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James Nestor Mathews passed away on December 4th, 2024 after 80 years of living life to its fullest. Jimmy spent over 60 years doing what he enjoyed most, catching fish from his home port of Point Pleasant NJ. He was born on October 9 th , 1944 in East Orange NJ and moved with his parents and siblings to Point Pleasant, NJ in 1956. It was there that Jimmy’s life long love of fishing took root, as he started working with his dad on his party boat the Flying Fish in the early 1960’s. During those early years with his father, Jimmy became interested in the local commercial fishing scene, and learned how to gill net, along with his life long friend Joey Pierce on a small skiff operated by Adolph Lovgren. It
wasn’t long before Jimmy and Joey bought their own Skiffs to pursue the American dream.

After a few years Jimmy was ready to move into a bigger boat and bought the Five Devils in 1971, a 57-foot-long dragger that worked out of the Fisherman’s Dock Co-op. He renamed it the Chrissy James and soon developed a reputation of fearlessness by fishing in some extreme weather conditions.

His primary fishing target was Whiting at the time and they were plentiful in the nearby “mudhole” 15 miles offshore. The weather in the 1970’s wintertime could be brutal at sea as we were in the middle of the coming ice age, and boats could have a layer of ice on them for weeks at a time. It was this fearlessness of weather conditions which resulted in Jimmy’s near death in 1975, as in the early morning on March 20 th , he decided to go fishing despite a Northeaster blowing. At the mouth of the Manasquan inlet, the clutch of the Chrissy James broke and left the boat helpless to the whims of the raging ocean, which promptly lifted the boat up on a wave and deposited the boat on top of the south jetty of the Manasquan inlet. Jimmy and Joey Pierce were both thrown free of the boat into the freezing water, with Joey found clinging to a jetty rock, and Jimmy’s body pulled from the surf unconscious by a couple of Co-op fishermen who happened to be in the area after deciding it was too rough to fish that day. He was revived to fish another day, and the incident didn’t seem to affect his ability to fish in any weather. The Chrissy James, remained on the south jetty for months sitting upright, like a statue, before being dismantled.

Painting by Jaime Mathews

Undeterred by this catastrophe Jimmy promptly bought a bigger vessel, the 72-foot-long Leah and went back to business as usual catching Whiting, and in the summer months, lobsters offshore around the Hudson Canyon, or would fish out of Cape May for Summer Flounder and Weakfish. When he wasn’t fishing, he would spend time with his growing family. He married his wife Etta Mae in 1972 and they raised three girls, Leah, Jaime, and Kimberly. He became a member of the Fisherman’s Dock Co-op in 1975 and would fish from there until his retirement over 35 years later. After a number of very successful years fishing Jimmy decided to buy a new bigger boat, and had the 78-foot-long Jaime Mae built in 1984, selling the Leah to his brother in law, Denis Lovgren. During the 1990’s a number of fish stocks were collapsing causing fishermen to scramble to find other species to catch and resulting in new onerous fishing regulations being imposed on the industry. Jimmy did not like regulations very much, and in the late 1990’s became the communications director for Harvey Haddocks Fisherman’s Revolutionary Army.

He continued fishing into the new millennium until age and health issues caught up with him and he sold his boat in 2013 and turned in his shares of Co-op stock a year later. Although he stopped fishing commercially, he continued to fish recreationally into his late seventies on his small 20-foot boat the Janis. Jimmy, was a big baseball fan and organized a ragtag team of commercial fishermen to play softball against the local Manasquan Coast Guard members for a number of years. His favorite team was fittingly enough, the Pittsburg Pirates, and he occasional would fly a pirate flag on his boat.

He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Etta Mae, their three daughters, Leah Mathews Hay, and husband Robert, Kimberly Romanik and husband, Brian, and Jaime Mathews. He has three grandchildren, Janis Hay, and Matilyn and Tyler Romanik. In lieu of flowers donations can be made in Jimmy’s memory to Tunnels for towers, or St. Jude’s children’s hospital.