials have given her 20 days to fix or remove the pier, seek an extension, or face paying demolition costs.

For now, the pier's restaurant and gift shop remain open. Before the storm, officials from Jacksonville and Jacksonville Beach had been in discussions with Robinson about purchasing the site.

Tall tail, tall tale. Everybody at the Beaches knew Blackie Reasor, and everybody who knew Blackie knew that he had caught the biggest hammerhead shark ever caught in the history of the world on a Saturday morning in July 1975 off the Jacksonville Beach pier, during the height of popularity of the movie Jaws, which just thrilled the Jacksonville Beach Chamber of Commerce no end. A representative of the International Game Fishing Association measured Blackie's shark at 14 feet 4 inches at the time, but it got bigger as time went by.

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''I'm still trying to get permitting and repair costs,'' Robinson said. ''Idon't have any clue just yet. I feel so bad for all my fishermen. They don't know what to do with themselves.''

For the time being, they'll have to be content with swapping stories about the Beaches landmark. Chachos recalls when members of the former Jacksonville Beach Shark Club gathered at the pier for allnight vigils in the late '60s and '70s, back when shark fishing was the rage.

''I fought a hammerhead one night on the pier from 9 till 5 in the morning,'' Chachos said. ''There must have been 50 cars on the beach with their headlights on.

''I was exhausted. He was every bit of 18 feet - massive.''

The hammerhead wound up straightening two tuna hooks and was gone.

One that didn't get away was the hammerhead landed by Blackie Reasoner at the pier in 1974. It weighed 703 pounds, measured 14 feet, 4 inches and at one time ranked as the world record on 130-pound test line. It remains probably the pier's most famous catch.

''The pier would have collapsed from the sheer weight of all the people who claimed they were there that day,'' laughed longtime pier employee Dick Brislin.

Another eye-popper, a 450-pound jewfish, was caught by Hunter Raiford. And then there was the 61-pound king mackerel taken by Roger Cortez in 1989.

''That was a horse,'' pier maintenance man Ron Ruth said. ''He had it mounted.''

The pier has had its share of unusual catches, too. In 1998, Wayne Sammons reeled in a 9.77-pound striped bass, the first and only striper caught at the pier. The southernmost range of the striper is considered to be the St. Johns River, whose mouth is several miles north of the pier.

Several bonefish, a species indigenous to South Florida, have been caught off the pier. Not necessarily unusual - but certainly unusual looking - was a manta ray caught by Chachos that measured 18 feet from wing tip to wing tip and bombed the scales at 2,250 pounds.

Landing a fish at the pier can sometimes be a challenge, especially when a sailboat gets between the fisherman and the fish. That happened several years ago when a man hooked a kingfish, allowed it to make a long run and then watched as a catamaran ran over and severed his line.

''The guys on the pier were a little perturbed, so when the boat came into the beach three or four of them went down to express their, er, disapproval, we'll call it,'' Brislin said. ''Lo and behold, the line was still attached to the catamaran and so was the kingfish.''

A one-time tradition at the pier - hosing the winner of the annual summer fishing tournament - died years ago.

''Whoever caught the biggest fish, they'd put him in a little red wagon and pull him down the pier,'' Brislin said. ''It was like a gauntlet, and everybody would throw buckets of water on him. We don't do that anymore.''

Former pier rats such as Chachos and others can't wait until the pier reopens, assuming it will and under whatever ownership.