03.17.25 Well that helped....

     Wishin' I was fishin'. After a quick deluge of rain, and of course wind, this weekend, things are starting to look better then they did. Rain up north quickly had an effect on the water levels in the river. Since this morning we've seen a 20% increase in the cfs and there will be more coming over the next day or so. While the water will drain rather quickly a good push of water does wonders for the start of the run of American shad, river herring, and striped bass. 

     In addition to the flows the water temps have hit that sought after 50 degree mark for the first time this spring. I'm not ruling out cold weather, or even snow, in the forecast but for right now I'll take what Mother Nature is giving. I'm probably a few weeks away from bringing the first fish to hand and I hope to start sneaking away from life, and work, from time to time coming soon.

03.14.25 Quick shakedown trip...

     Took the opportunity with the warmer weather to give it a go for the first time this year. Did't expect much and got just what I expected. One thing I did learn is how resistant my hands are to the cold as I get older. I just can't take it anymore. 

     Incoming tide wouldn't be my choice especially at 630 am this time of year but you go when you can. Amazingly the waders and the stripping basket still fit from last year adjustments which is a good sign. Obviously there was nothing to see and the northwest wind kept things chilly and my hands raw even just after 30 minutes of casting and retrieving. 

     At least we've had some sun and warmer weather which causes a slight bump in the water temps but not enough to get things going. It's still early, and way early if you think of things 10-15 years ago. It's just the mild winters we've had in the last few years that have got things going earlier than normal. The earliest fish I've caught at the place I visited this week was March 9th, but it was much warmer than this year. 

     And in other news how's that for a result of hard work on the professor's side and the student's side as well. It's the trill of victory and the agony of defeat. Above is the class average from Exam 3 which has has my guts all turned inside out. For some it's a continuation of good or bad performance, a wake up call, or a nail in their coffin. As a teacher you pull for just about all of them, the ones you don't are those with a bad attitude or continued bad habits. It's a 27/7 job, literally, for 15 weeks in the fall and the spring. Nursing school is hard and there's no participation trophies given for just showing up. 

03.09.25 BOOKED...!!!

Let the countdown begin.....

03.07.25 I hope these aren't new weather patterns...

 

     Yesterday I stopped by local watering hole, no not a bar. I am amazed that with all the snow and rain we've had this late winter the river isn't really reflecting that. Waiting for water from the north is like waiting for those Long Island bass to show up on the Jersey beaches in the fall. You can wait and wait and they may come or not.    

      I found this U.S. Drought Monitor website and looked at things here in the northeast and things New Jersey. To the south in Cape May County and in and around the Chesapeake Bay things aren't looking good. Besides the risk of wildfires, like we've seen around New Jersey the last week or so, drought means less water in the rivers and bays that we fish. while some say a cold winter, like we've had, we still need solid water levels for a good striped bass spawn. Good levels keep the salt line in the Delaware River where they're supposed to be and water levels good for the fish like shad, bass, and herring to make their push up. 

      We can see ranges from moderate (Trenton) to severe (Salem) to extreme (Cape May). Even points north of New Jersey are seeing Abnormally Dry conditions. The below 

     image taken from Port Jervis, New York shows the ice pack breaking up in the river and traveling south which may add some water into the system, but it's probably not enough to really make a difference. Down near me the Delaware River has bumped up to 17,000 cfs but that will 

only trend down in the next couple of days. It's not how much water crests on any day but the consistent water level over the weeks and months. As expected every spring the deluges of rain that push the river to 60,000 cfs only blows out the river and makes travel for fishes, and conditions for fishing less than optimal. 

     Over the next week we'll see air temps over 50 degrees, even into the 60's, with lows in the 20's and 30's at night. Warmer water is the impetus to get fish moving and the coveted 50 degree water temp for some means it's go-to time. The Raritan Bay at Keansburg is 48 degrees during the day so the bloodworm soakers should start to see fish rooting around for a spring meal. 

