Gettin' ready....not much longer, they'll be back!
February 27, 2001:

Photo: Ron Arra greeting the dawn at Montauk, NY. Photo taken by Crazy Alberto.

Boy, if that doesn't get your striper hunting blood boiling, I'm afraid there's just no hope! :-) It's scenes like this one that can get us through an entire sub-zero winter...they keep us thinking, picturing mornings like those when outside there's nothing but snow and leafless trees.

March 3 - The new is up! Hey, fish have feelings and form emotional bonds you know, just ask the genius that wrote the editorial the fellas were talking about in the town tavern ;-)

Boy, what a couple weeks we've had on SurfTalk! From heated debate on the major fisheries conservation organizations to Brian Z's birthday (happy birthday again Brian!) to yet another pair of proud parents w/ Mr. and Mrs. Reeldream bringing little Justin into this world! Fish-Eye has been teasing us with pictures of warmer times and more striped basstages to chase as well as some nice shots from his recent Costa Rica trip. Yea, he was there while it snowed on us...twice! We're adding new folks to our "crew" here every single day. As a matter of fact, the number of registered members on SurfTalk has effectively doubled since December! And I thought it was interesting mix of people and insight before that, now it's twice as interesting! :-) It's hard to believe, there are almost 700 people registered now for SurfChat alone...thank God they all don't try and chat at the same time, it gets confusing in there when there's 20 people in one room!

So, here we are, it's pert near March...I'm so far from ready for the upcoming season that it would be scary if I had the time to think about it. As luck would have it, I don't, so I'm not worried...well, I'm not real worried anyway! There's a sizable fishing show this weekend, starting on Thursday if I'm not mistaken. It's referred to as the "Suffern Show" and I'm going. I'm 0 for 2 this year for shows that I wanted to attend...people are beginning to speculate that I've hibernated and all this web stuff and all the orders shipping are somehow automated...to paraphrase a famous quote, "The rumors of my automation are extremely exagerrated" ;-) I'm still here, working around the clock to keep yer tackle bags filled and yer website fully functional! I'm even working on some additional changes to the bulk of the site. Progress is slower than anticipated on the changes to the pages than expected, I had planned on being done by February 1st....now it's almost March 1st! What caught me off guard was the increasing pace of the orders...not that I'm complaining, the catalog here helps to keep the site going while advertising is being considered. I had (mistakenly) thought that ordering would slow down while no one is fishing...but happily, I was mistaken. Progress continues, just not as quickly as I had planned....that's ok, so long as the bulk of it is done when our striped friends come home this spring :-)

The long awaited Lamiglas Rod & Blanks pages have begun to show themselves. After 3 complete revisions as to the way I would present each series of rods, I ended up settling for plain, old straight forward informative pages! That's what I get for trying to get fancy, I like facts, I should have just stuck with the simple, fact filled format we've used in the past. I'll remember next time ;-) Right now, just the Jetty & Surf Rods page is up, but the Ron Arra Series rods should be up today. And, for a limited time, for any purchase of a Ron Arra series rod, I'm going to throw in Ron Arra's video, Distance Casting and Surf Fishing! What's that? You already have that video? Then I'll let you swap it for any one of the most excellent videos we offer here from Laptew Productions! All you have to do is pay the $5.95 for Priority Mail shipping and the video is yours, just for purchasing one of the premier surf rods being manufactured today. How's that for a deal? I thought you'd like it :-)

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent