The season that wouldn't end....
February 4, 2002:

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Greetings and salutations fellow fishermen/women. It's February 3rd...it'll be the 4th before I get this written. We've had one strange late fall this year...and a strange first half of winter. We're just getting through probably the nicest week of weather I can ever remember for late January. One night last week Charlie M and I went out on a little striper hunt - when I left here at around 10:30pm the thermometer in my truck read 59 degrees. That was odd enough, I was actually a little uncomfortable in a T-shirt and breathable jacket...but as someone noted to me in the past, my thermostat is busted The really odd part was, on my way at 2am, the truck said it was 62 degrees!!?! Absurd for January 29th...geesh, that's absurd for September 29th, it's incredible for January 29th! So Charlie and I went fishing...one of about 15 striper trips I've taken this January...I try not to over do it in January We start off in a spot I wanted to start at, one where we've been fishing a lot and catching a lot. Thirty minutes with not a sniff...just as we're preparing to go to an as of yet undetermined plan B, I get a good shot but drew a blank on the hookset. Intrigued, I cast the trusty bomber/teaser combo into the same water again...same spot I get clobbered again and this time the Jersey monster got stuck I had 'em on a short leash and the apparently 10 pound or so critter wasn't stuck too good...about 10 seconds of thrashing around and he gave me my plug back. OK, nuttin' for 45 minutes, back to back hits...I told Charlie he might wanna come over here :-) Next cast, nuttin'. Another cast and I get clobbered again...5 seconds of thrashing from another Jersey monster and then he gave me my plug back?! Perplexed yet interested, Charlie and I both cast to the same water and surrounding area - 20 more minutes with both of now casting here and not another sniff. Strange how these critter move around - very hit and run stuff...it's like they know ;-)

So we're done here now, willing to accept defeat and humiliation from our striped quarry. Normally, we just go somewhere else...which means whomever's driving gets to pick...which would have been me that night. But since I picked this spot and it didn't work out, I thrust the awesome responsibility of spot choice on Charlie's shoulders Without hesitation...almost like there was some Divine intervention (which we are now looking into ;-) Charlie names a spot...one we haven't been to in a while. The rapid response alone was enough to pique my interest...we head that way. Sure enough, first cast I'm into one...and I believe the same thing for Charlie! It happens...nuttin' to get excited about. But after 4 or 5 fish landed each and more than that in missed hits or pulled hooks, Charlie says "Let the record show that I actually picked a spot with fish while we were fishing together!". So Charlie, here it is, it's on the record - Now when are we gonna go plug up them February surf stripers in NJ so we can finally call it quits for the year?!!? I mean, if we don't put away the gear soon, there won't be any "off season"...and with no off season, how can we start a new season? If yah can't start a new season, what will we look forward to? At the rate this fishing is going, they will be back before they leave :-)

Slipknot, my friend Slipknot :-) What can I say about this guy? Nuttin' but good stuff, that's fer sure. The first time I met Bruce (yah, that's he real name...his handle was chosen for his deft knot tying skills) was undoubtedly at the Ditch - it's where I've met the majority of them crazy MA guys who make me feel so at home up there that it's nearly impossible to leave! I must say, through this website, I have been so blessed with meeting some of the finest folks you could ever hope to meet - and Slipknot is way up there on the list...a nicer guy you'd be hard pressed to find. There's just something so sincere, so real about Bruce that yah just have to like the guy. No, I'm not buttering him up for a massive custom darter assault, I just like to say really nice things about a really nice guy :-) Now some might hold against Bruce the fact that he's been know to hang out with that JPowers guy - but I don't...it's clear he's just hangin' around with Powers so he can learn from one of the few good Ditch jiggers (no, not that Ditch Jigger;-) who use a spinning rod Aw, I can't even say that with a straight face cause JPowers is near the top of the same list as Bruce :-) Anyway, JPowers is probably wondering how he got wrangled into this when I only threatened Slipknot with a paragraph :-)

