We like new stuff, especially when it comes from people we like a lot. Like Scott from Hansom Pliers, one of the earliest supports of the Surfcaster’s Journal magazine. When he said he has news, we listened. And news it is. http://hansomtackle.com/is just stocking dealers with new AQ-8 Plier Sheath  

Designed and MADE IN THE USA by Aquaskinz exclusively for Hansom Pliers. This sheath is durable, light weight and built to last.  Constructed from 22oz Vinyl Coated Polyester which is 100% Mildew and U.V. Resistant. For the binding they used a Flexible Vinyl-Coated Polyester that  is very light- weight and extremely strong.  This sheath is expertly designed by Aquaskinz to fit their AP-8 Pliers perfectly. This design won’t take on water and get weighed down. It fits their pliers so perfectly that you’ll always know they are safe and secure on your hip. Available in orange or black

They still stand behind their current sheath 100% but they made this available as an upgrade for anyone who wants buy a better sheath.

You can find them at Paulie’s, Saltwater’s Edge and Efingers and coming soon to more retailers near you. You can check Hansom website for details at http://hansomtackle.com/

Ok, now that we got the technical stuff out of the way, we will give one lucky SJ reader a chance to win one sheath, pliers not inluded

Black or orange, your choice

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There are some things that go together like hand and a glove. Peanut butter and jelly, bucktails and a pork rinds, Charlie Sheen and liquor, Penn reels and surf fishing. Yes, since Penn Reels discontinued beloved 706 series spinning reels there has been a void in their lineup when it comes to battle tested surf spinning reels surfcasters have came to expect from this venerable manufacturer. There are very few seasoned anglers who did not own a Penn 704 or Penn 706 reel and loved it.  And most of these fellows, including many on Surfcaster’s Journal staff still to this day continue to scrounge the tackle shop for parts for these workhorses of the surf. We all have heard the rumors that Penn Reels was in the process of designing a USA made high end spinning reel but to be honest, there were so many delays in making these reels available to the public that many in the surfcasting community assumed that there must be something wrong with a design.

Oh, how wrong they were! Instead of rushing with a halfassed product into the market,  Penn took the time to test and tweak the reel until they were satisfied with it. They had hardnosed surfcasters on their staff testing the reels and providing feedback and it shows in the final product. We got our hands on a reel in late summer and immediately spooled it with some Western Filament Tuff Line XP braid and loved the way the line was spooled onto the reel. We  took it down to the beach and made few casts.  We were offered the bailed version last year when it came out but we decided to wait for the bail less version, reasoning that most of our readers would prefer that version. The Torque 5 is slightly smaller than some of the most popular reels used in surf today like Van Staal 250 or ZeeBaaS 25 but we felt that line shot off the spool just as well. The drag was incredibly smooth and we loved that we can increase or decrees the drag gradually .

 The real test would come in few weeks when fall run kicks into a full gear but first we had to do a patented Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine sand test. Ok, it’s not patented and we have been called idiots for doing it but we feel that this type of testing is needed on a reel that is supposed to be not only marketed to the surf fishing crowd but cost a pretty penny too. So we went to the beach with our video camera, got the reel wet so the sand adheres to is better. We dug a hole in the sand and buried the reel completely. For good measure we stepped on the sand few times. When we took the reel out ,it was caked in the sand which got into every nook and cranny of the reel. We walked to the water, rinsed the reel few times and made a cast. You know that grinding sound your old 706 used to make when you would get hit by a wave? It’s not happening with a Torque. We were stunned that all, and we mean all the sand had flushed out. On the first cast, we expected some resistance, some grinding as the sand flushed out but we got none. The reel was clean as a  whistle and smooth as butter. We are looking forward to some more testing

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOumShc-hI[/youtube]

of you have told us that you loved Jack Frech article in this issue of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine. The person interviewed for the story was well known angler and tireless advocate for beach access, Willy Young. I couldn’t help myself when he sat next to me at Paulie’s Bait and Tackle this weekend. This video is a result of a bull session, nothing more, nothing less. I thought you guys would enjoy it, hear it from the man itself.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uZgE_nbOTM[/youtube]

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For those of you who did not order the shirts yet, we will take the order page down on Wednesday afternoon. Then we will tally up all the orders and order the shirts for you. Figure in a week we should have them done. So if you are thinking of getting one, you only have one day to do it.

And of course, here is the issue with Jack Frech article

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As I promised you on Friday, here are the details for ordering MTK Vintage 1957 t-shirt. This is a special order, which means we will give you guys two days to put your order in. Then we will order the shirts for you and ship them probably next week. This way we have no shirts left, whatever you guys order, we will hook you up…but that is it.

Limited run

Here is the link to order sizes M,L,XL and 2 XL. They are $17 shipped

 sizes M,L,X,XL,2XL

Here is the link to order 3XL & 4XL. They are $19 each shipped

3XL & 4XL

just a quick note…would like to thank all of you who stopped by our table last night. Your words of encouragement and support mean a lot.

The old mtk shirts were gone last night, for you that expressed interested in the other thread, please tune in on Sunday/Monday and we will give you details how to order them.

In mean time….I am going fishing…

oh yeah,,,,,the WINNER of delicious looking Super Strike weighted needlefish is……

drum roll please

..David Strom

Contact us within 48 hours at info@surfcastersjournal.com with your shipping address

more thoughts on show, Ron Arra, St Croix, and other stuff coming up

Don’t ask me why..I guess Tommy was inspired by the cold front 🙂

So he made two dozen of these shirts for tomorrow’s Fisherman’s Surf Fishing show in Huntington. I think he made one dozen large and one dozen extra large. That is it

We thought we give some of you blog readers a chance to get one. Right now, there is no plans to make ton of them and put them in the online store. In fact, the only way we will make them is if you “pre-order” or reserve them. This is the only color and the back is blank. Picture of Montauk Surfcasters from 1957. Very classis and very cool

Here is the deal. The shirts are $15, figure $2 for ship brings it to $17.

We will only make these in sizes that are reserved on this thread. So if only 3 of you want 2xl than that is all we are going to make. No more, no less. We don’t need your $, just tell us how many and what size you want

So speak now or forever hold your peace:-)

Keep an eye on this cold front coming this Thursday, the temperatures will be dropping drastically overnight. For all of you mullet run fans, this might be the day to hit the beach on the outgoing tide looking for these little suckers.

Speaking of Thursday, there is an annual Fisherman Show and Seminar on tap on Long Island . Crazy Alberto, Bill Wetzel, Paul Melnyk and William Doc Muller are just some of the seminar speakers. Looking forward to seeing some of the familiar faces. If we never meet, stop by our table and say hi. Tommy and I should be there .

If you haven’t picked up Doc’s new book , Surfcaster : The Ultimate Surf Fishing Guide, this is a wonderful chance to pick up a copy and have Doc sign it for you.

Our resident Rod Guru , Lou Caruso from louscustomrods.com asked me to throw this out at you guys. He wants to know what do you guys want him to cover and write about. So if you have a suggestion, chime in, he is always interested in what our readers want to read about.

We have a wonderful giveaway coming your way from the fine folks at Red Gills in few days. We wanted to give you a chance to read trough the new issue of the magazine first before we swamp you with prizes..lol …its coming sometimes next week. Stay tuned…

In tackle store news…most of the stores are getting fresh bunker on regular basis including our supporters LI Outdoorsman and Saltwater’s Tackle…speaking of Outdoorsman, they just had Ralph Votta from Charlie Graves tins re-supply their inventory with his fine tins. There is a rumor that Saltwaters Tackle might carry RM Smith plugs in the near future. East End Tackle has a wonderful contest going on trough the fall, stop by and ask Scott about it. Fisherman’s Headquarters in NJ is reporting some uptick in fish activity on the local beaches. If I was you I’d stop by and check out new Penn Torque bail less..I think you are going to be very, very surprised by this reel…more on that in the near future. Pat at River’s End is of course the ultimate surfcasting headquarters in Connecticut. If I lived any closer I think I’d set up shop in the lot..lol…..Do keep in mind that Pat runs a great Surf Day in March, something you should definitely ad to your calendar.  And of course, Paul at Paulie’s Bait and Tackle is eagerly anticipating your arrival in Montauk. Fish are there and waiting, you are going to have to trust me on this one 🙂 . And last and not least by any means, I have heard that Mark at Cow Harbor Bait and Tackle is now an authorized  Zee Bass dealer and they will be doing servicing and warranty work on LI  so you won’t have to send your reel for servicing in CT…more on zbass coming in near future too

But for today, we will give you a chance (again) to win these new preloaded medium and small needlefish from fine folks at Super Strike. We posted two or three times the winner name and he has never came trough…so we will do this a bit different…in few days we will pick a winner. If he does not responds within 48 hours, we’ll pick the runner up…until we find the home for these delicious looking lures. I am sure that whoever wins these beauties will clean up in the fall with them.

