01.11.17 Nice few birthday days down in Atlantic City.....

     Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Today's my 49th and tomorrow is Theresa's, well, birthday.  Decided to take advantage of the generous comps from the Borgata and did a nice two night/three day trip. I tell all of my friends, if you haven't signed up for the Red Label, or Black Label, if you're a big spender, cards then do so ASAP. Every other month we get comped two nights, a comedy show, and a buffet dinner for two. And we are not big spenders and gamble responsibly. 

    One must stop is Angelo's on Fairmont Ave which is just on the other side of the bridge as you enter AC. Great for lunch or dinner. Good gravy. Nice and old school. We came out of dinner Monday night and got a call that my daughter was heading over to the ER at Mt Sinai in NYC, so we just started heading north. She's got a pretty bad ear infection and she was seen and discharged and we brought her home to her Mom. We did stop at Clancy's for some Irish Potato Soup and were back in the Borgata by 2 am. 

     The next morning we hit the tables around 10 am and started winning and drinking. We got up and stayed up (winning) the entire time, doing well at BlackJack together and Theresa on the slots. The comedy show was great and we ended up this morning back at the table and the slots where we went up some more before getting greedy. 

     I wanted to hit the Bass Pro Shop on the way out of town and enjoyed looking around and became interested in a William Joseph collapsable stripping basket. I have been using the Orvis one for years but was surprised at how comfortable this was. I grabbed a fly rod and stripped line into the basket and decided to but it. What I really liked was the padded back and side support. It went for $34.99. 

     Knowing that we were going to need some lunch we decided to go to the Shady Rest on Route 9 in Bayville. We reached out to Bob (Popovic's) and even though he wasn't there it was, as usual, a great call. Great food. Great service. And fun hanging at the inside bar with Sharon. As usual I found myself looking on all of the walls for Bob and fishing related items, and loved this mount of Bob releasing a striped bass. I'm going to have to get a picture of me doing the same this year and get one done. Really cool.

                         

01.09.17 Just looking through some old pics........

     Was looking through some old photos and then checked some old blog posts. I found of Roseld from 2012 and 2014. The 2012 image was taken right after Sandy and then two years laster after repairs were made along the beach. Sadly, today it looks, and fishes nothing like it did "in the good old days". I can't imagine how good this fall would have been in "Jetty Country" if the government wasn't hell bent on "renourishing" our beaches. One thing I am in agreement with, loosely, is the work being done on the outflows. I have seen the destruction done inland when Poplar Brook backs up and floods neighborhoods. The same can be seen in other places also where the volume of water is far greater than the pinch points along the beaches where it is supposed to empty. I'm not condoning putting in pipes, but something had to be done to protect property, and lives.

    I have spent a lot, I mean a lot, of time at Roseld in the past. It will take some time for it to return to what it was, if it even ever does. One just has to look at Monmouth Beach and you can see that it is slowly returning to normal, and with each blow Mother Nature is winning the war. Hopefully next year some of the better pockets will return, as this year the pockets came and went depending on which way the wind and tides blew.

    Off to the Borgata for a few days before it's back to work. Glad to be stepping away for a bit.

                            

01.08.17 A day after the snow.......

     I'm just in that lost-no-fishing mode right now. Holidays have come and went. Worked Thursday and Friday. Supervised homework yesterday between blowing the snow. School doesn't start back up for 2 weeks. Up at dawn. Needed to get to the beach.

    I had no expectations as the air temps were in the early double digits and it was the end of the outgoing tide. Don't even know if there's any fish around anymore but I thought I'd give it a shot. I walked down to the water through the deep snow drifts to find Yoo-Hoo colored water. I did see lots of birds looking on the other side of the bar, and a bunch of surfers out catching what looked like great waves. Two things I'm glad I'm not into- surfing and kayaking.

