StripersOnline.com - Surf Fishing Striped Bass Archives

Welcome to 2004!
January 8, 2004

Two thousand and four. Seems like yesterday we were all sweating the millennium, now it's 2004 already. No matter what we are doing, no matter where we are in our lives, no matter what dreams we are chasing, time continues it's march forward. It would be an understatement to say that the older yah get, the faster time seems to march. The endless long summers of our youth were at some point replaced by fleeting glances of the seasons. A summer used to seem like an eternity, the school year like a life sentence. Yet today a month goes by like the seconds hands of clock...and I'm only 37! At this rate I can fully understand how at 60 years, memories seem to be available for only every other year

It's January and another striper season is behind us - this officially makes StripersOnline's 5th fall striper season a memory It's very interesting to see the drastic changes that have come to pass on the striper fishing in those 5 seasons. In November 1999 this site was born...and Dubs and I were catching fish on every trip. I just checked out some of the first main pages ever put up on this site - here's some interesting excerpts:

(From November 4, 1999) "The tide was turning, so we decided to hang around a bit, see what the outgoing would yield....nada. Scant moments before I was going to verbalize my desired to split, there was a little bunker scattering going on upcurrent from our position...we decided to investigate. Turns out it was a good thing we did, saved us a half hour drive and some driving on the beach (that was Plan B). After the smoke cleared, the final tally was not too shabby, I had 23 bass and one 5# bluefish...all released. Charlie had 25 bass. I'm guessing about 1/3 to 1/4 were keepers, and although I walked away with Charlie edging me out by a 2 fish margin, I did have the biggest, maybe 13#. Most of these fish ate plain 1 1/2 oz Smilin' Bill bucktails. Some ate plastic stuff on ball jigs, but the plastics don't last like the bucktail does, so we opted for the hair. All these fish were released, unharmed, if you don't count the hook holes in their lips! "

(From November 5, 1999) "We continued to catch fish for another hour, taking turns having the hot jig or magic touch...I lost two nice fish, both exactly when I announced that they were nice fish, they fell off...two in a row...strange. I broke off an awful lot of braid at one point, it basically shut me down for the night. I showed the new guys what happens to a guy who uses braid on a non-level wind conventional reel too much...I had two grooves in my guiding thumb that had finally gotten through the skin and were now in the red stuff...and they really hurt. I fixed both cuts with Zap-A-Gap and was able to continue...gotta love Zap-A-Gap! I wasn't keeping track last night, we fished till about 9:30 or so, I'm guessing between us we may have landed 20 or so fish, nothing big, but the company and conversation was top notch...thanks guys for a good time on the water..... "

(From November 6, 1999) "Final tally for the evening, 5 bass between 30" and just under 32"....5 others that were legal, and maybe a dozen shorts. Not a real good night in the rivers up north we know so well, but it beats watching TV! Tonight, we will do it again, maybe add some jetties to the agenda for good measure as it is surely the right conditions for rubber rigged eels...and I gotta make some more hybrid jigs before heading out, so I gotta get started, it's already dark out! Hope all your weekends are panning out, the fish are apparently well spread out, I'm sure you're all hooking up! "

(From November 7, 1999) "What a tough tournament for Charlie and I, we weighed exactly zero pounds...the first time this fall. Don't get me wrong, we had many, many nice fish, unfortunately, none over 32"! The very first fish I caught during this tournament, as I said yesterday, was 31 3/4"...and that was the biggest all weekend....unbelievable. I'll guess that we landed somewhere around 22 legal bass, yet not a single one over 32". There were very few small fish caught as well, maybe 15 or so under 24". All totaled, we had around 75 bass over two nights and 16 hours of fishing."

That was 1999...and those weren't miraculous nights I quoted above, just the first 4 "reports" I wrote on this site when it started. Cut to 2003-2004. If I hear another mouthpiece shouting about the "historic" numbers of stripers around and how the fishing is "the best ever", I'm gonna start puking up internal organs Anyway...I promised I'm gonna try my best to not whine so much about the frightening direction striper fishing is taking...it's just very hard for me every "New Year" to reflect on the past - striper fishing is something I love dearly. Good or bad, it's gonna get some ink sometimes

So it's January...and as promised, I'm going to do my best to work towards getting at least 3 new main pages up each week :-) It may take some time to find my groove...and I'll probably bore yah sometimes with updates and info about the Online Store - and I'll bore others when I go on a rant about fishtics (my personal shortening of fisheries politics) - and I promise, I'll try to drag Dubs out fishing more often...just for the stories :-) That's it for now...I gotta take it slow gettin' back into the main page groove ;-)

Tim Surgent