Let’s get the winners out of the way first

The winner of the two lures, courtesy of Tactical Anglers is

Larry Beerer larrybeerer@hotmail.com

The Winner of Rock hopper Fishing  Fish stringer and Clip , courtesy of Rock hopper Fishing is

Phil  wpeastburn@msn.com

Both of you, you have 5 days to send us your shipping address to info@surfcastersjournal.com

I am going to assume that many of you are trying to stay cool and away from this oppressive heat. Like I told you in the spring, I had a feeling that this year I would have less time to fish then last year. If that is possible…but juggling too many projects and family life takes a toll. At this point I am trying to get all my project at least off the ground if not completed to have some time in the fall. You will probably see more of me on the beaches this fall but most of the time it will be with a camera instead of a rod. After selling just about most of my fishing related stuff that I felt it wasn’t a necessity I of course took the money and bought camera equipment…or that is what I told my wife. If she only knew just how much…lol

It will be an ambitious project for someone who has no skills but hey, I been told before that I should not do stuff i know nothing about. Like self publishing a book or starting the Surfcaster’s Journal. Coincidentally, there are planned changes regarding the magazine and this blog for next year. I think I gave you all I had to give. That is all i can tell you for now

I was thinking about the gear on LIRR today. This is the only segment of the sport of fishing that I am aware of it where there are almost zero products you buy and use as intented or made by manufacturers. The flashlight get pimped up to fit around the neck, the bags are stitched to fit the fishing style, everything is attached by lanyard, for Christ sake, even Van Stall reel , out of the box were modified by discarding original drag washers and replaced with Penn washers.

We might be interested in ading this to SJ . Who wants to write a bi monthly column on gear modification? Sand spikes, flashlights, pork rind holders, Korkers,rod holders, duct taping the sleeves on that expensive jacket you just bought…lmao

Seriously, if any of our readers is interested, drop me a line at zhromin@verizon.net and lets talk.

Coming up early next week, a special giveaway from Super Strike Lures…right now i will only give you a small peak…can you say “BONE” 🙂

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I just got back from family vacation, and I need few days to come to my senses. Winner of Tactical Angler giveaway coming up this week

So today we are going to give you guys a chance to win a  new product. A Rockhopper Fish Stringer by http://rockhopperfishing.com/.

You get the clip and the stringer together, you can use them both or you can just detach the stringer and use the clip. In fact, once you put the clip on, you’ll probably never take it off your belt. The retail value of the stringer and clip is $54.95.  This is an item that has become indispensable piece of equipment on many surfcaster’s belt this season

You can get more information about this product by visiting

http://rockhopperfishing.com/

Good luck

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Hope you guys enjoyed the interview withy “Crazy” Alberto Knie

I thought that Tommy’s intro into the story was a SJ classic!

Many of you also know that Al is a driving force behind Tactical Anglers line of products. http://tacticalanglers.com/

So today we are going to give one of you a chance to win these two gorgeous lures, a Bomb Popper and a Sub Darter from Tactical Anglers

Good luck

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Post from a SJ Reader Chris “Chef” Blouin

Staying Calm Saved My Life

By Chris “Chef” Blouin

This is a story of about one of my worst fears coming true while wetsuiting, hopefully by reading this story you can take away a few key points and avoid the situation I got into on the great island of Cuttyhunk, this June during the annual Striped Bass.com trip.

It was Friday night after an amazing meal by Warren and his famous ribs, we all decided to head out, some guys headed to the pyramids, others to churches and all points in between. I suited up and head out with Julio, on the way to the cove we talked about life, working, kids, family and fishing. We decided to fish one of the big coves.

Julio decided he wanted to fish the rock in the next cove instead, which was insight of where I’d be, said good luck and he headed on his way. I made one last equipment check to make sure my plug bag was secured, all my gear on the belt secured and tethered and the TA clip secured to the line. I never swim with a plug on my rod, learned that the hard way many years ago. I attached my set up with is a red/silver ZeeBaaS 27 and a custom build Century 1326 stealth, to my belt with my Princeton Tec gadget gear lanyard, and started making my way thru the boulder field.

I’ve made this swim to this rock numerous times in the past it’s a decent swim maybe 75 yards from shore, thru a decent boulder field but the rock is what every wetsuiter hopes for. Its flat, it’s big and right on the edge of the cove, deep water easily within casting range.

The surf was decent constant 2 to 3 foot swell, nothing crazy, no undertow, I felt good in getting out there. After a few bumps on the shins I was thru the boulder field. The water was about 6 feet deep so I slowly started my swim, a little side swim and some scissor kicks, so far so good. Took a few waves over the head, wakes you right up and makes you feel alive, love that feeling. I was getting close to the rock and needed to swim around the side of it so I could get on the rock from the front of it with help from the waves. As I was approaching the side of the rock, I heard a noise, a noise I usually don’t hear unless I’m rummaging around looking for a certain plug. I knew right away what had happened, and got nervous.

Somehow during the swim around the rock the surging water of the waves and constant back and forth had forced enough pressure into the bag and opened the flap. As I looked around I could see most the contents of my bag starting to drift by, a brand new GRS slim, my go to all yellow and blurple super strike darters, a bone redfin, a super strike bottle swimmer and a Surf Asylum in all yellow jr were slowly being pulled out to sea. When I reached with my right hand out to grab the plugs I felt the points of a brand new VMC 3/0 treble burrow themselves through my wetsuit, splash top and into my forearm, when I moved again the tail hook buried itself my bicep. So now my right arm is pretty much immobile, every time I move it I can feel the hooks going deeper.

My left hand is holding my rod, I grab the bone redfin with my hand and I started using the rod as a plug catcher to maybe salvage some of my losses, only able to snag the jr., the rest are gone and being pulled towards Martha’s Vineyard. I start to panic a little, now what?? I can’t swim with my right arm like I usually do; my left hand is holding my set up and a plug. A few sets of waves rush over my head as I’m no longer paying attention to the surf, can’t seem to catch my breath in between sets and can feel myself sinking.

You always hear that when people drown they don’t move around and wave their arms like a crazy person like you see on TV, they just slowly sink and don’t say a word, and it was happening to me.

I just kept telling myself to stay calm and regroup and not to panic, panic leads to disaster. I was finally able to slow my heart rate down as I bobbed up and down in the surf, head barely above water, took a few deep breathes and accessed the situation. I wouldn’t be able to get on the rock now anyway, so my only option was to slowly let the waves push me in. I decide to ditch the plugs I was holding and hold the rod with my right hand and use my left to help swim in. I managed to close the flap on the bag I had no idea what if any plugs were left. Plugs at this point were the least of my worries.

I slowly swam in using the waves to more or less push me into shore the “swim” back was the longest of my life. I could tell my arm was bleeding as I could feel the heat from the wound. Finally back into shallow enough water to stand, but I’m too exhausted and still sort of in shock, I manage to stagger my way into the shore and sit down on the first rock on dry land.

Just sitting there thanking my lucky stars, I’m alive, shaken but alive. I unclipped my set up from the belt and place against the rocks, took the plug bag and belt off with one arm, sounds harder than it is. Now to deal with the plug lodged in my arm, it’s my lucky blurple redfin, not so lucky tonight. Thankfully the back hook pops right out of my skin and suit as the barbs are crushed on the back of all my plugs. The front treble is another story, one of the points is all the way thru the suit and my arm and sticking out the other side, doesn’t have a big chunk of skin just enough, and the other hook point is just poking in and out in a small area. So grab the pliers crush all the barbs, get the hook pulled thru the skin which was surprisingly easy, think it moved around so much while I was in the water it opened the hole up pretty good. So the plug is out, arms bleeding and throbbing, lost 6 out of the 10 plugs in the bag, only ones I didn’t lose were needles.

Decide to walk back to the club and regroup; I can see a few guys’ lights off in the coves there on fish, happy to see that at least. As I walked back to the club I start thinking about what just happened and how much worse that could have been. I could have panicked and done more damage to myself, gotten disoriented and swam the wrong way as you couldn’t see the shore that night or drowned. But by staying calm and knowing where I was and thinking clearly I was able to get back. So overall not bad, plugs and gear can be replaced, people cannot.