     But the springs of late have meant wind and lots of it. Living out west I see how bad the combination of days of rain followed by wind can be. It means lots of downed trees, like big ones, due to the saturated ground which makes tipping the lumber over easier. As far as fishing, and fly fishing, these winds just suck. And most of the winds seem to be coming from the northwest which for me double suck as they always seem to be on the wrong side of my body where I like to fish. 

      The weather over the next week looks good once Mother Nature turns off the fans, but that's not going to be until Monday. As far as fishing predictions, who knows, last year my first fish came on March 29th near home base, and in 2023 it was some fish on March 9th up north. My early prediction this year was that things would be delayed but I've changed that up a bit. I feel, even with this weather as of late, I'll be getting good fish earlier, if I can squeeze time in around my current work schedule, which is all consuming and basically 24/7 until the semester ends at the end of April. 

03.06.25 She made it....

     Well after a 1,800 mile journey the SS United States arrived in Mobile, Alabama. Surprisingly she made it without incident. She left the berth in Philadelphia on the Delaware River on February 19th and arrived on March 4th. It was cool to be able to track her on her last voyage. 

     They say it'll take 6 months to rid her of things that may be harmful to the environment and sea life before she'll be sank to create the largest man-made reef in the world. At 1,000 feet long that's a lot of nooks and crannies for fishes and crustaceans to call home. 

 

03.02.25 I wasn't ready if I wanted to...

     Good for those that went out yesterday and opened up the season. Yep, it was opening day with air temps in the 50's and wind blowing about 30 mph from the NW. I hope we don't have another spring like last year where it blew all spring, with monsoons in between. 

     The pics of the fish I saw were of all holdover fish that most likely will be caught and released into the grease or ran around trying to capture some of the bounty from one of the tackle shops. You know what, it's not me, not my fish, so I don't care. Have fun. 

     I spent most of yesterday, and the weekend, getting ready for school this week. I am so overwhelmed and exhausted with all that the job, and the students, bring to the table.

     While running around yesterday I ran into WalMart to see if I could grab a leaf rake cheaper then the $35 DeWalt (Don't they make power tools?) option Home Depot was selling. While there I was stopped by a nice kid from Newark. He works for AT&T and was assigned to the store in Hamilton this weekend. He got my ear, and then I got Theresa from the car and he got her ear. 21 years we were with Verizon and after an hour or so we were done. AT&T for cellular and internet at home. It looks like we save about $400 a month. Real nice kid, and you know how I feel about all things Newark. 

     Even if I wanted to go fishing I am behind this year. Truth is I don't even know where all my stuff is and I definitely slacked on tying up flies for the spring. Luckily it's cold, and today really cold, so hopefully a delayed start will serve me well. 

     

03.01.25 Ramadan Mubarek.....

     One of the best, if not the best, things about teaching at Essex County College is experiencing its diversity. I could probably go back to when I first came to Newark in the mid-1980's and found myself exposed to people different than what I experienced growing up down on the Jersey Shore. Newark had a wider range of socioeconomic, cultural, and religious diversity. While I like the melting pot of people, I also do like "neighborhoods" where the people and practices are consistent. Example, "Down Neck" or the Ironbound used to be almost all Portuguese, and North Newark predominately Italian. Today famous neighborhoods like Manhattan's "Little Italy" have had their boundaries, which were once well defined, now fluid between Chinatown and Little Italy which takes away from the neighborhood, and the visiting experience. In tougher neighborhoods gentrification has changed the landscape, while not always bad, and the flavor. My daughters done the Brooklyn tour, Williamsburg, Bed-Sty, and Crown Heights, and it's not uncommon to find a bougie coffee joint or a fancy restaurant where a bodega sat decades ago.  

     The students in my class this year come from all walks of life and from all corners of the globe. I should really get a list but besides the few born and bred in the USA, we have students from Africa, Jamaica, Haiti, China, Taiwan, Philippines, Mexico, Dominic Republic, and the list goes on. Some of my students are Muslim, which is a religion, not a race, and those students come from a variety of different countries. 

