Over the Hump!
February 15, 2001:

The new is up! DPowell went through all the trouble to make you folks a somewhat Valentine's Day rockfish...and wouldn't ya know it, I let it slip right by?!? I'm not worthy {hanging my head in shame, shaking it slowly back and forth} My apologies DP, I'll make it up to ya! I'm wondering if you guys would be interested in Rockfish/SOL T-shirts? Did I say that outloud? ;-)

So, in case you haven't seen them yet, let me take but a moment of your time to share with you one of the coolest things, lure wise, that we've been able to bring ya! To the right, you'll notice some Gibbs 1oz Bottle Plugs (casting swimmers to some of you) You'll also notice that there's some colors there that you haven't seen before...custom even The good folks at Gibbs were kind enough to humor me and make up some special bottles and darter, 1oz and 2oz bottles and 1 5/8oz and 2 1/2oz darters, in some colors that we've grown to rely on over the years. Now you can see and purchase them at Gibbs Bottle and Darters The custom colors in the bottles are parrot (chartreuse green over chartreuse yellow) and dark green over white. Both were desparately needed in the bottle plug selection! In the darters, both sizes, we are proud to be the only ones to offer you parrot, dark green over white, and the infamous black scale! The poor fish, I hope they've been keeping up with their reading this winter, they're gonna need all the help they can get come striper season! We've had the plugs for a couple weeks now, they are going quickly and being that they were special ordered, I dunno when more will be coming. Just thought I'd give you a heads up, trying to be fair to the folks that don't read SurfTalk all the time ;-)

Another note, after speaking with Habs Plugs the other day, John assured me that I'd be getting a bunch of the 2oz needlefish that we've all been desparately missing! One this first order arrives, kind of a "bandaid" order just to play a little catch up, then I'm gonna light a fire under John's butt to put together a very substantial order of 2oz and 3 1/2oz needlefish...but not till I can get this first bunch of 2oz ones! I'm almost afraid to show him my order of 1oz poppers?!?!

So, what's all this gotta do with the title of the page "Over the Hump"? I'll tell ya, there's finally a light at the end tunnel...people are starting to whisper...gear is coming out of dark storage places. With 2 months behind us, the fish will be filtering into our dark and lifeless waters in 6-8 weeks!?!? Could be even a little sooner if things start to warm up quickly...but 8 weeks is the outside, that would put us in mid April, they'll not only be here by then, they'll be established to a degree! Imagine that, in the middle of the night, you can just head east, toss out some wood/plastic/feathers and expect to have something with stripes attack it!?!? Happy days! It'll all start with rumors of folks scoring to our south soaking sandworms and blood worms...then PhilL will start plucking a few outta the Delaware. Before ya know it, I'll be chasing them with clouser and shrimp flies and the whole world will seem ok again! Boy...all the sudden, 6-8 weeks seems like a lifetime! I'm gonna have to do some bottom fishing this spring, party boat style, Alberto got me hooked again with the black fish trips in the late fall, now I need to catch big whitechins. Maybe even something offshore where they tell me the sea bass grow as long as your arm...that I gotta see!

I guess I should go on, it's been a while, at least I can let ya know the new goodies here if I can't bend yer ear with tales of fish caught and lost! While I don't have any pictures yet, I've just received some of the finest looking, most well built surf fishing plugs from Rapala. I've been using/selling the Super Shad Rap for some time now, they are a unique lure, superbly built and with their surface struggling action, the stripers love 'em...but the ones I've been selling were limited to basically, gold, silver, or shiner. These new ones are made to very believably imitate salt water baitfish with flavors..I mean colors...like Clownfish, Mullet, Croaker, and Blue Mullet (orange belly!) I'll let the other colors sell out and won't restock them, these will certainly do ;-) I'm extremely impressed with the paint job on these things, very detailed and very realistic, the Croaker looks like a Croaker to a "T" and the Mullet is a perfect mullet and a very believable bunker. Very nice, two thumbs up for Rapala!

One of the local surf fishing clubs has a new website up! This isn't just another club, there's a whole lotta StripersOnline regulars that are members of this club! Off the top of my head, there's BobPop, DaveC, and Zeebassman and a whole host of others. So, take a moment and visit the fine folks at The Berkely Striper Club's new site...tell 'em TimS sent ya! ;-)

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent