I must have answered 50 to a 100 emails this week, all dealing with lost password, username or “why I cant view the journal past subscription page” question. And I answered every single one. Spent a good half hour on a phone with a fellow who needed a little extra help. It’s cool, that is why we are here for. But when people post on other sites that they are getting no response to multiple emails…I get very annoyed. Because you know me. Those of you who contact me can expect email back within 10 minutes. Now if you call me and leave a voicemail I it might be a week till I get back to you.

Dave suggested we do this so let’s get to it

Blog and Magazine, two separate entities.

Blog free. You can read, you can be amused, you can win stuff

Magazine $20. You can read more, you can be amused more. You can win more including a CTS rod. You might get a date with Kate Upton.

Just because you been on the blog for a long time it does not entitles you the access to the magazine. You have to subscribe by clicking here https://surfcastersjournal.com/amember/signup  if you want a full accesses to new issue and all the old issues.

So here we go, simple stuff

You MUST Log In order to read the mag. The way you log in is to click on MAGAZINE tab on top right then LOGIN. Then enter your username and password. Or you can click on this link and bookmark it https://surfcastersjournal.com/amember/login

Do not remember your password? You see the box that says “lost password”? Put your email you registered with and it will send you new password to THAT email address. Remember, we are not talking about the info you registered with on the blog, we are talking the email you used when you paid and created account with SJ. If you signed up at the shows, we sent you an email with your login/password the day after. 99% of people that contacted me and said “I don’t have it, you never sent it” were very surprised to find it in their SPAM/JUNK folder. If you have a Google Gmail account I can almost guaranty it’s in your SPAM folder. Look, it’s not a big deal to me to point this out but I figured I let you know before you send an email for help.

I understand that after two months some have forgot email, usernames or whatever. We can help. Shot an email to info@surfcastersjournal.com and tell us your email you registered with, or your full name and we will help you out. That is why we are here for.

Those of you that extended your subscription at the shows, you can log in, click on Main Page Button  and see that your subscription expires in 2015, two years from a date you originally signed up . We don’t send a special email for renewal to those who did it at shows. We just hook you up. Go check.

So, no , blog and magazine are not the same, they have different subscribers. Blog is free , magazine is not. To subscribe to the magazine and have access to all 18 issues and all the videos click here. https://surfcastersjournal.com/amember/signup

Use the password retrieval tool before you contact us. Because we are going to do the same thing after you contact us. There is no Wizard of Oz here..

You must, must  Log In first in order to view whole magazine. If you are using password retrieval tool, check your spam folders, you new password might be there.

If you contact us, we can reset your password manually. Just keep in mind that this will cut into our court mandated porn viewing therapy …Just saying..

If you subscribed at the shows and never got your log in info, please, contact us asap. We already set up all the accounts the day after the show. It’s possible we entered the wrong letter when typing your email and sent your activation email to abyss. We do speak Cringlish here, you know?

Anyway, that is it. Go hug your kid, watch a little March madness, wet a line in the salt. Whatever rocks your boat. I am going painting..can you say major brownie points?

You can never have too many of those

Over the weekend I will try to gather my thoughts about something that drove me nuts this week. Lost passwords, inability to remember usernames, inability to distinguish between Blog and Magazine, Kate Upton bra size…but today is a Friday and I will make it extra special.

This giveaway is open to subscribers of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine only. If you are not subscriber please do not enter and save me a headache of deleting your entry

We can call this a Mega Giveaway, more than a dozen lures, all going to one lucky dude (or dudete)

Maybe you’ll catch your personal best on it ? Hey, you got to be in it to win it. I have a feeling this is going to be a year of a lot of big fish being caught.

Our thanks for being subscribers to the Surfcaster’s Journal  Magazine. And if you are not a subscriber, you can become one by following this link  https://surfcastersjournal.com/amember/signup

Good luck

I hope you guys are enjoying the new issue. Every time we do this it’s like welcoming another member into our family. When Dave mentioned to me that he wants to interview all the fellows that landed fish over 50 pounds from the surf last year, I was a bit surprised as I never really seen that angle to the story. And I must say he hit the ball out of the park.

Ok, first, the winner of this Lemire Plug Works mint Goo Goo Eyes swimmer is akrispoli@cox.net

You have 5 days to email us at info@surfcastersjournal.com or you forfeit your prize.

Two, I am going to keep saying this because I am getting a lot of emails about it. Anyone who has access issues to the journal, we are here to help. Usually it’s a forgotten password, or username but we are here to help. We have not have any issues with the journal itself but I can understand how you forget your username after two months. Before you email us, try the password retrieval tool on Log In screen. If you are a Gmail dude I can ALMOST guarantee that your password will be in SPAM/JUNK folder. Anyway, feel free to shot us an email. Same email address above.

Three, this weekend on tap is Surf Day at River’s End Bait and Tackle at Old Saybrook CT. We hope to see you there,

Four, we would like to welcome Century Rods at http://www.advancedfishing-usa.com/ and Edge Angling at http://www.edgeangling.com  as new supporters of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine. We used Century rods in the past and were very impressed by them and the Edge? Who has not shopped there? They are class operation all the way

STRIPER SURF DAY

March 23th, 2013

It won’t be long, the first migrating schoolies will here and the long wait will be over.  Until then join us in celebration of surf fishing. It’s a great day to hang out, take in a seminar and just get reacquainted with some old and new surf rats. We’ll have great speakers, demonstrations, factory reps, sales, door prizes, gourmet road kill and good friends.

                      FEATURED SURFCASTERS

Dave Anderson – conducting a seminar “ Six Steps to Your Next Personal Best Striper”

Tony Stetzko – demonstrating St.Croix Rods

Steve McKenna – will demonstrate how to weight Red Fins and make them more productive.

Dennis Zambrotta – will be signing “Surfcasting Around the Block”

Adam Romagna – is displaying antique striper plugs

We’ll also have reps from CTS Rods, Van Staal, Commando Surfcasting, Super Strike, Zee Baas, Line Stretcher, Tsunami,

Lunker City, Pure Fishing and more. It’s free, just show up.

back to magazine…this is just a short preview . The full 31 minutes interview can be found in the subscriber section of the new issue of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine. See you in CT

[youtube]http://youtu.be/bVwpJeGXiLA[/youtube]

To say that I am proud of what the issue #18 is all about would be a understatement. This is the first issue Dave put together with minimal input from me.

His article on all the surf caught 50’s in 2012 is worth a year’s subscription alone. And the way Tommy laid it out, I just kept going back to those pictures over and over and over.

 There is a video by Lou Caruso on how to correct that dreaded line lay on your Van Staal. Lordship Lures Ron DiCostanzo shares his wood sealing methods. There is an 30 minute video interview with Dennis Zambrotta about golden days of Block Island and giant stripers. And the Part I of the documentary on history of surf fishing at Montauk Point.

But that is just scratching the surface. Columns by John Skinner ,Steve McKenna, Andrew Chase, John Papciak, John Skinner, Lou Caruso, Russ “Big Rock” Paoline, Roger Martin and Al Albano

A feature by veteran Charlie Soares, Will Sirotnak writes on wetsuits, Jock Holt on fishing Nicaragua, late Frank Pintauro interviews legendary Stan Gibbs

174 pages of pure surf fishing heaven…and the best part I have not read most of it yet!

So go read…its waiting for you. Log into your account, click on CURRENT ISSUE and enjoy. And if you are not subscriber yet, what are you waiting for?

you can watch the preview like this

[youtube]http://youtu.be/6O5aXOSjdhQ[/youtube]

or you can get accses the the whole shebang

https://surfcastersjournal.com/

Why is it when you are working on something, like removing a rod rack off your truck…you take all the screws off with no problems. But then you strip a last one and a 10 minute project turns into a 2 hour job? This happens to me all the time , to the point where I think that it WILL happen ! Its maddening I tell you.

Many of you know that we have been at the shows these past few weekends. This is the first weekend when I got up at my leisure in more than 5 weeks. Between fishing shows and taking my son to colleges it’s been crazy. One result of all of us not being around is that the new issue if few days late. Have no fear, its finally here but being away definely took a lot from all of us. Because we do this after our regular jobs and weekends are a big part of it.

I knew when I started to inquire (you can read beg instead of inquire) within the Montauk surfcasting legends circles about sitting down on camera that this is going to be multi-year project. And I also knew I was over my head. Shooting video is one thing, but trying to put it together so it actually resembles something decent and holds your attention is a whole other thing. Anyone can splice few minutes of blitz footage together. Heck, even I have successfully done this once or twice.

But my problem is I really, really, really like all of these dudes. Jack Yee, Joe Bragan, Bill Wetzel, Manny Moreno, Vito Orlando, Willy Young….I can listen for hours and hours when Fred Schwab talks and never get bored. I don’t need no stinking b-roll overlay footage or fancy graphics, I just like Fred for Fred. In fact, every time I do a cutaway from Fred I feel like I am cheating him. To listed to these guys talk about competitiveness, to hear them describe what they thought first time they seen a wetsuit wearing angler. Or who was the best. Or listen to Willy Young talk about taking a train in 1944 to Montauk to go fishing is crazy. I am glad that I did the interviews, I am glad that there will be some record of what these guys have been trough over the years. But I could never do a justice to a project like this. There has to be at least 40 hours of just interviews and to me leaving anything out seems like injustice. Maybe because a part of me want to capture it all, the people, the places, who was considered best, which plugs why, who brought the first bucktail, who tossed the first needle, who skished 40 years before all the johhnycomelately did

But I cant for obvious reasons include it all. And I have done a great job avoiding doing this in last few weeks and I used that as a reason why…haha…finally I sat don’t on Friday and started to work on Part I. Do I start from 1944, or from today’s blitzes, sneakiness, competitiveness, darter, eels, wetsuit, people, north vs. south…oh brother!

