Its not often that after we write a review, we have the actual item to offer to our readers as a giveaway but in this case we have a little treat for you guys.

But first the winner of the Super Strike  Bunk O’Lantern Darter giveaway, provided graciously by a reader who prefers to stay anonymous. The winner is nightfighter/rossreiley@hotmail.com

You have 5 days to contact us at info@surfcastersjournal.com with your shipping address. Congrats

Back to folks at Pelican Products…I used to be a big fan of Princeton Rage lights but I got tired of going though them faster than Kate Upton goes trough swimsuits. One day I stopped by Causeway Bait and Tackle in Wantagh, NY and out of desperation bought the only light they had on a wall, little Pelican Tracker. It wasn’t as cheap as Princeton but I was in the rush to head to the beach and I grabbed it.

This was more than four years ago and don’t you know that I never, ever went fishing at night without that little light and its still around my neck to this day. That light paid for itself over and over and in fact, I have not bought another light since. Which is crazy considering I am used to going trough bunch every year. Its a testament to quality of Pelican Products.

But if anything is driving me up the wall, its the constant insertion of the light into my mouth full of fake (and very expensive) teeth  which  Tommy calls  my “Game Show host” teeth

The light we are giving away today is much larger and sturdier then my little Tracker and it has a thumb switch which you can easily operate even with Storm gloves when it gets cold. No more flashlight in the mouth!

Pelican Nemo 2410 LED light. Retail price north of $50

The StealthLite 2410 has Pelican’s new LED technology – now with 126 lumens and 7.5 hour runtime.

What you get: Pelican Stealthlite 2410 LED flashlight, wrist lanyard and batteries

Features of Pelican StealthLite 2410 LED Flashlight:
The Pelican Nemo StealthLite 2410 LED Flashlight (Blue) features a slide thumb switch that is easy to operate, even with gloves. This Pelican flashlight makes use of the new Deep Mount LED system, which uses an upgraded deep dish reflector and a state of the art opti-mechanical system to boost the power output of the Pelican 2410 StealthLite Flash Light. The StealthLite 2410 is corrosion proof, resistant to extreme temperatures and submersible. In addition, this flashlight comes complete with 4 AA alkaline batteries.
• suitable for Scuba Diving applications, batteries and wrist lanyard,  assembled in the USA

• lifetime guarantee through Pelican

Before they’re Gone

By Dennis Zambrotta 

Camaraderie – a spirit of good friendship and loyalty among members of a group.

            Something that many of us take for granted are the friendships we make while pursuing our favorite pastime of surfcasting stripers.  If we’re fortunate these relationships may last most of our lifetime and help mold who we become as surfcasters and people. 

            I’ve met many different people over my 45 years of fishing.  Many of them are very good fishermen and even better people – some have become lifetime friends.  You can’t even begin to appreciate or comprehend what you get out of these friendships as they will teach you many lessons about fishing… and life.  If you’re lucky you will share marriage celebrations, births of children, grandchildren, and then retirements. I’m now 57 and in recent years death has

 more and more become part of my life.   In 2013 I lost two very special friends to cancer.  I may not have ever met them if it wasn’t for surfcasting.  Ezidro “Zeke” Silva and Chuck “Crafty Angler” Vietry were both very special people in my life.  Remembering the good times and conversations I shared with them still warms my heart.  In our 35 year friendship Zeke became a big part of my life; he was the best man at my wedding; in fishing we witnessed and experienced the great Snowstorm Blitz together, a night when we shook hands after both reaching the ultimate surfcasting pinnacle of landing a 50.  Zeke was in constant pursuit of anything with fins, and was truly the inspiration for the phrase, “No Fish is Safe”.   Chuck Vietry was a fellow surfcasting history buff who loved researching the history of our pastime.  We spent many hours casting live eels at his favorite perches in Newport, Rhode Island.  He also had a creative writing background and freely offered advice to me while I wrote my book. Those of you who have read Surfcasting around the Block will recognize Chuck and Zeke’s na

mes on the books acknowledgement page.  In the next print run I’ll be adding both names to the Dedication page – never an easy thing to do but something I’ll now have done three times starting with my friend, the late Timothy Coleman in 2012.  The men whose names are printed on the dedication page might be physically gone from my life – but they will never be out of my memory. 

