Another year in the books at Cape Island Resort in Cape May. We're getting better and more efficient at closing things up for the winter. What usually was a weekend is now a quick run down, kill it for a few hours, and then a ride back home. Every year we question if it's worth the expense of keeping it but then every time we're down there and really enjoying Cape May it's worth it. But it ain't cheap. When we bought in 2020 the fees were $4,300 for the May 1st to Nov 1st season. After a corporate takeover, now X2, it's up to $9,700. The way most say to look at it is if you rented a place for a week in Wildwood Crest or Cape May it would cost you $6,000, so, it's a bargain. But it's still almost 10 grand a year.
Luckily two years a go we added a nice shed to out place so there's no more dragging the furniture and bikes inside for the winter. People say they wish we had it all year long, I don't think so as it's off th table from Nov 1st to May 1st- like out of sight and out of mind. It leaves me something to look forward to in and around the start of the spring striped bass run.
I'm up to my nuts in burning 100 year-old lead paint off the house, where it's not brick, and sanding, priming and paining it. That goes for the windows and doors as well and if you've ever removed the old window caulk and redid it then you know. The idea of sanding and filling and "feathering" the high spots? Yeah, not me. It may look good from 500 feet away but catch it on the right, or wrong, angle when the sun hits it and it looks like someones back with bad acne.
The 21st, the day I called it, is Tuesday. I will catch a fish that day or will at least give it a good effort. I'm heading to a secret spot that you most likely have never been to. I hope you took off- Tuesday is the day. Bass on the beach. And if I were going local, I'd be fishing the Jersey side of the Raritan Bay, maybe in a town that, say, has a boardwalk.