Finally I decided to kind of blend two subject which I thought were connected, competitiveness and wetsuits. After all, using a wetsuit grew in large part because of competiveness. So after about 10 to 12 hours of editing I had about 16 minute thing done. Am I happy with it? I would say I need at least 5  more years and few years of camera schooling to make something that would make me happy but I tried my best. My intent always was to try to capture the history in the words of those who lived through it. I would hope that the final version of this project down the line would be more polished and with lots and lots and lots more overlay footage. But on the end of the day, this is about people, and their experiences

At 16 minutes and 3.5 GB  at 1080 P it took 6 and a half hour to upload to YouTube…..only to be told at 6 hour and 31 minute that it failed to upload.Its telling me is “too long”. Huh? I just uploaded 31 minute interview with Dennis Z the other day????  Did I tell you how even the simple things lately turn to shit? :-)..So here I am again, uploading it to YouTube this time at 720 P.     This time only took one hour. but it failed again.And again.and again.. Oh brother…now what ? The only thing I can think of is to cut it down in two pieces of about 7 minutes each and do it that way. So I did, Part 1 took about an hour and it was fine. Great, not what I planned  but sometimes YouTube can be maddening. Part two was next. After an hour it told me it was “too long” and it failed to upload. WTF? Two more tries with same results. Oh my God, I thought of taking the biggest hammer I got and smashing the Mac. Finally I give up after 14 hours at 10 pm.

Today I wanted so badly to take a day off and work on this but “working” is basically waiting to see if YouTube will accept it. I have no idea why, maybe I have a corrupt file. Like I said, I am much better of wrapping duct than this shit. But I knew my boss will throw a shitfit if i take a day off. We are so understaffed at work and so many jobs are buried already..so I took an early day to try to work on this. And I am still getting nowhere. The magazine is done, Tommy was waiting for me to upload this last video. The new issue will be  up in the next 24 hours, video or not. My time is up..not sure if I bit more than I can chew with making videos. It sure seems that way..stay tunned

Surf Fishing for False Albacore with SJ columnist John Skinner

Helps chase the winter blues away 🙂

[youtube]http://youtu.be/o9fB4vC4ciE[/youtube]

Today we are going to have a very sweet giveaway courtesy of Al Lemire from Lemire’s Plugworks.

Dude has the sickest plug videos around.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/TnM1vcZn368[/youtube]

Just one note about subscription..AGAIN…because this is my Achilles heel. If you do not have your activation from Surfcaster’s Journal in your email box,  check your SPAM AND JUNK folders. I am telling you it’s there with penal enlargement emails. And if you renewed , you are not getting another email. Log into your account, click on the MAIN PAGE button and check date. If your subscription says 2015 then you are all set for two years. Your subscription was extended a year from a date you first signed up, not from show date. Just so we are clear.

Anyway, let’s do this. One lucky dude will win the Lemire’s Plugworks 8 inch, 3 ounce GooGoo Eyes metal lip swimmer.

This giveaway is open to Surfcasterls Journal MAGAZINE subscribers only. Good luck

I don’t know if driving to Providence for RISAA in the snow storm can be called ‘fun’ but it was sure a lot of fun meeting so many of you over the weekends. Same goes for a ride Saturday night to Asbury. Thanks to RISAA and Asbury Park Fishing Club members on their hospitality and organization. I am still trying to catch up on life so I will just post few notes about upcoming things. We have postS by Wetzel and Zombratta, some giveaway and other stuff lined up but first,…

Our new issue. Tommy said that it will be ready this weekend. As you can imagine, with us running around every weekend and him gutting his bathroom, time is at the premium but we will get it done. This is the first issue which Dave put together and to be honest, I haven’t read the single word that is in it. So I, like you are brimming with anticipation.

Two, Surfcaster’s Journal will be at this weekend Lindenhurst Flea Market. Tommy will be there with new t-shirts, you can stop by and pick up one for free if you subscribe or renew your subscription. This offer is only good at the showS, not applicable to online purchases

We will also be at River’s End Surf Day in CT next weekend. Then a weekend after that I need to go to Penn State with my son, then another college….oh brother. Do not remember what a weekend feels like.

For those of you that cant make any shows but like the new shirt (honestly, I might be my favorite) you can go to our online store, they are there now.While suplies last. If you need a 3xl size contact us at info@surfcastersjournal.com and we will hook you up. http://www.surfcastersgear.com/

Everywhere we go, Surf Day, Berkley, Asbury, RISAA people all ask one thing….can you guess what it is? It has nothing to do with fishing, magazine, subscription, advertising, writing, blogging…at every show we get “Did you bring any hoodies?”

