06.22.25 That was a long 44 hours....

     With Theresa and Lauren away for the week and it just being me, Luke, and a Honey-Do wish list I took action on the email I received from Orvis Princeton about a presentation on Thursday night. The presenter was Zach Flake of Flyway Charters, HERE. I've seen Zach resnstation before but those were about his secret spring and fall North Jersey spots. I can tell you I've seen Zach out there up north as I make my way on foot to fish some of the same waters he does. And let me tell you, if you want to try something new, in a place that will blow your mind, hit him up for an easy peasy half day trip. It's that good. 

    Fishing Manger Bruce Turner kicked it off and before he did I found out about some of the trips he's been running through Orvis Princeton. The Bahamas just came and went and in a few weeks he'll be off to Iceland. Did you know Iceland is a 4 + hour flight? 

     So Zach was taking about his Barnegat Bay summer trips. It's cool if you're down there as he splits his time sight fishing for striped bass and blues and running out to the North Jetty between 

tides. He had his 19 foot Beavertail out in the parking lot because he was coming from a Bay trip and stopped at Princeton before heading home up north. Nice job Zach. 

    As Zach spoke the heavens opened up and boy Mother Nature was fired up. It lasted well over and hour and when I got home the power was out. PSEG is my provider and I just got update after update when power would be restored. what happed was there were two huge 

trees just down the way from me. One came across Route 29, aka River Road, and the other came from the other side of the Delaware and Raritan Canal and both crashed through the lines. This was Thursday. I didn't get power back till 4 pm on Saturday, some 44 hours after it went down. No power. No water. No blog. 

     Before the presentation I talked with Store Manager Andrew and was going to give him a piece of my mind about the Orvis PRO Slingpack. I used it everyday up in the Vineyard and hated it. I couldn't get to my stuff inside, the small pocket up front was difficult to access, and the water bottle holder was dam near impossible to find. While I don't like the leader holder outside, it was good up there because I do carry and use the 20, 16, and even 12 pound flouro from time to time. 

     Just as I got going Andrew stopped me in my tracks, 'You wore it on the wrong shoulder". What. " I was following your blog and saw that you had it one backwards in every picture". 

He added, "Why would you want a thick strap on your casting shoulder?". Um, duh. So, my bad. I can't wait to see how it really is when I use it correctly next time. 

     The next morning I ran down to the river before I got all busy with chores around the house. With an impending new job about to get going I need to get some stuff done around the house. But, I wanted to fish, and catch, and I did. Nice size slot to under slot sized fish to play with. 

     Trees near me don't have a very good root hold and they grow ginormous. Since I couldn't even make coffee I headed to WaWa for some Joe and found my neighbor dealing with this. A large tree came down, smashed the families Audi, before crashing onto their roof. 

     One cool thing to see when the storms bring trees down is that the deer get a shot at all of those tough to reach morsels. They are now at their feet. I dam near crashed when I saw this white deer next to the side of the road eating away at some kind of large leafed tree. Below is a video I shot. It's not an albino deer, I think, I think it's called a Piebald. Glad to have power back finally.