As we slip into 2014 I encourage every surfcaster to cherish and savor the friendships you make while casting the beach.   Make sure to take the very next opportunity to look your friends in the eye and thank them for their company and friendship. By all means give them a hug… because you never know when they’ll be gone.   

ditors note :

Dennis Zambrotta is well know Rhode Island surfcaster and friend of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine since our humble beginnings.  He was fortunate to be one of the major players during the great Block Island Giant Striper Blitzes in 1980′s and he has recently wrote a  book about his experience,  Surfcasting Around the Block. A good read for any surfcaster.

I hope you enjoyed that piece from Dave Anderson and Bill Wetzel last week. I am hoping that by bringing different voices to this blog we make it even better. Speaking of the mag/blog thing, let me get this out. This week we are coming up on a one year anniversary of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine in the present format. I know many of you are wondering when your subscription is up, how to renew it. Don’t. The way the subscription is designed is that it automatically renews. You don’t have to do anything. Of course you can cannel this option by logging into your account. And if you changed your cc info during the course of the year, then we’ll notify you that you have to renew in that case on your own. I know some of you have renewed last week but we will actually take that option off this week because its screwing up our whole system. So don’t worry, we made this simple, no need to even think about it.

I was watching another awesome video Larry Wentworth, maker of Big Fish Co lures put out this week in association with his lovely wife Angie. First, the editing is better than mine. And two, after you watch this video, you will never say  that wood plugs are too expensive.

The process from raw wood blocks to finished product is intense and frankly, its too many steps for me to even  attempt. But having watched this video, it gives me a whole new appreciation  for what it takes to make a wooden lure.

Take a look, Larry takes you from raw block of wood to a finished product and then he tosses it some real life testing at the end. Lets say that stripers didn’t exactly thumb their nose to it

[youtube]http://youtu.be/_2IMSSFhev0[/youtube]

speaking of making lures.

The video below on making Bucktails was embedded into issue #21 of the Surfcaster’s Journal, September issue I believe. If I am looking at these stats right, only two hundred of you have actually watched it. For the whole version, log into your account, go to ARCHIVES and find issue #21. Aren’t you glad you have access to all past issues ?

I know I am

Wind, tide, primary bait and even water temperatures are all related to the piece of structure you are fishing and are rarely interchangeable with other areas or pieces of structure.  In other words you can take sayings like east is least, west is best, and permanently delete them in your junk mail. Conditions are spot related and my job as a surf caster is to choose what conditions works best for the spot I am about to target. A spot by the way may only be a little piece of water about ten feet wide.  For example, Montauk is NOT a spot. There are a trillion spots within the Montauk surf, each have their own “best” conditions to fish.  In one spot you may want NW winds during the last of the ebb tide, and fifty yards down the beach you may want NE winds with flood tide.  Indeed you can fish a spot with winds that are not optimal for that spot and clean house, but for me the name of the game is consistency. I want to put myself or my charters in the best possible situation that I can. Therefore I must consider wind as one of the primary factors that will increase or decrease current, push bait in or out of an area, spark a bait migration, raise or lower tides, dirty water or clean it, the list is long as to how wind can effect a spot. To be consistently successful you need to relate wind to all the other conditions that are presented to you.  For the scope of this blog entry I will stick to just the wind basics and hopefully show how wind can change your approach to one spot, and give you some food for thought on the spots that you may fish.