     I stayed for a bit, made a few casts, enjoyed the chill and then headed home. Looks like it supposed to get into the 60's this week but the water temps, according to a surfing website, have the water temps at 38 degrees. Time to start re-grouping and maybe tying lots of flies for the upcoming year. That would be better time spent. 

01.04.17 Surprised nothing was home......

     I really thought walking away from yesterday's blow that things would be all shitted up on the beach today. Last night I looked at the charts and the wind was going to swing W, which it did, but I figured the water color would be off and need a few tides to clean up. 

     This morning was beautiful out there. Low tide was around 5am so getting down as the water filled it made for some interesting potential. The waves yesterday changed some things on the beach, there's more sand in some places and less in others. One pocket filled in, and another hallowed out. Just wait until spring after a few winter storms and your favorite beats will be back almost to somewhat normal. Just go look at Monmouth Beach. 

     I fished long and hard and in between spots I looked through the tide lines and made a few deductions. There must be 1 million pounds of rubber out in the ocean from the Gulp and swim shads, women still use tampons in big numbers, and if you walk and look after each blow you could create a good plug collection without ever buying.

     I also saw a bunch of crabs on the beach, in pieces and in whole. This is a Jonah crab, kinda looks like a Rock Crab, both in the realm of white-leggers. When I looked around I was hoping it was winter 2011-2012 when the epic crab hatch started in late December and went through March. But nope, probably just post storm normal wash-up.

     So I fished south, ran up north to Sandy Hook just to see if maybe these have been Hudson fish and have decided to travel up for the winter at West Point, and then came back south closer to the top of the tide. I went again with the tandem fly set-up, something I do time-to-time, but am definitely going to make standard practice next year, or at least use it more often. I think what turned me away from the "dry-dropper" fishing in the salt is the memory of tangles while floating the Upper Delaware rivers with clients in the past. It's a productive way to fish, but there are tricks to it. I've done well with the popper-dropper set-up for stripers and look forward to experimenting in the spring.

     Today it didn't matter what set-up I used I didn't find anyone home. I wonder if who was ever around got spooked off by the blow yesterday. This week it looks like the cold and snow is coming, might be, well, let's just say, different than it has been.

01.03.17 Howling winds and big surf......

     So, I had a few New Year's resolutions. Stop fishing this winter and stop eating and spend the time that I would be on the beach in the gym, which is about 500 feet from my house. You can see from the top two pictures I'm not doing well. A scene from the beach today and last night's dinner, tacos and Mallowmars.

    After that healthy feast I did drag out the vise and cranked out a couple of flies that I thought might work today, if conditions didn't warrant Moses and his Arc cresting on the incoming waves. Black has been working in the low light and the chartreuse and white in the light. We'll see if they work.

      I checked the forecasted conditions last night and found it to be even more sporty than predicted. That NE wind was cranking' at better than 25, steady probably with gusts to 30+. I wanted to give it a go and mentally visualized every spot starting at Sandy Hook down to Manasquan. What I came up with was the south side of the Shark River Inlet. It was big but it was cool and fishable. The NE wind met the SE swell and the water had almost no sweep and kind of eddied right into the rocks. I had about an hour on the incoming tide, hours 2-3, before it started to get big and the water run up the

beach, bringing my sinking line and fly with it. It started to get off color and this evening the wind is going W, which could make for a good tomorrow if it cleans up a bit. This week the cold is coming in and todays 48 degree air temps won't be around.

01.02.17 Coolest thing I saw out there today......

     Thought I would go for a walk on the boards to kick start my New's Years resolution of getting myself back into fighting shape. Haven't hit the scale in a bit and it's time to get back on track. Of course I brought my "stuff" just in case. With a E-NE wind and incoming tide things were just too good looking to not get some exercise.

                           

    Anyway, just as I was done a few hours after I started I saw two fly-rodders out on the groin below me. I figured I knew them so I took the short walk to say hello. To my delight it was a daughter/father team out fishing in the snotty weather. How cool is that. I had met Greg this fall while out on the bay and it's the first time I met Morgan. It really touched my heart and made me realize that I better start working on getting my youngest into the sport before electronics and social media, and boys, get in the way.



