10.08.23 Come out for a night at Orvis Princeton...

 

     This upcoming Thursday, October 12 I'll be giving a presentation on fly fishing in the fall along the Jersey Shore at the Orvis Princeton store. Wow, I am sure that was a run-on sentence. The Orvis store is located at 301 North Harrison Street which is outside of the downtown area where parking isn't a problem. 

     Store and fly fishing managers, Andrew and Bruce, are fishy guys and it's a good opportunity to check out the store, meet them, and see if what they have there can meet your fly tying and fly fishing needs. If you look around New Jersey we are kinda in a fly shop desert, Tightlines in Parsippany, Stream of Dreams and Ramsey Outdoors north on Route 17, and more freshwater fly shops like South Branch Outfitters (the old Shannon's), and Golden Stone Outfitters up in Sussex County. You may be able to pick up some flies here and there at the tackle shops along the Jersey Shore but that's usually a small selection of teasers, Deceivers, and Clousers. Orvis Princeton is a full fly shop. 

     And if seeing a new fly shop doesn't do it for you then maybe the presentation will, I'll be talking about fall fly fishing in New Jersey. It won't be the blitz chasing fly fishing everyone is looking forward to, but the truth about how the fishing intersects with the bait, weather, tides and time of year. 

     And speaking of the fall and stuff I had a reason to be down in Monmouth County and after the drop off I said, "Okay, where should I go?". The beaches haven't been producing, the bays and rivers are where it's at in the early fall, and fish, and bigger ones too, do come in along the bay to eat. 

      Don't think for a second that you will be able to replicate the catches of kayak or boat guys in the back of the bay... ain't happening. But the fish are, well, in the area, and you never know, I guess. I don't recall having, like ever, a lights out Raritan Bay shore fly fishing outing. Fish, yes, multiples yes, big ones, no. That's during both the spring or the fall. Now from my boat, yes, yes and yes. 

     So I took the shot and made my way over the berm to find a stiff WNW wind on the start of the outgoing. It looked fishy and if the bass were patrolling the trough that runs along the bathtub that is the Raritan Bay then I might have been in business. The wind was more than the windfinder app was 

registering and the gusts frequently blew my hat off or had my casts falling flat about 15 feet from where I stood. The above is what you'll see if you are a fly angler that doesn't have a boat. When someone asks you "Have you fished Raritan Bay before?", you can think back to the above and give an answer. The Raritan Bay is, to really fish it and catch with a fly rod, a boat fishery. 

     The last time I had it good, like really good, was during a solo trip in October 2016. You can read about it HERE. It wasn't that far off the beach, like if you were standing there on the sand and looking though binoculars you may have seen it, but for the most part you were out of the zone and never going to catch. Now that's not going to say you won't find bait, and bass, moving along the shore in the bay, it happens. Anglers who call the Raritan home would most likely challenge me on my opinions of the Raritan, and they would be right because they are on it all the time. Or they present it as they are on the bay all of the time. 

     Before I hit the "publish" button on this post I went and got a cup of coffee. I came back and when the window popped up it was for the Facebook page. The top post, or the opening post, was the below. I was out there while he was out there. Same body of water, same day, same time, different results. Yes, I know the bay is big....

     So if you can make your way to Princeton this Thursday I'd love to see you and we can all get a little excited together and see what this fall brings to us along the Jersey Shore.