Taking the below photo into consideration.  We have a caster fishing a point with deep water on the east side of the point, and shallow water on the left. Let’s imagine that it is early May and the water temps are around 50 degrees, and there are krill and bunker in the area. What wind might give us the best chance at landing some stripers? Since the water is cold the stripers will be lethargic, especially the larger stripers.  Any hard winds from the north are going to create chop increased effort for stripers to hold to a piece of structure. South winds are going to keep the water flat which is good, but what about our krill?  South winds may push this krill out. Considering the water temps time of year and bait, I may opt for very little to no wind as being my best chance in this spot for the time of year given. No wind will keep the krill at my feet, and enable the stripers to feed by ambushing bait with very little effort.

Now let’s consider early June. A large amount of 1″ sand eels have moved in. What are hard winds from the north going to do? More than likely they will force these small sand eels into deeper water as they will not be able to hold in the rough surf that the north winds will create. A south wind will keep the water flat but will not increase current. A SW wind combined with an ebb tide would be great because it would keep the water flat enabling the sand eels to hold tight to the beach, and the west in the south west wind would increase the ebb current, uprooting sand eels and giving stripers increased opportunity to feed on them.

How about mid-October? Let’s say snappers, butterfish, and Juvi weakfish have moved in. These are all bigger baits. Would south winds be optimal? Would the SW winds that were great for the small sand eels be optimal? More than likely not, as these bigger bait need a little something to push them into casting range. How about a north wind? Not for me. Yes it is blowing in my face, but it is not pushing any bait because is doing nothing to increase current by blowing directly in my face.  A NE wind with ebb current? Hmmm, might not be bad as I may get a washer machine effect on the point. I call it a washer machine when wind collides with current and creates a kind of trapping zone. Yet, for me it would be a good NW with an ebb tide that would get my juices flowing as the north would give the water a push and the west in the NW would increase current.  A push in to the beach combined with an increased in current is going to make for some great opportunity.

The point in all this is not to confuse you but to show how wind can effect one single spot. After you figure out all the other variables of your spot like where to stand, where to put your cast, tide, bait, time of year, water clarity, water temps, and what is optimal for all these combinations you still may get the skunk , but I guarantee you will increase your chances, and that is the name of the game. The bottom line is this blog, websites, and books may help you or sometimes in understanding the wind, but only putting in the time is going get you to the goods.

Bill Wetzel is what we like to call “The Hardest Working Guide in the Surf”. A quintessential Montauk Regular Bill works hard at teaching his clients the secrets of Montauk coves and consistently puts them on the fish. No wonder most of his customers come back for more year after year. Bill also runs a Surf Rats ball, Subscribers only forum at http://www.surfratsball.com/ There he exchanges ideas with his subscribers and of course, logs each and every one of his trips for all to read. Check it out at http://www.surfratsball.com/

at www.surfcastersjournal.com

Contributions by

 John Skinner

Crazy Alberto Knie

Zeno Hromin

Frank Diagnault

Greg McSherry

Dave Anderson

Frank Pintauro

John  Hanecek

Al Albano

Chef Chris Blouin

John Papciak

Lou Rod Guru Caruso

DJ Muller

Eight embedded videos

 198 pages of pure surf fishing heaven. If you are not subscriber by now, we don’t know what more we can do other than sending Crazy AL over your house to force feeding you some leftover bunker chunks

ps

we just added Friday night night crew hoodies in M,L and 3XL, sizes, L and XL coming on thursday. And also that pesky 2xl Night Crew tshirt. Yeah, we know we should make bigger order but we only have so much room to store. The rest of the basement is dedicated to hundreds of plugs..;-)

I came home the other day to find a box in front of my door. In the box there were lots of fine lures and  a note from a Surfcaster’s Journal reader. It read something like this

” Dear SJ, I have been so fortunate to have so many lures, I would like to share these with the rest of the readers but please, keep my name private and this donation anonymous”

So I cant publicly thank that fellow although I am doing it now because I know he is reading. So Thank You

So today I am going to give you a chance top win one of the lure he sent, a lure you cant buy anywhere because it was offered as special by Super Strike last year.