Got back to the club, everyone was still out fishing, sprayed myself off with the hose to cool down, sat and had Gatorade and a snickers bar. Then restocked the plug bag and decided to fish under the club, and proceeded to hammer high teen to low 20lb fish on the only darter I had left. Not the best way to start a night but a great way to end the end.

I decided not to elaborate on what happened that night at the club as we all sat around and had some beers, food and laughs, just wanted to enjoy the good times and put that experience behind me.

So know your limitations, the areas you fish, stay calm when problems arise and keep a clear a head and hopefully you can avoid a night like this. Be safe and tight lines out there.

Chef

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Many readers here have a strong interest in striper nostalgia, whether it be old lures, antique surfcasting tackle, photographs, or even just stories from the “Golden Age” of striper fishing.

But also buried somewhere in there is the unpleasant truth that most fishermen of the time (recreational and commercial) believed the supply of fish was limitless. There was no shame in killing more fish than one knew what to do with. While many of the surfcaster “high-liners” of the time were selling fish to keep themselves solvent during their fishing binges, others opted to give away fish to the whole neighborhood before even thinking of letting anything swim away.

By most accounts, full time commercials were doing serious damage as well.

Out of all the so-called “excessive” fishing practices of past generations, none stirs emotions quite like ocean haul seining or “beach netting.” And if there was an ironic twist here, no other user group can claim as rich a heritage in local fishing than the people who practiced haul seining on Long Island – the East Hampton Baymen.

Readers with an interest in seeing this history through the eyes of a Bayman during the “golden days” have a rare opportunity, thanks to a revival of the theatric adaptation of Men’s Lives, now playing at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, Long Island.

The play, first run in 1992, is based on the 1986 book by Peter Matthiessen. The opening scene finds a younger Matthiessen, alone in the Amagansett dunes, almost haunted by the memories of an extended family of East Hampton Baymen.

Thus begins a story of Montauket Indians, early settlers, the rise and fall of whaling, harpooning swordfish, and finally the beginning of the end of the Bayman’s way of life. The fatal blow reportedly comes at the hands of surfcasters, in the form of a bill to ban beach haul seining in New York.

Those who read or watched “The Perfect Storm” will see familiar characters and themes, though playwright Joe Pintauro, with a superb cast of Broadway/Off Broadway caliber actors, delivers a much more powerful account of a fishing family coming to terms with the notion that they are the last of their kind.

Current surfcasters will be amused – if not insulted – at the portrayal of the arrogant “sportie” surfcaster from Westchester, who shows up on a local beach with a boom box and live eels.

“If you are fishing for sport, why make it so easy by using live eels?” jabs one of the Baymen?

To which our surfcaster, an advertising executive, brags at how he doesn’t actually eat fish himself, he just sells them to restaurants to pay for his Montauk hotel bills.

Playright Joe Pintauro and this cast might have you leaving the theater feeling the Baymen were done some seruious wrong by the surfcasters and Albany. But there are no piles of dead fish on the beach, there is no sesne of fish once in good supply that disappeared, and there is no sense of surfcasters and conservationists who weren’t buying the “they come and go in cycles” argument, and were downright terrified at the thought of the striper being completely wiped out.

Likewise, while the outlaw of haul seining was a defining moment locally, this specific net ban does little to explain how so many other traditional fishing and clamming occupations have disappeared, up and down the coast. Only when we comprehend the macroeconomic “big picture” do we have a chance at salvaging the rish history that the Baymen represent.

“I hope that play didn’t make you feel guilty, especially you being a surfcaster,” my wife commented over a drink at a nearby Sag Harbor pub.

She continued, “My family was all farmers, and your family coal miners, we don’t do that now, we can’t do that now, even if we wanted to.”

And while I wholeheartedly agreed with her, its clear I could have seen myself following my grandfather into haul seining long before ever thinking of setting foot in an anthracite coal mine in Pennsylvania. Even with the widescale hardship and coal miner’s Black Lung that helped kill my grandfather at 39, the quote “It’s not coal ye’re burnin’, it’s men’s lives,” just doesn’t stir emotions like when applied to fishing.

I am sure each of you has your own family story of hardship and change.

Sometimes change is good. But sometimes change, like a total loss of the Baymen and Watermen from our community, risks pushing us all further from that connection to the water that we all agree is so important.