     Erin, now 11, has been fishing with me from time to time over the years. I blew it with the boys, concentrating more on the fly rod, then just enjoying the sport of fishing. This spring I did take my oldest out, and we had fun, and he did catch a nice fish, but I could tell fishing isn't his passion, which

                                              

is okay as he has his own things that peak his interest. Erin is more into it and this summer I bought a couple of spinning rods to get her and Lauren into fishing. While fluking is fun, and they both caught, its the fly rod I would like to see in their hands. I remember one of Erin and my first "fly fishing "

trips. It was the summer of 2009, Erin was just 4 years old, and we headed out to Round Valley Reservoir. I can remember how excited she was to catch one of her fish fish on the fly, and in 2017 I hope to do the same with her in the saltwater. I can't imagine how much fun it must be for Greg and 

        

Morgan to share not only the passion of fly fishing, but also precious time together as father and daughter. I am sure there are more lessons learned and topics of conversation than how to cast and present a fly. Like they say, going fishing is more than just trying to catch a fish. 

     So today was cool, kind of like the day last week when the wind and tide were up and the rain kept  you damp and slippery. Todays wind was E-NE which always turns the fish on, no matter what size. I started in the dark and didn't get a tap and moved to a pocket where a few bit and were landed. What 

                                   

was cool was getting fish to eat both flies on my tandem set-up. Some would take the green and white Deceiver, others the smaller trailing black fly. I was hoping that maybe a few bigger fish might be found in the mix, but out of the eight landed the biggest was just over 20 inches. 

     The other cool thing today was that no matter where on the incoming tide I was, the water was always rough but clean and didn't chase me off the rocks. Even at high tide only the biggest waves crashed at my feet, just getting me more wet, but never off balanced. I did manage to get wet enough

to have water sloshing in both feet of my waders. Soon, I'm not sure just when, I'll back them up and send them back to Orvis for a new pair, as they were just opened up and put into service this year. 

                                 

      I checked in on Facebook and found a friend, JM, who broke open 2017 this morning with a nice fish down south. He said the birds were diving and by the look of it there's still some nice fish around as the bait is also and the water temps are still up in the mid 40's.

JMB photo

01.01.17 Happy New Year!!.......check......

     Happy New Year to all that read and may you and yours have a safe, healthy, and prosperous 2017. And for the fly-rodders out there may this year be hopefully one full of great experiences fishing for your favorite fish with your favorite fishing friends. I'll do a re-cap of 2016 in the next few days. 

    Well, yes, I had a goal of getting one under the belt for 2017. The way it looks last year I was finishing up school and didn't really get back on track until June, when I caught my first fish on Block Island. This year I wanted to start off 2017 with a fish. Now I think I will 'leave them alone" as my friend Bob Popovic's advises me to do almost daily. 

     I started just before first light with a tandem fly setup. I fished for about 10 minutes, and started to get nervous that the fish weren't around, then I totally got tangled up which put me without a fly in the water for 15 minutes. 

     After I got straight I was back in the north side pocket and didn't do anything. I moved to the mid-beach and had a hard time getting the fly in the sweet spot with the incoming tide and shore break. I walked to the next groin where I had started and got two hits before landing the ceremonial 2017 New Year's Day bass. I felt relieved, the pressure was off, now the rest was just for fun. 

     There were several anglers out today, a mix of the regulars and one's out for the New Year. Just about everybody caught, except Lief. Funny thing is, he catches a lot of fish, but can't get a holiday fish. He caught Thanksgiving Eve, Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve, but caught the skunk of the next days fishing, including today. What that probably means is, he won't hang it up just yet. After the crew broke up I headed back to what I call my home groin and landed one more for good measure. It was a beautiful morning out there, wasn't too cold, lots of white water, and a few fish to hand.

I wonder what it will be like this evening?.......Only kidding.