Hey, anything to combat the cabin fever. Hit the Philly Fishing Show, which isn't really held in Philadelphia but about 45 minutes west of me in Oaks, PA. It was smaller show than usual they say, similar in size to the TFFS. A lot of charter booths, some destination booths and a few tackle booths. Lots of boats, and I had my eye on this 2022 Yamaha G3 with a 65 jet, looks like a perfect Delaware boat coming in at 17 feet, a great boat for a single angler. The priced tag was $28,000- so forget it.
I walked around a bunch and picked up a few things. There wasn't any fly fishing to be had, I saw a PopFleye's t-shirt for $25, but I passed on it, figuring Popovic's might throw me one if I asked. I did dig his Nantucket trip coming the end of May. Clear lines and sight fishing go together well, and for $10bucks it was a god find. I also picked up a some rubber skirts that I can use for trying crab flies, 4 for $5 is much cheaper than the "crab legs" they sell packaged for fly tying. I found a booth, the Worm Bar,
that had all kinds of rubber everything and I noticed they were selling these jig heads 12 for $5, I thought they would be perfect for Erin when she wants to go for panfish, or they look like they would be good for sight fishing for carp. I killed some time waiting for Capt. Deiter Schell of Big D River Guide,
and his presentation on fishing the Delaware River. His talk was great, but unfortunately my seat was too comfortable and I dozed off, waking when the guys got up to leave when it was over. I really wanted to hang and wait for Capt. Eric Kerber's 530 talk on fishing for snakeheads, but I couldn't wait that long.
The highlight for me was meeting Skel Neall, and artist that works with metal that I have followed on Facebook for some time. His work is amazing. Below is his latest striped bass, gorgeous, the price is $275 and would grace any wall or man cave, or woman cave it is hung in. After the pieces are cut out of stainless steel he heats them and grinds them to make the colors and texture pop. I picked up a small
piece from him that will make a cool Christmas ornament on next years tree, or something to have on the shelf of my fly tying area. His contact info is below and he has fluke, bass, reds, trout flies, crabs, and rooster fish to name a few, if you're a rooster fish angler these are sick. His pieces are cut from stainless steel so they won't rust ion you hang them outside.
