Wednesday, February 8, 2023
02.08.23 Needed to tie up some topwater.....
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
02.07.23 What is going on with the ASMFC?....
Sunday, February 5, 2023
02.05.23 The "Beauty Shop Bunker Fly"...
But now I will introduce the "Beauty Shop Bunker Fly". What that name? Becaue 90% of this fly is tied using that hair braid/extension material I found at that beauty shop in Trenton. I love this stuff. Why? Because it's cheap. Is a little challenging to work with. And most important, it can be trimmed up nicely with a pair of scissors. And why is that important, because not every tie comes out tapered or as equal as we would want. But this material is good. Woman who use this to make wigs and hair
extensions don't want t mop on their head when they go out to the club and it's raining outside. It sheds water. Now, you have to pause a bit before you cast, but they are castable. On these are for my 12 wt, maybe even my 11wt, and the faster rod. These are big flies, made for big fish to eat. There's enough
Friday, February 3, 2023
02.03.23 Got flies?...
Thursday, February 2, 2023
02.02.23 Just a time stamp before the big freeze....
We're bracing for a cold snap top hit the northeast this weekend. Supposed air temps down into the low 20's with the real feel wind chill temps to -20. That's cold. I wanted to just put up where we are river temp-wise. Right now 38.5 degrees, down from a January high of 40.5. Let's see what it does by say next week, where I hear temps will be back up to the 40's and 50's.
02.02.23 I found out more about that factory on the Delaware....
I found a paper written in 2013 by Clifford Zink titled, Iron and Steel, Entrepeneurs on the Delaware. In that paper he tells the history of iron and steel manufacturing in the capital city telling the story of innovators like Peter Cooper (below), Abraham S. Hewitt, and John Roebling.
Peter Cooper started The Trenton Iron Works in 1845, also known as Cooper-Hewitt Iron Works, in a building on the Delaware River at the foot of Warren Street, near where the Trenton Thunder Park now stands. Over the years they moved out around that base and into other sections of the city. Why Trenton? Well, you had the river, there was the D&R Canal, and nearby railroads going points everywhere.
World Maps Online
In the above image (if you click on it it gets larger) from a map found on World Maps Online drawn in 1900 we can see Cooper's factory, which had by then changed names or hands (I didn't research that further) in the upper left of the image. What I find that is cool is how different the scene looks today. The bridge to the far left is the Calhoun Street Bridge, and to the right the Trenton-Morrisville Bridge, aka The Trenton Makes Bridge. For those of us that crawl around down there it is interesting to see the island closest to the Morrisville, PA side. And up on top, on the Trenton side, how large the island is there, which was once part of Stacy Park. It's still there but smaller. Through the years as waterfront development changed due to de-industriualization and notable storms, like the massive 1955 flood, and what changes became of the banks of the Delaware River on both sides. On the PA side, in 1936, a levee was created to reduce flooding in the town of Morrsiville, specifically for a section
known as "The Island", because as we can see, there was an island there. If you look at the map you can see Central, and maybe Park Avenue, just above the Trenton Makes Bridge. Those streets are still there today. So, was the river and island "removed", or filled in when they did the levee construction in 1936 which changed, or ruined, "The Island" neighborhood? One last thing, looking at a Google Map view you can almost see where the river was "cut" off and re-directed when the levee was built. The filled in section is now Williamson Park, which the town is under talks to re-develop into a condo/mini-town.
Cooper would go on to produce the first I-beams in the United States and they were the go-to structural members for many of the historical large buildings in the Northeast. First, a modifed rail road track known as the "bulb T" and then a more true representative of classic i-beam design. What is even
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
02.01.23 There was a nine foot tide back then....
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
01.31.23 Checked out the new Orvis Pro Waders.....
The Story
The industry’s most durable breathable wader, now with a bootfoot of vulcanized rubber over 5mm neoprene with grid-fleece-insulation for boat-bound anglers, guides and the hearty souls that push through abysmally cold winter conditions. Twice as abrasion-resistant as comparable waders and with nearly 2x the puncture-resistance thanks to an exclusive 100% CORDURA® fabric with four layers in the upper and five layers in the lower. In another excusive partnership, the studdable Michelin® outsole provides best-in-class wet rubber traction. We’ve even tested the TIZIP® Masterseal zipper for more than 200 days to ensure failsafe waterproof performance alongside the zip wader’s easy on/off convenience. If you’re thinking these were designed specifically for those who require the height in season-after-season reliability, you’re definitely onto something. On the upper, we’ve included split, fleece-lined handwarmer pockets, two external storage pockets with YKK AquaGuard® coated zippers, and split Hypalon® daisy chain for tool docking. Inside are two internal storage pockets for fly boxes and accessories. Adjustable elastic suspenders with opposing buckles for waist-high conversion. The five-layer lower incorporates removable OrthoLite® X25 knee pads. The bootfoot sole also features the same Bloom™ technology outsole/midsole as our PRO Wading boot, which replaces petroleum-based foam with an algae-based formula and actually offsets 50 gallons of water waste per pair. Athletic Fit.
Nylon shell with polyurethane membrane. Nylon tricot liner. Imported.
22 sizes M-XL including short and long sizes, with boot sizes from 9-13. Boots fit true to size.
01.31.23 Going to join up with Gray Fishtag Research....
Most tagging programs require the partner to purchase the tags to beome involved in the program. Gray's asks for a donation of $129 for 25 tags. For me, I'm am not looking to tag every bass I catch, but the larger females who come up the Delaware to spawn. Do our Delaware fish
make their way up north past say Montauk after May and June? Or do they only go as far as the New York Bight? When I was talking about striped bass to Ben Whalley at the show the other day we were back and forth about where our, his and mine, striped bass come from and where they return to. He is in Maine, which puts him south of the Canadian fish and north of the Hudson, and maybe Delaware and Chesepeake fish. He stated the Kennebec River is a natal river for New England's striped bass. I found this interesting read regarding Maine's striped bass, HERE.
While tagging and catching and recording the striped bass data seems cool, there is a real science to it. Above is a graph taken from a 2007 paper in the Northern American Journal of Fisheries Management. Somehow that table above has to do with strip[ed bass tag return data. That, of course, is way above my intellect.
So if you have a favorite fishery and would like to contribute to the data pool look up one of the tagging programs out there. Make sure they're part of the Northeast Striped Bass Study. Catch and tag them up.