Super Strike  Bunk O’Lantern Darter

And speaking of Super Strike. we just uploaded this interview with Don Musso, the legendary force behind the Super Strike Lures to our You Tube Channel. Its a 8 minute excerpt from a 37 minute video interview.

Where is the full 37 minute version? Its was embedded into Issue #21 of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine in September. If you are a subscriber, log in and go to archive and issue #21 in case you glanced over it and did not see the whole thing. It makes this bitter cold a lot easier to take.

For you that are not subscribers, well, what are you waiting for? You are mising out on a quite a bit of knowledge, history and great surf fishing content

[youtube]http://youtu.be/dSBlO3-wOSI[/youtube]

Speaking of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine, Tommy is done laying out and all we have to do is put it together and proofread it and we’ll make  it live for your reading pleasure. Coincidentally, (and I know I mentioned this once before)we are coming up on one year anniversary of new SJ. We switched over to subscription based model last year in mid January. Which means that those of you who became subscribers right away, our biggest fans and supporters, your subscription will renew automatically on the anniversary of your subscription. You don’t have to do anything, the way they set this up is that your subscription gets renewed automatically, If you do not want automatic renewal please log into your account, go to Payment History and click on Cancel Subscription. Because sure do not want to get a call from your wife asking why is my husband subscribing to another X-rated site after he said he would stop:-)

Feelings I Forgot

By Dave Anderson

The world of the surfcaster has changed quite a bit over the past 70 years and the changes seem to be coming at an ever-increasing rate. Back in the early days our forefathers had to adapt, retrofit and improvise just about everything they used. Slowly innovations were made commercially available but it really took a long time for things made specifically for surfcasting to hit the mainstream market. These days we have roughly 8,000,000 plug builders, a broadening armload of bag makers, state-of-the-art clothing, rods and reels and it’s being shoveled into our hungry mouths at a rate faster than we can chew and swallow.

The feeling of not wanting to be left behind or miss out on something new and awesome has it’s pros and cons. Yes, there are great innovations like the SP Minnow or the Stick Shadd that have achieved dedicated tube status in our surf bags, but there are far more duds than home runs. The ill effects of opening your mouth for the fire hose are that tried and true standbys sometimes get lost in the jumble. Sometimes a look back to days gone past can help you remember who really loves you.

Since the introduction of the SP Minnow, I admit, I have neglected the Red Fin, I still talk about it as a viable tool, but for some reason I tend to reach for the Daiwa these days. The funny thing is, I haven’t caught anything all that big on an SP and the Red Fin has been very good to me. You may know, if you’ve read articles by me in the past, that I don’t have a lot of affection for rattling plugs and yes, the SP does rattle. Tonight I’ve been sitting here thinking back to the pre-SP days and remembering some amazing catches.

One of my favorites was a night in early May. It was viciously stormy with a wicked wind. My partner, Dave Daluz and I had our sights set on a sod bank in a back river where the wind would be mostly over our backs. A cold rain pierced down as we traversed a dark woodsy trail. As we neared the point a silhouette was visible on the bank and I was immediately mad! And further, I wasn’t sure if we should fish, maybe this guy didn’t know what he was doing, if the fishing sucked, he might never come back! We weighed the walk back to the car and our measured a set of plan-B’s; ultimately we settled on fishing here and hoping that he’d leave before the tide made up.

I walked by, said ‘hello’ shortly, and asked if he’d had any luck. It was around 2 a.m. and pitch dark, our friend was throwing a popper—I figured I knew the answer—and I was right. “Nothing,” he said, “I’m basically just waiting for sunrise at this point.”