No we didn’t bring any damned hoodies. We did a pre order in January. They we got harassed so we made another small run but everywhere we go we get asked for more,more,more. I tell you what, I am soooooooo happy that so many walked up to our table and told us that you like the quality. That is important to me, to us. You know what I mean?

So we will do a FINAL short pre-order for a year. Only because we do not want to disappoint our fans. They are online now, you can go to the online store or click on this picture and it will take you there. Only for six days to order and approximate shipping date on April 1st. And after we ship this batch we don’t want to hear about hoodies, hats or shirts…we what to hear about plugs, swirls, bass and the one that got away…capish? http://www.surfcastersgear.com/

And thanks to those of you that attended my seminars at RISAA…much appreciated. I am always nervous that I suck at talking and that a whole room is smarter than I am. So thank for coming

Crazy weekend, lots of thoughts on seminars, 10 am beer drinking, half naked chicks, fancy wood plugs and all kinds of stuff

I think it was two years ago, not sure, it could have been longer, Dennis Zombratta invited me to fish Block Island with him and his crew on a Memorial Day weekend. I went along with my trusted fishing partner Ray and we had a great time. That was the first (and last time according to my wife) that I will ever go anywhere on that weekend 🙂

Anyway, I did have these grandiose plans in my head at the time about making a documentary on history of surf fishing in the Northeast. Dennis was going to be one of the people I wanted to interview, primarily to document the incredible run of giant striped bass in the 80’s at Block Island. Having youthful exuberance proved to be not enough, I would need to devote more time to this than I thought. With a tail between my legs I turned my attention to Montauk. Closer to home. Even that project which I started last fall will probably take me years to finish at current pace. But that is life

One good thing that came out of this was that I only not had a great time in Block with Dennis and his crew but I made new friends and learned a lot about what transpired during those crazy days of big bass and green needlefish. To those of you who are not up to speed, during that fabled run of giant fish, according to Dennis, anything under forty pounds was more or less dismissed as a “small fish”. Forty and fifties were daily occurrence and even 60 pound striper was a very good probability on any given day.

I dusted up the interview with Dennis I did on that Block Island trip and it will be featured in its entirety, all 31 minutes of it in the upcoming issue of the Surfcaster’s Journal

Here is a preview

[youtube]http://youtu.be/bVwpJeGXiLA[/youtube]

Ok, so we are working on another issue in between the shows, literally and figuratively. Here is a sneak peak of what is coming your way in March Issue

50’s in 2012 – Anderson talks to all 6 of the casters who took 50’s in 2012

Surfcasting from the Other Side – Veteran striperman, Charley Soares takes us back to his days in the surf fishing the areas between Point Judith and Westport, MA.

Nicaragua – Central America Surf Fishing adventure
Following Suit – CT Surfcaster Will Sirotnak advantages after making the switch to the wetsuit,
Gibbs In His Own Words – late Frank’s Pintauro legendary interview with Stan Gibbs

Anderson – Herring.
Albano – Cooler Racks
McKenna – Something Old, Something New

Roger Martin  first striper
Caruso – Keyboard Rod Building (is this like keyboard sharpie ?”lol)
Papciak – Fly reels
Skinner – well, i need to say more?.
Paoline – Plug dude extraordinaire
Chase – More excellent foodie fodder from a classically trained chef

Of course there are some reviews and stuff but wait… there is more!

First, new episode of Lure Building with Ron DiCostanzo..this one has to do plug sealing “secrets”..ok, just joking about the secret part although many plug builders will disagree. Because they live in a “man cave” that holds a lot of “secrets”..oh brother. There will be some ruffled feathers I bet

Second, new video with Lou Caruso. This one is on how to fix you hourglass line on your Van Staal reel. Hey, just because you paid a lot for your reel does not entitles you to have the line lay right on the spool. You could get a different reel but then you’d have to stop calling yourself “hardcore”..ha-ha

The Montauk thing…I am hopeful that I can get the segment out of that documentary done in time. But first we are off to Rhode Island for RISAA show

oh yeah, another video surprise..but more on that tomorrow.

If you have not subscribed the new SJ Journal here is your link.. you got a lot of catching up to do

https://surfcastersjournal.com/amember/signup

Here is a video of Ron strutting his stuff and preview of all the things covered in 2013

[youtube]http://youtu.be/USN5tJ1GOFs[/youtube]

The winner of our Guppy Pencil Popper Giveaway is frederick15@verizon.net . Guys from Guppy lures at http://www.guppylure.com/ contacted me and asked me if I would mind that they sent a newer version of this lure to the winner. I get to keep this one, I asked? They said yes. Why would I complain about THAT? 🙂