     Last evening was the start of the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and the start of Ramadan, the holy month that signifies when the Quran, their holy book, was delivered to or seen by the Prophet Muhammad. I can follow briefly all that is Ramadan, but in fact every year I have to brush up on things Lent and Easter as well. What I do know is that in the last week or so Muslims weren't sure when Ramadan would start as it is governed by the siting of the crescent moon in Saudi Arabia. It will last until the next crescent moon, which is March 29th. 

       For those practicing Muslims Ramadan is a month of fasting, praying, reflecting, and giving back to the community. It is kind similar to Lent, or the 40 days before Easter. Several of my students do the fasting and this year I am deciding to join them. The fasting goes from just before sunrise to just after sunset. It's pretty hardcore, no food or drink, even water, between those times. If you are on your feet all day, working, studying, it's easy to feel the effects physically especially if you don't wake up at zero-dark-thirty and eat before the sunrise. I have had students get woozy due to low blood sugar during this month. 

     While I won't be praying to points east, like to Mecca, I will get a feeling of what it's like to have to fast during the day hours, when I seem to do the most damage to the contents of the refrigerator and my body. I won't be giving up drinking water during the day though, it's too much with clinical and lecturing for three hours. We'll see how it goes. 

If you see a Muslin drop them a "Ramadan Mubarak", which would be similar to Happy Ramadan.

02.28.25 Just a day away...

 

      I stopped by the Delaware on my way to work this week. I was surprised to see how the river "looked" during the last week of February. With all the cold and the snow and some good rain mixed in I thought the river would be up, even on a lower tide. 

     While volume is good for striped bass spawning runs, and it'll come with the spring rains and the melt in the mountains, water temperatures play a big role as well. Luckily we've had some balmy weather this week which has brought up the water temperatures a bit. 

      The Raritan Bay is hitting 44 during the warm parts of the day which is good for those anglers soaking bait on the mud flats. If timed right, tide, sun, and time of day things can get good out there especially towards the perimeter along Staten Island and New Jersey's bayshore towns. 

     The Delaware is now up into the 40's and it will be interesting to see what plays in out there. With the river at 5,740 cfs that could make for skin water conditions until a big rain comes and blows things out at 70,000 cfs, which happens every spring. People have their go-to cfs, and that depends on foot or on the boat, but 10,000- 20,000 works for me.

Have fun out there tomorrow is you go, and get them back into the water quick as possible. 

02.26.24 Good to see Henry on MOTF....

      Got in from work late last night but just in time to catch ex- New Yorker now Georgian Henry Cowen on Master's of The Fly. He's known as being an expert on "sodium-free stripers". He moved down south in 1997 and has been there ever since and calls Lake Lanier his home waters.

     Henry tied up some flies on MOTF and explained the how and why's of fishing for striped bass in lakes. For him tying on 60 degree jig hook is the way to go for his fishery. He likes the fly movement on these hooks and the high success rate in landing bigger fish on them. His fish are stocked by the Georgia DNR each year. In 2022 they stocked 3.4 million fingerlings which remain lake locked. He fishes this non-tidal water looking mostly for water temps and the fish movement patterns. 

     He wrote the book, "Fly Fishing for Freshwater Striped Bass" and is available on Amazon HERE. It's a solid book and is a good read for the striped bass fans out there. 

     It was really good to see and hear Henry as he's has been battled blood cancer the last few years. He was healthy enough to make it out to The Fly Fishing Show in Atlanta this year. Interestingly, today was my cancer lecture, which included leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. He really had a road to travel down and I'm glad he's doing so well after fighting the hard fight. 

02.23.25 Tragedy in the channel...

     Around noon today a boater called 911 stating their boat had capsized in the Ambrose Channel between Staten Island and Brooklyn. There were reportedly six souls on board, three have died, two are in the hospital, one is still missing.

     It's unknown the type of boat it was but early reports state it was smaller in size, not a large shipping container ship that navigates the channel heading to ports in Newark, Elizabeth and Bayonne. While the water is freezing there are still hardcore anglers that fish, I would guess for blackfish, during the water. 

     I also have the utmost respect for water, and for other boats that are out there. Almost to the point of not feeling comfortable as there's a ton of things that could go wrong. I've seen it first hand, as my friends know, being out there in that same channel when a friend got into a spot. They all survived but were shaken, as I was along with the two sports I had fishing with me that day. 