So good luck and thank you goes to folks at Super Strike Lures

Today’s post comes from a guest contributor,  Don Guimelli from Afterhours Custom Lures. Many of you know Don as a great of a guy and excellent lure builder. Enjoy

Plug retrieves

   People are always coming up to me at the shows and asking how I retrieve this plug or that plug. My answer is always the same, vary your retrieve during each and every cast until you discover which the fish likes best. First and foremost, people ask me how slowly I fish a needlefish-. They’re usually surprised when I tell them that I fish a needle slowly less than half the time. I’ll cast a needle out there and let it get to a certain point in the water column then I’ll slowly pump the needle and gather the line. Then I’ll swim it a little faster with deliberate pauses, stop go, stop go. and finally I’ll whip it  like Stevie McKenna does when fishing the sluggo. All this in one cast. This will tell me which retrieve the fish prefer. I believe that when you speed up a plug during a retrieve you will induce reactionary or instinctive strikes.
   I use the same principles when fishing all of my plugs. When fishing a sub-surface metal lip swimmer I believe that you can fool any fish following it to savagely strike thru manipulation. First you want to get the plug down to the depth you think is most productive. Swim the plug at normal speed and then speed it up quickly and then stop it dead in its track-. The plug will slowly raise in the water, add a few subtle twitches and then speed it up again. If a fish is following it will instinctively whack it. We all love fishing pencils on the surface when there are big ‘ole girls around. Again, varying your retrieve will catch you more fish than the standard “pump your rod at the same pace no matter what “. Cast it out, speed it up , slow it down, let it stop all in the same cast and you will catch more fish. Another thing that I’ve noticed, a lot of pencil fishing guys do is they speed up when they miss a fish. I don’t know if it’s all the excitement or what but I feel that in most instances they pull the plug away from the fish. One of the reasons I love sinking pencils is that after a fish strikes and misses I stop the retrieve and feed it to the fish-. More times than not she will inhale it underwater.
   This is just my .02 after a lifetime of fishing and if it helps anyone to have more fun I’ll be very pleased. Remember what the late great Lee Wulff one said ” a gamefish (which I believe striped bass should be) are too valuable to be caught only once”.

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from our current issue of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine
We know many of you just look at the YouTube button in the magazine and never click it
so we make this easier on you

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cyj45lFPSk[/youtube]

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As you probably read, or hear, or seen, the new issue of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine is live for your viewing pleasure. Hope you enjoyed our labor of love. I would also thank the fellow who will remain nameless for sending us a donation. We sincerely appreciate it. As Tommy always said, we’d do this for free. But it helps to be able to at least offset some costs of shipping all the stuff we give away. Again, our sincerest thanks.
We are traveling today, doing some interviews and videos. Yes, this is how we sometimes spend our weekends..will be on the road at 4 am and hopefully back by evening. We’ll eat a lot of junk food, make frequent piss stops due to our uncontrollable urge to drink coffee every 20 minutes and we will probably spill it on ourselves somewhere in CT or RI. But the end result is we get to (hopefully) come up withsome stories for you and few videos too. Yeah, we rather be fishing…..

So here are the winners of this week contest. Let me get it all out of the way in one shot

the winner of a pair of SS Weighted needlefish has not come forward yet. We gave him an extra week to do it because of Hurricane Irene…We will extend our offer till Monday night but then we will give them away to someone else
The winner was Scott Crabtree… bigc_45638@yahoo.com

The winner of Western Filament 300 yards of TufLineXP
Bob Veritys102@optonline.net

The winners of “I LOVE SURFCASTING” and SJ stickers are

CT Matt who guessed 34 who will also receive a St Croix Mojo hat
Ernie who guess the cover
Frank 15 who also guessed 34 will also get stickers

Roger’s third picture which no one guessed is 43

all the winners, please email me your shipping addresses at info@surfcastersjournal.com

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here it is, issue # 9 and still alive..who would have thought ?

We prefer to be quiet when you guys are reading 🙂

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