Marksharky was also threatened with a paragraph about him...so here goes :-) First, I wouldn't know this guy from a bump on a log if I ran into him - but I know people who have met him, so that first confirms his existence ;-) One thing I can tell yah is the guy knows his way around a fryin' pan Not that I've ever eaten anything he's cooked..or if I did I didn't know he cooked it so it doesn't count, right? I can't say much about Marksharky other than, from the questions he's asked over this past year, I can positively confirm that he's the sort of fisherman I call a "thinker". This is a blessing and a curse...depends on the relative abundance of our striped friends. In times of abundance, the thinker will unravel many mysteries, learn many new things and unlearn a few old ones :-) But in time of scarcity, the thinker will drive himself to near insanity...trying so many things, working hard to make sense of the fishing failures that are repeating themselves all too often under conditions that such things should not happen - the thinker can think himself insane...or think himself into moving to another state where the stripers still congregate :-) Bottom line is, look out fer this guy in a few years, he's gonna know a lot of stuff! And while you are cruising around StripersOnline, stop by our new "Cooking Your Catch" forum...cause there you can ask any recipe, preparation, or cooking question to a highly qualified professional chef - and guess who that would be?

Where's Dubs? I hear it all the time...apparently, many folks here miss the rantings and ravings of my best friend :-) Well let me say, Dubs is just fine - actually, that's not entirely true...the poor guys had vicious cold after vicious cold for the past 6 weeks or so. Seems like he's sick and suckin' snot more than he's been healthy. Poor guy, bein' sick ain't no fun...especially when just when yah get better yah get sick again! I'm glad to report that, despite a nose clogged like a drain, Dubs and I got together for a little fishin' trip this past Saturday Deciding to give the stripers the whole weekend off, I succumbed to the lure of the mountains and streams of northeast NJ. It was actually nice to fish the sweetwater, a welcome change to the salt and the sand. Armed with 5wt fly rods, boxes of pretty bugs, most of mine a few years old cause I haven't trout fished too much lately, and warm socks and thick neoprene waders, we hit the rivers. The morning chill gave us some brief fits of ice in the guides, but it wasn't chronic, yah could get a few casts and drifts with the double nymph rigs before yah had to break the ice outta the guides - nothing more than a minor annoyance. Gotta back up a second - upon stringing up my 5wt Fisher, I noticed the my fly line was cut 95% of the way through...a good 10ft from the tip! Still don't know how that happend...but I gave it a pull and finished it off. I had another spool in my bag with a floating line...it was a couple sizes heavier, but no problem, it's all short range fishing this time of year, I spool it up. It only took one cast before I realized that I had grabbed an 8wt floating shooting head! Shooting heads and dead drifting nymphs just doesn't work...at all. Dubs has another 5wt line in his pocket, but he's across the stream already. I start to make my way over and he hooks a decent fish...after a minute or two, it just comes unbuttoned - examination of his nymphs shows that the #14 hook busted right in half. It happens...but it always stinks when it does. So I get over to him and grab the spare spool thinking I'll be back in business in no time. I pop the spool on, string up the rod...and as I'm stretching it gently, off pops the terminal loop - right in my hand. Oh, so it's gonna be that kinda day, is it? With my trusty fish taggin' needle, I hastily nail not some 10# fluoro to the light fly line...whip up another leader, rig up a couple of bugs on the 3# fluoro tippet...and finally, some 1 1/2 hrs after getting there, I am almost ready to take my first real cast!?! Dubs I think dropped another one by now...maybe even landed one. I jump in below him and start fishin'....and damn, it felt nice to just be there, knee deep in a river, sun low over the mountains...breath hanging in the air...hands stinging slightly from the upper 20 degree air temps, the cold breeze sending chills down my spine. Sure, we caught a bunch of trout Saturday...we did very well for February 2nd and fly rods. But it was the being there, with my oldest friend, doing something I loved before I met my first striper, on a gloriously quiet and chilly Saturday morning in the mountains -

God, sometimes it's just good to be alive :-)