RIP to those that lost their lives and to the families of those involved. 

02.23.25 Thank God it's not time to fish....

     Some say teachers have the world by the balls. Maybe some do, but I can tell you being a professor in nursing an't no joke. I can honestly say, for me, it's a 24/7 kind of job. It's the first and last thing I think of everyday, if I even get any sleep in between. 

     I'm not complaining, not now, but I can easily say it is all consuming. Between preparing and delivering lecture to 78 students and then having several three hour hands-on labs, finished up with 2 -12 hour shifts at Clara Maass, I am done when Friday comes along. But then it's time to do it all over again. 

     This week it's Cancer. One three hour lecture to teach everything from A & P, symptoms, treatments, medications, and nursing interventions. All of that to teach them so they learn and not just to pass exams. And next week it'll be Hematology. Just heavy subject after heavy subject. 

     We're a week away from March 1st when the back bays and rivers open up for fishing. Most waters still have ice on them and my home water at the Delaware is just above freezing at 34 degrees this morning. Needless to say I'm good with a delayed season opener this year. It'll be a spring where those soaking worms and chunks will do better than those tossing flies. 

     I'm in week 7 of a 15 week semester so hopefully the fish will be around when I'm good to go. 

02.20.25 And she's off....

      Bon Yoyage! Well the SS United States cleared all the US Coast Guard hurdles and on Wednesday she left her berth in Philadelphia and started the journey to Mobile, Alabama. It's a feat since she has sat in the much and mire of the Delaware River since 1996. 

     By this writing at 330 am on Thursday she has cleared the mouth of the Delaware Bay and is heading out into the Atlantic Ocean for a parallel trip along the coast down and around 

around the tip of Florida to inside the Gulf of America before settling in for prep work in Alabama. Sorry, I'm one of those who likes it called the Gold of America. It's a body of water that sits between North and South America, well actually, not really. You can see where North ends and South begins below. 

     Now, while people are all butthurt about the renaming, probably more so because who named it than actually the name, it does falls within North America, so, it kinda makes sense. Remember when we went and all kinda renamed things a few years back? Now the name of Gulf of Mexico has been around for awhile, like a long time, since 1550 when Spanish sailors first sailed into it. 

     If you are stuck at work over the next week you can check the progress and location of the SS United States in real-time HERE. Hopefully all goes well and the people who are doing the heavy tugging remain safe. While many hoped this once fair Lady could have seen a better fate it will create a new underwater world for marine life and those that like to submerge themselves down into their world.

02.19.25 Looks like some weather's coming....

      In the next few days it looks like Virginia and and parts of Maryland are going to get hit some big snow. I hope it doesn't touch us as I am so done with the cold. I'm also done with paying for oil to feed the 100 year old converter coal furnace which keeps our house a balmy 60 degrees. 

    But there might be some good with the weather for the striped bass. Horse winters and a nice spring can mean a solid spawn, which the striped bass are in desperate need of. As we look at the striped bus numbers we have plenty, well a good amount of SSB out there, it's the younger ones that we don't see. 

     The question is the location of the snow. We see down near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay are the highest totals, near 20 inches. That snow pack will melt and just head ou to sea in the spring. The James, York, Rappahannock Rivers may fare better as the snow totals are up in their headwaters region. The Potomac, a spawning powerhouse of a river, well depending on who you talk to, is seeing it's greatest accumulations below Washington D.C, so that melt won't get down and deep in the earth and feed the river like if the heaviest snow was above D.C.

Who know's what it all means for the striped bass. Here on the Delaware River it' running about 7,800 cfs, which is good, but that only after the deluge of rain we had over last weekend. We need things to be steady, not extreme, for the fish, and the fishing, to be good. 

02.18.25 Be careful what you wish for...

      It was last July when Don Vaccaro purchased a home on Nantucket's Sheep Pond Road for $200,000 which was pennies off of the $1.9 million dollar market value price. While the home and views are amazing, Mother Nature and the receding shoreline are not, at least to people who own homes in paradise just steps from the beach. I first wrote about this in an August 2024 blog titled, "Oh, the sand just keeps moving... everywhere", HERE.

