How important is casting distance ?

In most instances, not very important. You would be surprised just how far I can cast an night, especially on a   new moon.

Funny thing is, when I try to replicate this in the daytime it never works. My plugs seem to  carry on and on at night…Yeah right. 🙂

Seriously, there are many instances when fish are in tight. I personally feel that I catch more fish on the last half of my retrieve then the first half. This probably varies greatly depending to where you fish.

But we all had days where we were embarrassed by our buddy who is catching all the fish at the end of the cast while the rest of us just watch. Many of my friends if not all of them have been schooled by this dude. The longest and most powerful casts I’ve ever seen. Need a proof?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhkCQKtaZ9I[/youtube] 

You see the point in this video where he slams the lure in the water during the swing? He broke 4 Yo-Zuri surface cruisers like that in one week, just by slamming then into the water on a cast. Brand new plugs, just out of package, all broke in half without fish ever touching them. His casts sail forever and he has an endurance of an elephant. I never seen anyone stand for hours in the same spot and repeatedly toss a pencil popper a mile.

 I grew up eating small fish all my life, something like a porgy would have been considered huge in my childhood. Did we catch bigger fish? Yes occasionally but for the most part we really did not go out of our way to target them. What are you going to do with a 20 pound fish? The restaurants didn’t want it (they don’t filet fish in Croatia, ever) and we could not sell it locally. The really tiny fish, the size of bergals was what we ate most of the time. Brodetto or fish soup were staples, we rarely fried anything.

Most of the time we sold any fish with white flesh and kept what they called “wild” fish we caught on long line. Giant eels, massive skates, sand sharks and such. Maybe you will say that we did not know any better and that is why I hold them in such a high regard.

But living here I tried every fishing I can find. I generally never order meat when I go out to dinner, it’s usually fish. Last night our good  friends took my wife and I to Picolla Bussola in Westbury. The company was fantastic and the food did not disappoint. The Chilean sea bass was out of this world.

But before I got together with  friends I spent the morning in Catja Café (http://cafe-katja.com/ )with SJ Chef de Cuisine Andrew Chase videotaping and photographing few recipes for future issues of the magazine. We made few dishes but the one I was most impressed with was a stuffed…….SKATE!

Holy crap, it was so good that I would put it on par with any fish I ever ordered in a restaurant. It also brought a lot of memories as it has been at least 20 years since I tasted its delicate meat. My grandparents were good cooks but they would have never thought of stuffing anything unless it was called a pepper. Our basic food way always boiled, boiled and boiled…and in the summertime grilled. Why? grilling was free with twigs from vineyard and wood from trees and wooden stove was cranking anyway in the winter. To use an oven would have meant to use electricity which in those days was very expensive.

Thanks Andrew to introducing me to something I’ve never even considered, a skate presented in such a way that could be served in any restaurant with pride. I think you guys are going to like it

We haven’t done a giveaway in a little while, don’t read too much into it, it’s just me, running out of the hours in the day. You probably noticed lack of 4 am posts too. Strangely enough, the winter has been busier then a fishing season. Shoveling the white stuff does not help either.

Here is a giveaway where you actually have to do some leg work

I picked one picture from Issue # 5 of the Surfcaster’s Journal magazine as my favorite.

Your job is to browse through the magazine and tell me on what page is the picture located. You only get one guess so choose wisely

What are you going to win?

How about this sweeter them sweet Prey Swimmer from Big Fish Bait Co (http://www.bigfishbaitco.com/customlures/index.php)

Maybe Larry from Big Fish Bait Co will chime in and tell us which shows is he doing this winter…

Sometimes the solutions to the problem are so simple, you start to wonder why you haven’t came up with them yourselves.

That’s how we felt when we seen the reel bags from  Fish Cinched. A double layer  nylon bag with waterproof soft lining opened on both ends. Instead of trying to make you bag  fit over the extended handle, trying to cover the stem and always worrying if it going to fly off your truck while you are driving, all you do is slide the whole rod and reel into the bag and cinch it on both ends

Presto

Ad a kickass Surfcaster’s Journal logo and your reel is going to love you. We ordered these bags few months ago and were hoping to have them in December. Obviously it did not work that way as we just recently got them and added them to our online store today. We only have less than a dozen of each color,  to be exact…so you might be getting a collector’s item…oh, well, no one ever called us smart businessmen 🙂

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKp7G7Ch5Ds&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

here is a picture

If your club or organization or a tackle shop is looking to make these types of bags with your logo, you can visit http://www.fishcinched.com/home

That’s where we ordered our bags

I know many of you are looking forward to these classes. So am I.

But I also feel obligation to your wives and kids to keep you out of the harm’s way.

Due to possibility of major storm I will canceled the Surfcasting class scheduled for tomorrow January 26th.

The class will be rescheduled, hopefully on another Wednesday, I will shot for March 16th

I am sorry for this inconvenience but I do not want anyone driving in the stormy conditions. If this was before or after storm it would be a different story but it looks like the worst conditions will be tomorrow evening

Sincerely

Zeno Hromin

updated

• Class #1 January 26  CANCELED
• Class #2 February 2nd Zeno Hromin/Don Musso  Lures
• Class #3 February 16th “Doc”Muller north shore/ bucktail in the surf
• Class # 4 February 23rd John Skinner Inlets/live eels
• Class # 5 March 2nd Bill Wetzel Montauk
• Class # 6 March 9th  Manny Moreno Wetsuits/ Zeno Hromin South Shore
• Class #7  TBA Zeno Hromin/Lou Caruso/ Roger Martin date to be announced

Someone called me the other day and told me “I can’t believe how many replies did you guys had when you asked how many guys amongst  SJ magazine readers use or want to use a fly rod”. I wasn’t surprised. To me fly fishing from the surf is no different then plugging, tossing a chunk, or even hand lining. In each case, the point is to toss your offering into the seas and fool the gamefish while standing on terra firma.

Some will swear that plugging is the hardest, other will say there is nothing like fooling a fish on the fly and yet many will tell you that chunking is an art form, not just tossing a slab of meat  into the ocean. All I can tell you is that unless you tried hand lining you have no idea how “challenging ” this sport can be. Imagine giving “drag” by squeezing a mono trough your fingers till they bleed. Yeah Continue reading →

For every weekend angler who relished the thought of tossing a tossing a tin and catching fish, with a good chance of going home with a keeper there is a angler who hates it more then he will ever admit it.

There is no shame in giving fish what they want. Every successful angler over the years has adapted to the conditions, bait patterns and type of fish he targeted in order to be successful. There are herring runs, and mackerel run, squid and bunker blitzes, sand eel bites and mullet run.

But there is something about the sand eels that many, including yours truly  absolutely detest. First of all, unlike your normal migration Continue reading →