Jigging December Stripers
Click here http://www.chocodog.com/chocodog/btfs/raritandec08.wmv to view a short video on jigging for Striped Bass in the cold December waters of NJ.
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2008
Well, I’m gonna say that the fat lady has sung and that I’m probably done fishing until January. The last few outings have had all of the telltale signs, fewer (to no) fish and cold weather that goes a little bit beyond uncomfortable. I wanna look back on 2008 in a positive light though because it was a breakout year for me on a number of levels and 2009 looks to be even better.
First of all I’d like to thank all of the people that have viewed this website and all of the loyal Brownie Troopers that participated in the Fishing Derby and invited me on their boats, streams, etc. Most of all I’d like to shout out to the people that helped get this site happening. Allow me please: Marc Schmidt-Casdorff, my friend and cameraman/editor. Marc and I have put in a lot of hours on the water and in the sugar shack editing the show. He doesn’t get paid and yet he does it for a living, I couldn’t do it without him.
The rest of the role call: Captain Chris Gatley who teaches me something new every time I fish with him—even years later, my boy Nick Honachefsky whose couch I practically lived on this year making late night/early morning fishing runs, Mike Carr and the dudes at squidforce.com, James Amore, Thea Wolfe, Lars Peterson, Margaret O’Brien, Howard Wuelfing, Mike Campitelli, Greg Frey, Greg Kondak at Shimano, John Dreyer and Alex Perez at Fender, Kurt Schmelz, Drew Potter at Hiseas.net and American Fishing Wire, Tom McCarthy, and Jim Woolsey,. If I forgot anyone, please accept my apologies.
2009 promises to be an awesome year, I ordered a brand new 17 foot center console Tracker with a Mercury 60/40 HP Jet. This means that there will be nowhere that I can’t go on the Delaware River next year. It is totally pimped out with trailer, livewell, trolling motor, Lowrance fishfinder/depthfinder, etc. I will be dragging that thing across the country to your lake, river, pond. Now I can come to you; we plan on going upstate NY and to the Great Lakes, all that good stuff. I am working on getting my Captain’s License next year so someday I can run charters. I know that might sound strange, but it’s something I want to do, plus I want to be called “Captain” from now on. If you see my just call me that from now on okay? Thanks.
Lastly, we are putting together our schedule for 2009 right now. If you are an experienced angler with a good idea of the fishing trends in your area (WHEREVER that might be) please drop us a line as we are booking our filming schedule NOW. We already have trips and guests lined up through May of next year. We received a lot of invites this year, a lot of them were awesome and we just didn’t have the time to fit them in. Please write back and remind us if this is the case, remember, we will travel. Look forward to a 6 month Bass Derby coming up next year, something we can all agree on.
Please click here http://www.flickr.com/photos/brownietroopfs/show to see a slideshow of BTFS 2008.
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Black Friday Massacre
Me and fellow Brownie Trooper James Amore joined his father in-law Pete on his boat yesterday for a total beat down on the Striped Bass. We started marking fish almost immediately and then the bite just lit up. We had 20 fish within the first 30 minutes and we stayed out there for about 7 hours. You do the math. the fish were taking anything resembling a sand eel, which they are gorging on right now. For me the lure of choice was the locally manufactured T-Hex which is made by http://www.aoktackle.com and the fish were also hitting on Deadly Dicks and even my bucktail teaser. What a day. Please check out the AOK Tackle website, this is a versatile lure that can catch a variety of fish in a large variety of settings, I use them from the surf as well. Click here http://www.chocodog.com/chocodog/btfs/t-hex.wmv to see it in action.
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R.I.P. Jim
My good buddy Jim passed away last night around 12:30, he was 17 years old. He was the best dog I've ever had and I've had dogs my whole life. To put it in perspective from a Ween point of view, Jim is in the picture of us and our friends on the porch inside of "Pure Guava", that was 1992 and I was 21 years old. Jim is also in the picture collage of "La Cucaracha" and I'm 38 years old now. He will be missed beyond words, I have had him since he was a little puppy, my entire adult life. Who's a good boy?
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LBI Fall Blitz 11/11/08
Tuesday, Nov. 11 was a surfcasting day for the ages down on Long Beach Island, NJ. I woke up at 4:30 am and drove out onto the beach. It was pitch black and I was the only one out there. I set up my two rods and cast out my fresh bunker and in no time WHAM! Both rods go down and I'm hooked into two bruiser bluefish. Alright, so far so good, I cast out again. The rod immediately gets hammered hard and here we go again, but this fish is giving me a much harder time and I assume it's another monster blue. I was very surprised and elated to see that it was a 40 inch Striped Bass, my biggest surf bass of the fall. Almost immediately I hook another awesome bass at 32 inches but I release it because you're only allowed to keep two and I was holding out for another monster to try and win the LBI Fishing Derby. that would be it for the bass for the day though.
This dog came along and I gave him half of my 7-11 bagel w/cream cheese and he stayed with me for the next 12 hours. Anyway, the Bluefishing remained steady until 3 pm and then all hell broke loose. Blitz! Acres of birds crashing the water, Bluefish gorging themselves on baitfish, a 5 mile school of bunker came right past our island. Within minutes there were hundreds of beach buggies zipping down the beach and hundreds of anglers from my right to left were all hooked into the big bruiser bluefish. I personally caught over 30 or 40 and left them blitzing at sunset. A day I'll never forget.
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