Photos by Kit Noble, Nantucket Current

     Sadly, Vaccaro and his family were only able to enjoy one week in their new oceanfront house during 2024. Luckily he owns the house next door so while it's a shame at least he has a few more options, but not much real estate, before the other home becomes in jeopardy of falling into the ocean. In January of this year the town ordered the home unsafe and to be demolished. 

     That road, Sheep Pond Road, has seen a number of homes forced to be abandoned due to the shrinking size of the beaches in front of them. I'm surprised there's not a Frank Pallone, Jr. up there like we have down here in New Jersey. Imagine if Frankie boy lived up there. The beaches would be replenished far and wide and all would be good. He wouldn't be able to handle it up there, there's only 14,000 people, and the votes, he might be able to count on. That would be equal to about the population of Eatontown, New Jersey. Not enough water front living buds there either.

02.15.25 You can blame this one on NJ.com....

      This past week during one of my internet surfing breaks I scrolled through the NJ.com website. This site is, or was, the digital version of the once printed, The Star Ledger (TSL), New Jersey's largest newspaper. If you go on the site now you don't see any mention of TSL but more of NJ Advance Media, the parent marketing company for several "newspapers" in and around New Jersey. 

Reading The Star Ledger- Rescue 1 kitchen- Mulberry & Lafayette Streets- 2001

     During my 20 years in and around Newark The Star Ledger was the first thing you went to buy in the morning, especially on the way to the firehouse. It was during a time when newspapers and television, not cable, were THE source of local, national, and international news. If you wanted to keep up on the news around New Jersey, and the hotbed of things in Newark and Trenton this was the source. Not only was I a reader, but I also worked for TSL as a freelance photographer starting around 2005.

     Let's just say over the years TSL has morphed from an independent middle of the round, well kinda, publication to a more left-leaning liberal source of news, or what some would call, a rag. Media and journalism have become so biased and leaning, either way, that it's hard to find, and be comfortable with, a news source that just gives you the facts, and not the opinions and skewed reporting we see today. 

     So while I usually pass by articles regarding politics and the economy the above headline caught my eye. Why? Because it is relative to my current position in life. New Jersey and teachers. Hey, I'm one of them. I'm a card carrying member of the NJEA and the Essex County College Faculty Association, which is our Union. Seeing that a district needed $65 million dollar loan to "keep paying its teachers" piqued my attention. So I clicked on the story.

     But after I clicked and read it I saw how misleading the headline was. This wasn't just a district that can't pay it's teachers, it's a district that can't support itself and it's needs far outweigh it's ability to pay for them. Lakewood is a 9-square mile town in Ocean County that is home to about 107,000 people. Of that number about 55,000 of them are school age children. Of the 55,000 about 5,500 attend Lakewood's eight public schools. 95% of the enrollment in those schools are black and Hispanic. 25% of the children in the district, not just those actually attending Lakewood Public Schools, are listed as needing Special Eduction Services. That's about 13,000 students. So outside of the 5,500 of the 55,000 that go to public schools where do the other 49,000 children go? 

     The 49,000 go to private schools and or need to be bused, by law, if the elementary or middle school is greater than 2 miles away or 2.5 miles for high school. Now if you opt out and choose to attend a private school, like a Yeshiva or a Catholic High School, then the district buses the kids there as well. Those private schools fall within or outside of Lakewoods borders. Most of Lakewood's kids are bused to and attend one of 160 Jewish day schools. For some students, as dictated by religious rule, they are not permitted to ride the bus with the opposite sex, or even students from a different school. So most of these buses aren't filled, there may only be a handful on each bus. 

     When I was a kid I was bused from Millstone all the way to Red bank Catholic and the bus would  pick up and drop off kids from public and private schools in Freehold, Holmdel, and Lincroft before the final destination on Peter's Place in Red Bank. When I tell my kids my growing-up story it's something like, "I caught the bus at 430 am....."