Perhaps more on this in a future blog post.

For those who love stories of fishing, and historical accounts of “how it was” on the striper coast – whatever your own views – you’d be hard pressed to find something as powerful as this theatric adaptation of Men’s Lives.

Men’s Lives runs until July 29 at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, Long Island.

http://www.baystreet.org/Calendar/?eventID=447

Any epilogue to Men’s Lives would note that the predicted demise of the Baymen, and beach netting, did not come to pass, not entirely anyway. See this related blog post from last year. 

http://surfcastersjournal.com/blog/2011/12/05/the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same/

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Sometimes you wonder what is the driving force  behind some hardnosed surfcasters actions?

Like our own Montauk Super Guide Bill Wetzel

The dude is intense, insane and has ever burning desire to fish Montauk rocks, today, tomorrow, the day after and every possible minute of every day that he can.

You ever wonder what was he like as a child? Was he as obsessed with fishing then?

You will probably say no way…but you’d be wrong 🙂

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qer5dsHsbvE[/youtube]

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Today’s blog entry is a compilation of few clips I managed to string together from our trip. They are few clips from last year but most of them are new. I haven’t really planned on making anything in particular but that little video footage  of the bunker blitz I took with my DSLR kind of worked out neat into the video.

It’s hard to hold a DSLR and shot few hundred still shots when you also want to press a video record button at the same time…but you can’t do both

Anyway, I hope you enjoy

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9fq4cDowtw[/youtube]

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For your reading pleasure at http://www.surfcastersjournal.com/

Cover Photo by ZeeBaaS Guru Ron D…..where else but Cuttyhunk

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For your reading pleasure at http://www.surfcastersjournal.com/

Cover Photo by ZeeBaaS Guru Ron D…..where else but Cuttyhunk

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To wrap up  the Cuttyhunk trip

Yes, we went back to the scene of the crime at Churches. I actually took a nap in the afternoon after we polished some prime meat. They woke me at 7 pm,all  already dressed and ready to go. I would have preferred to hit the south side one more time but I was tired of fishing alone and not catching. I joined them around 8 pm, and played with the camera a bit. Of course the bunker never showed but you knew that 🙂

By dark I was on the rock casting rigged eel until I heard that sound no surfcaster ever want to hear, sound of a rod snapping in two pieces during a cast. That was a first one for me. Rob and I walked back to the  house, grabbed a spare rod and continued fishing under the club while Tommy and Ray stayed in Churches. We didn’t do anything but they managed bunch of small fish later in the night.

So there you have it, the bunker blitz saved their trip although I decided to stay with camera..and a skunk. Not the first or last time I am sure.

Funny thing about a camera…I always say that we should hire an intern to come with us and just shot the camera. Maybe then my wife, after seeing me on video, will believe that I actually was at Cuttyhunk fishing. But I don’t mind capturing the memories. In a lot of ways I prefer it to fishing.

It took me a long time to accept it but now I am finally at piece with it. It’s not fair to ask your friends to be a video guy, to take pictures of your fish, to swim with you in the daytime so you can get some footage. You know why? Because your friends are surfcasters. They are on that rock to catch a fish. Usually you can’t even get them to pose with their own fish as they are worried about holding the fish out of the water too long. Never mind them taking a picture of you with your fish.

You have to want to do it, it’s a simple as that. And if you are unwilling to stop and take pictures while everyone else is bailing fish, you are in majority. After all, you didn’t take that rod to the beach to take picture, but to catch fish.

I am far from a person who accomplished all of his goals, caught all the fish he wanted and now wants to be  camera guy. I enjoy both things equally. And I think that is the key. Most surfcasters take a shot of something they like, a friend with a fish, a beautiful sunset. Most carry a camera in case they catch a monster, that way someone can take a shot of them. But they don’t enjoy taking picture. They don’t visualize the framing like they visualize the rip where their plug lands. I am one of those weird people who enjoys both equally. And sometimes, when your friends are really into fish, and they have a grin from ear to ear, I enjoy it more that catching fish myself. Go figure

Yup, that is a ZeeBaaS , caked in sand…and it was flawless after rinse. Story for another day

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