Talk about the bad negating the good! It was good that he hadn’t hooked up, but it was bad, VERY BAD that he was just going to stick it out. Now we were in the very strange place that only surfcasters know—fishing and hoping that the fishing isn’t good. I snapped on my trusty blurple water-loaded Red Fin and flipped it out into the rip. About five cranks into the retrieve the plug stopped dead with the force of a lightning strike, my rod bucked hard and curled into a cursive “C”. I kept my rod tip down and half-prayed I’d drop the fish, and I did. Dave looked at me and I tried to convey the news using exaggerated body language to alter my silhouette in the darkness. I cast again, and once again—BOOM—I was tight to a good one. This one splashed on the surface and our trespasser asked with a spark of hope, “are you hooked up?” With my rod low to the water I fought the urge to speak a tale that would soon be exposed as a lie. The fish came off, “Nah, I had a fish on, felt like a small blue.”

I wheeled around to Dave and said, “Dude, that’s two in a row and they were both good fish!” He rummaged for a blurple ‘Fin as I made a third cast; crank-crank-crank-crank, SLAM! Fish on again and this one was hooked good—the water exploded in front of me and line sang off my reel. The deep, hollow bursts of a decent bass trying the throw the hook shattered the silence of the night and any hope of concealing the quality of what I was tied to. Finally I slid a nice fish in the low 30-pound class up onto the bank. The hooks were buried and I had to light the fish up—my last secret was spilled—so we took a couple pics and released her. A feeling of dread washed over me as our new best friend changed over to a swimmer—wouldn’t you know that we caught one small fish for the rest of the night and into the morning! Looking back I wish I could take back that prayer!

Ice age…anyone watched that movie? Because that is what we woke up to this morning. The poor wife went outside to get a Sunday paper, not realizing that hell froze over. How bad was it? She had to take her shoes off and walk in socks to get back to the doors to get some kind of a grip over ice. If any of you were on the road this morning, we hope you got to wherever you had to go safely.

Three videos for today’s Blog

First, preview of the issue #23 of the Surfcaster’s Journal Online Magazine. We got articles from yours truly, Crazy Alberto Knie, Frank Diagnault, John Skinner, John Hanecek, Greg McSherry, late Frank Pintauro, Dave Anderson along with your favorite columnists. Some videos from Mexico, legendary NY surfman Fred Schwab talks about fishing for whiting on Navy Piers in 1950 at Montauk Point. Lou Caruso will show you how to modify your surf bag so that not all lures come out at once when you are perched on the rock.

Subscribe to the Surfcaster’s Journal Online Magazine today and get access to all our videos and all our past issues

[youtube]http://youtu.be/oXdKTfA4Nkg[/youtube]

Our second video is courtesy of our friend Larry Wentworth. Larry makes lures under Big Fish Co brand and this is a video about his 2013 season he put together with his lovely wife and fishing partner, Angie.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/Y9k4_zeGdjs[/youtube]

And last and never the least, our own columnist, John I-can-catch-a-fish-in-a-roadside-puddle Skinner has a new video out on (what else) hammering bass on pencil poppers

[youtube]http://youtu.be/qEnInAT146w[/youtube]

We are going to post this once a month until we draw a winner on the Memorial Day weekend

There is no greater service anyone can enlist in than putting their lives on the line so wee can live safely in the greatest country in the world. We are all forever indebted to all members of our armed forces past, present and future. Regardless if you did your tour of duty in WWII or just returned from the Middle East, you are a hero to us and our families.

It is our distinct pleasure to announce a very special giveaway. ZeeBaaS Reels, one of the world’s premier reels for surfcasters is going to award one member of our armed forces, past or current, a very special, one of a kind digitally camouflaged ZeeBaaS ZX27 reel. The reel will be engraved with their name and branch of service.

How do you win this very special giveaway?  You cant. You have to nominate a friend, neighbor, fishing partner, brother, sister or anyone who you admire that is a past or current armed force member and who you think it’s a special person.

We are aware that EVERY armed force member is deserving of our thanks and admiration. But we only have one reel to award. So send us a email, letter or essay. Hundred words or five thousand words, we don’t care. Just dont send us five.Tell us why you think your nominee is deserving of this special ZeeBaaS reel, what makes him a special surfcaster, friend or someone you look up to. That is it.