     I checked in over at app.com, or the Asbury Park Press, to see if they were on this news story as well. Their headline was a tad more neutral, less skewed, and more accurate. In my opinion I would put the APP in a separate class with TSL, as far as actual reporting is concerned. But journalism these days is similar to fisheries management, it comes down to money and politics, as does everything else. 

     Lakewood's 2024-2025 school budget is $309 million dollars which was voted on by the Board of Education. That INCLUDES a portion which counted on $104 million dollars coming from the State of New Jersey in the form of a loan. What's the $104 million for, well if you ask TSL, it's to pay the teachers. If you ask the APP it's to avoid a budget shortfall. Now listen, Lakewood is educating about 6,000 kids in their public schools. I educate about 150 students personally each year up at Essex County College. This isn't just about teaching, in fact how much teaching is going on in Lakewood? And with that I mean putting the kids butts in the eight public schools seats vs private schools. 

     What the big ticket item down in Lakewood is busing. The cost is about $30 million dollars per year. But remember only about 6,000 students attend public schools there, and how many don't need a bus, or aren't entitled to busing since they fall within the the 2 or 2.5 mile radius where busing needs to be provided. There's another cost, bussing students to out-of-district schools, or Yeshiva's, which costs about $70 million dollars in tuition and additional transportation costs. Now that would all be fine if a towns population handled their own shit. But in Lakewood they demand, and are allowed to by law, to have those costs offset by New Jersey, or, really the taxpayers of New Jersey, many who have never visited Lakewood. They do that in the way of loans. A loan is something that is borrowed, but then paid back, generally. 

     The push this year, in their 2024-2025 budget, was for New Jersey to cough up $104 million, but the state capped that at $65 million, in two $32.5 million dollar payments, one to hit their back account in February and then in May. People are up in arms, "How will we get our kids to school and educate our children?". Maybe they need to come up with a different plan. 

     Since 2014 Lakewood has received $238 million dollars from New Jersey to help educate, and bus, their students. The loans are supposed to be paid back within 10 years but this agreement seems to operate outside of the rule of law. The state loans are as follows-

• 2014-2015- $4.5 million
• 2016-2017- $5.6 million
• 2017-2018- $8.5 million
• 2018-2019- $28.1 million
• 2019-2020- $36.0 million
• 2020-2021- $54.5 million

The 2021-2022 request for New Jersey State Aid, or a loan, was rescinded when the Federal Government awarded Lakewood $108,972,306 million dollars, which is a large chunk of New Jersey's $2,766,529,533 that the state received, as part of the March 2021 ARPF - ESSR, short for American Rescue Plan Fund - Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund. That fund kicked $122 Billion dollars to states and school districts across the United States. It was during the start of the Covid pandemic and below was the outline the NJBOE laid out as to "allowable" needs for the ARP- ESSR, 

Here's how Lakewood cancelled their request for the state loan, which was $70,716,798.

• 2022-2023- $24 million
• 2023-2024- $50 million 
• 2024-2025- $65 million ($104 requested)

How can you continue to ask for monies each year if you haven't even covered the first loan? And what will Lakewood ask for, or demand next year, $150 million dollars?

     And to be fair the busing situation isn't just occurring within Lakewood's town borders. As the population of that town has migrated out into Toms River, Brick, and Jackson those towns are feeling the pain that comes with the cost of busing as well. For years private bus companies, like Jay's Bus Service in Lakewood, have had private contracts, all under the Lakewood Student Transportation Authority, which was formed in 2016. And there's costs there as well, in 2022 the Director of the LSTA, Avraham Krawiec, was paid $257,028 while his Assistant Director Schlomo Pichey, was compensated $113,539. The LTSA is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit tax exempt "Authority". 

     These days the big gun media businesses, and that's what they are, money making businesses, are focusing on what the Federal Government is doing. Every minute of every day people are mentioning DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, with some running scared that their gigs are up and the fraud and money train is going to fall off the rails. Maybe New Jersey needs a DOGE, or at least people in charge who spend our tax money responsibly and don't keep throwing it at programs that benefit only a small representation of the residents of our State. 

You can thank NJ.com for this post.