A few months back I saw that there was a new book on striped bass hitting the market on November 1st. I went to Amazon and placed an order and when it came I gave it to Mrs. Claus for safe keeping. I didn't peak at it then and was surprised when Theresa handed it to me, c'mon, unwrapped, on Christmas morning. It's a fine book, a big book, a heavy book, and one you would call a coffe-table book. Years ago people would display these books, for various reasons, part of that I think was for decoration and status. I have a few of them left, most have been donated to charity over the years.
My favorite striped bass book is Fly Fishing for Striped Bass by Rich Murphy. At the FFS last January I picked up the copy he had which he used for display. I went for it, I think $75, and he signed it, and numbered it #1. It is just the best book I feel and it combines the story of the striped bass along with fly fishing for them and recipes for tying some of Murphy's own designs. Of course following behind is Bob Popovic's book Fleye Design which I was lucky enough to have contributed some images for.
So I was excited to open this. I am not familair with Bill Sisson, the author, who is a striped bass fisherman and editor at Angler's Journal, but I do know Peter Kaminsky, from his work at The New York Times, who penned the Forward for the book. Kaminsky wrote the 2001 book The Moon Pulled Up and Acre of Bass, another solid striped bass book you should read if you haven't already.
Now let me say this so I don't come off wrong. You should buy this book. I would buy it again. Now let me go. I was a little disappointed and I'll tell you why. First I am not a fan of double-spread images. These images cover two pages, they were made famous by the centerfolds we used to see in old girly magazines like Playboy. A centerfold is one where an image is spread out over two pages in the center of the magazine. Once you removed the two staples you had a poster, that seemed to find it's way into just about every auto repair shop or places where guys exclusively worked back in the day. But let's get back.
I find that an image split by the "gutter", actual book construction terminolgy, "the space on the inside margin of pages where the book is bound, anything within the gutter typically isn't visiable", doesn't always work. Yes, you get the size, but. When images have to be selected for this they aren't subject centered but more panoramic. Now it does work for some of the images, and there are a lot, in fact most. I find it takes away from the image. You can still have that "pow" effect buy running it on one page. Additionally, most of the images in the book are full-bleed, the entire image covers all corners of a page, or in this case two-pages. I prefer no-bleed, where the image is almost framed by the background color of the pages. It can even
work when the image splits the gutter, like maybe once or twice. You can compare the difference above. Now my opinion is mine alone, you may disagree and think I'm nuts and I'm being a d%$k, but you know the way I keep it real, and I am my own biggest critiquer. So I'll go on.
I remember when my work partner and I owned Agency New Jersey. It was a photo agency that provided images to newspapers and magazines that covered news, politics, and stories from the Garden State, some were based here, some in New York, some nationally. What we learned over time, and it was difficult to mask, was that issues of publications such as New Jersey Monthly, which we were one of the largest contributors, started to look alike. Each photographer has their look and style and it comes across in the images, especially when scenes or subjects need to be lit. So, it isn't uncommon for photographers and writers to get cycled through by art directors and editors, looking for something different. We lasted about six years providing images, pretty much monthly, to that publication. Below is a cover I made of the famous and
now shuttered Mastoris Diner in Bordentown. That assignment, when there used to be actual photo assignments and not pages filled with "provided" or stock images, fetched us $18,000. Now we visited over 100 New Jersey diners from Sussex to Cape May counties and had long days of editing, so it's not like it wasn't earned. Days like that are long, long gone. But back to this now.
One of the tricky things, especially in todays world of so many images and content, is to have original never seen stuff in publication. And that is not easy. Let me first tip my hat to the work in the magazine done by the contributing photographers, one of which is Jersey Boy Tom Lynch, who owns and runs Angry Fish Gallery in Point Pleasant. Tom's photos grace the covers as well as inside of the local magazines such as On The Water, as he is a regualr contributor. He and the author work together regularly for Angler's Journal, he as photographer and Sisson as editor. I have followed Tom's work for years and my favorites by him are his wave/bait/bass or blues shots. You can see one of them above of the silversides in a crashing wave. When a photographer looks at anothers work, as soon as they see it, they say, "Oh that's one of Tommy's pics", and I did that a lot in this book. If it wasn't that I had seen the image before it was the syle that gave it away. Tom did a lot of the images for Popovic's Fleye Design and they were also in this book as well.
I question that, especially for fly fisherman and or avid readers of striped bass books. To note, this is not a fly fishing book, there is only one chapter dedicated to that. But then the rest of the chapters kind of show what we experience here in New Jersey and see and read in magazines and on social media. We have seen Chuck "Tyman" Many and his big eel-eating bass and some shots of Chris Buchta of the Asbury Park Fishing Club, which were picked up by StormR for advertising a few years back. The images are again great, but the repeating, or look, is not. For people that are seeing all this for the first time will tell you I'm nuts, and that's okay.
Maybe let me say this. I think this book, if it in fact is about the author and his own pursuit of striped bass over the years and through the seasons, might be better if they just used more author provided shitty Kodak images that he took himslef to go along with the copy. And now to the copy.
So as I get older my eyesight is dwindling. I wear 3x CliC cheaters. When I opened the book I couldn't belive how tiny the font size was, and how light in contrast it was. I couldn't read it without straining my brain. Now to be fair, I just got up and went and looked again, and in the mixed light from the lamps with the sunlight coming in from the windows it's a tad better, but the words don't appear to be dark and black, again, maybe that's on me.
I really dug the chapter that contained the old black and white images including some of the famous Cuttyhunk bass stands. That story in itself is very cool. That's New England thing and the
Tony Rendevous photoabove image shows the stands below the Squibnocket Club on Martha's Vineyard. Bacially these stands allowed anglers to venture out to the furthest rocks. They were often destroyed by the waves and weather and needed to be maintained to keep the club members happy. Maybe I'll delve into that over the long cold winter. I do know I'd love to have some here along the Delaware.
So get the book and decide for yourself. It's not like we have books flying off the shelves about this thing of ours on a regular basis. Maybe one day I'll man up and put a book out there for other's to enjoy, and chew up as well.
I knew there would be some anglers out for that Christmas day bass. Chris Smith posted this Ocean County fish yesterday. 34 inches and a bunch more to boot. He deserved them. They hit on plugs, so go figure. And remember there's no more Oyster Point with that warm water discharge that kept bass toasty during the winter months. And as we exit this brutal cold spell I look to that other day
we always used to try and catch a fish on, New Year's Day. Looks like the wind is turning around Wednesday and on Sunday air temps will be over 50 degrees. Right now the ocean temps are above
45 degrees, and there has been bait reported, sand eels and peanuts in the wash. So, might Sunday be a day to un-quit and try for that first of the year bass? We'll see.