You spent a life time enjoying the safe life in this great country of ours without giving much thought as to why and who made it so safe. Today, take a minute to reflect , take a look at your family who is joyfully gathered around you, and nominate someone who you think its responsible for us all having a great life.

Just a few rules

• Past or active duty veterans must be nominated by friend, family member, fishing partner, etc. If you have someone you would like to nominate, send us a email with your buddy’s name and branch of service, along with  why you chose to nominate them. (its ok if you don’t know their branch of service )
• Nominee MUST be a surfcaster. Even if you know the guy who shot Bin Laden, he won’t win if he’s a trout fisherman only.  We really want to put this reel in the hands of a Surfcaster.
• While all who have served this country are more than deserving, we only have one prize to give so finalists will be selected by Ultra-Top Secret committee (known only by the NSA).   Winner will be selected by a random drawing of finalists.
• Winner will be announced on Memorial Day 2014 and will receive a 1 of a kind, digital camo ZeeBaaS ZX27 with their name and branch of service engraved in the reel.
• Send your letters, emails or essays to info@surfcastersjournal.com

Sit down, gather your thoughts and send us your entry. No ones life can be told in three lines typed on your IPhone

Got your shovels ready?

I sure hope that this is one of them deals where they wildly overestimate the storm and scare the crap out of the public…but after Sandy no one is taking a chance. I hope all of you stay safe and remember that even thou shoveling builds muscles and character, its a murder on the back.

Tommy is working hard (under heavy influence of Nyquil/Dayquil just like I am) to finish up the new issue of the Surfcaster’s Journal Magazine. Look for it early next week with your favorite columnists and for the first time, our two newest additions, Crazy Alberto Knie and Chef Chris Blouin. We are  proud of all our columnists and we are looking forward to what these two gentleman will bring to the table.

There will be some changes to the make up of this blog in 2014. Unlike in the past when I did it on my own with a little help from Midnight Rambler John Papciak, in this year we should have some help. We  have secured services of Bill Wetzel, Denis Zambrotta, Dave Anderson and Crazy Alberto Kine to contribute to the blog regularly  in addition to John and I in 2014. Of course our Rod Guru Lou Caruso will chime in on occasion as will other guest columnists. If any of our readers wants to contribute, just drop us a line at info@surfcastersjournal.com

This is also a show season and we have some special stuff planned for you, details to come on that. As of right now we are planning to attend NJ Surf Day, Berkeley and Asbury Flea Markets, RISAA in Providence, possible flea market in East Meadow on Super bowl Sunday and we hope to find a Suffolk county show later in February or March. There are only so many places we can be and still have a lady at home that wants to be married to us. If you guys have any other suggestions, we are all ears. Also, we know we sold out of Night Crew hoodies in one weekend and we honestly did not expect that. We ordered another small batch, only six of each size and they should be done next week.  If you want to be a first to get a heads up when they are in the store, drop us a line at info@surfcastersjournal.com and we’ll try to notify you. No guaranties but I always preferred to take care of the blog readers first. There are something like 26 000 people on our facebook page right now and we know they are looking for them too. I think we sent some to Australia, Portugal and Italy in the last batch few weeks ago. It just goes to show you that surfcasters are surfcasters regardless where they ply their craft.

Btw..while I am talking about writing, we are always on a lookout for fresh ideas. Dave Anderson handles all the writing assignments and if you have an idea feel free to email him at dave@surfcastersjournal.com

There are still few microbass on NJ beaches but I got a feeling there will be a slim picking after this blow.

oh, yeah, the winner of that awesome Super Strike Snapper Lure Giveaway?

The winner is  jrstebbins@gmail.com

You have 5 days to contact us at info@surfcastersjournal.com

If you don’t we are keeping them

No Joke 😉