Happy Update ;^)

July 2, 2000:

   Glad to report, the skunk was banished on Friday night with a nice 30" fish on a rigged eel on my second cast...I had a shot on the first cast, but missed it. To pad my non-skunk streak, last night I had 2 stripers on rigged eels. Whew, glad to have that striped money off my back! 

Tim Surgent

Happy Birthday US!

 July 4, 2000:

  ANOTHER UPDATE: There's all new pictures up in the Catalog...much better than before, clearer and brighter. So far, the new ones are up in Suspending Crystal Minnow, Crystal Minnow, Emperor Minnow, Tobimaru, Lex II, Lex I, Super Shad Rap, and FatBoy I pages...whew! Also, we're going to run our very first special, by any 5 Lex Lures and get any 1 ounce Lex for free! Just order 6 total and one 1 oz Lex will be removed from the total! 

Tim Surgent

Welcome back, that was a LONG weekend!

 July 5, 2000:

   Good morning folks, happy Wednesday....geesh, is it really Wednesday already?!?! It's funny, you get in groove with life, then you get a long weekend like this one and for some reason, it leaves me in some kind of funk. Well, as bad as it's been fishing-wise around these parts, at least there are some interesting things going on. We finally ran into some fish...not many...but some fish over the weekend. We didn't fish like we wanted, something always holding us up till late...but we got out, caught some fish on rigged eels and none on plugs. The hickory shad are at their summertime peak thickness it appears, they were even "bumping" our rigged eels on Friday and Saturday night! A few things with these hickory shad. First, on light tackle or fly rods, they are fun to catch. They are around every night, probably during the day as well, but I can only tell you about the nights, you'll have to ask someone else about the daytime shad fishing ;^) So, let's say you wanna catch some of these Jersey Tarpon, lemme give you a few pointers. They are perfectly suited for fresh water gear or light saltwater stuff...and you can count on hooking an incredible number of them when you find them, perfect for children, or others who just wanna get some bites. Teasers are the key....smallish teasers, size 1 to 1/0. You'll get a lot more hits than you'll land, they fall off - ALOT! The lures used for hickories isn't really important, they'll take the teaser whether it's on top, on bottom, or anywhere in between...they'll grab it slow, they'll grab it screaming, they'll even grab it holding still. They generally will respond better to an erratic retrieve, but often, you won't get the chance, they'll grab things as soon as they splash down. I know they like white, red/white, silicone spearing, 30#ers...there's not much they won't eat so long as it's only a couple to few inches long. Where do you find these silvery stinky fish? Just about anywhere...the beaches, the jetties, even inlets...but in inlets, they prefer gentler tides. Manasquan area and inlet are great spots to check...including the wall there and the river itself. Any jetty on the coast as well as any piece of beach will also hold these shiny jumpers. So, if yer bored or just need to get the rod bent, grab a lil stick, some small teasers, and give the hickories a try...you will like catching them, they are hard not to enjoy...unless you're after stripers, then the showing of a lot of hickories almost certainly means that the stripers are absent. Oh, did I mention you might be well advised to bring along a live lining rod? Yup, there were a number of big stripers taken last year on live lined hickory shad! Some over 50 pounds. This way, once you get bored of catching the shad, you can grab a good sized one, stick a nice 7/0 hook in it's back, and let it go looking for something LARGE for you to play with!

   I hope the rigged eel fishing continues to improve, I can't believe I just tried to encourage you to go fishing for bait fish!??!  ;^) I'm hearing many encouraging things about some excellent fishing "inside", I might have to add the insides to the agenda on the next few trips. We took a lot of casts this weekend for a total of 5 fish...and we weren't alone, most guys didn't land a fish in the suds around here! Sad...but bound to get better!

    There's a lot of new pictures up in the Catalog...much better than before, clearer and brighter. So far, the new ones are up in Suspending Crystal Minnow, Crystal Minnow, Emperor Minnow, Tobimaru, Lex II, Lex I, Dani I, Dani III, FatBoy I, FatBoy II, and Super Shad Rap pages...whew! Also, we're going to run our very first special, by any 5 Lex Lures and get any 1 ounce Lex for free! Just order 6 total and one 1 oz Lex will be removed from the total! 

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent

Lookin' fer fish and an odd one somebody else found!

 July 6, 2000:

    Yup, I'm lookin' fer fish. My last effort was a rough one, casting practice at best. Seems this weekend was a washout for the artificials crowd I hang with, a couple fish, nothing of note. It's big fish season folks, now where's all the big fish?!?! I know, there's some in RI, there's some on LI, there's some on BI, there's likely some on the Cape...but where's ours?!? I was inches from heading out alone last evening, but with Carole away, there was no one here to remind me that by 11pm I should stop working...before I knew it, it was 3am and too late to go. I'll try my best to get out tonight...most likely alone...and do some big fish hunting of my own, locally. It's rigged eel season, it unofficially starts around here on the fourth of July. We need good water, hard SE winds all afternoon, dropping out after dark...that's the good stuff...but I'll take whatever's out there tonight, can't be worse than this weekend. We're trying to gather shedder crabs, Dubs and I, for our newest of endeavors, the dreaded "crab fishin'" that we've always heard so much about. It's often the answer to the summer doldrums...not that rigged eels usually fail me, but we figger the crab thing needs to be done. Partly just to say we did it, partly to actually learn something new, and partly to get the rods bent without humping gear out to 5 or 6 jetties a night. Mostly I think to get the rods bent, but we're going with the story that it's to learn something new, sounds better that way!

   So, here we all are, looking for fish and there appears to be nothing substantial around...and what pops up in my email yesterday but a personal account of something quite amazing from a friend of mine. I'll let you read it, you'll get a kick out of it...and maybe that's why the stripers are apparently not here in good numbers! I won't use his name, just cause there's no reason to.

"When High tide arrived the fishing shut down so we started to fluke. We were doing pretty good close to the surf at Monmouth Beach when I noticed everybody was out of the water and standing on the beach looking out to sea. I thought they were called out of the water by the life guards for a shark. We spoke to a life guard in an ocean kayak and he said he saw a dorsal fin but lost sight of it when it went under. I climbed up on the tuna tower and spotted it. When we got closer we saw that it was a Sword Fish. After numerous line break off attempting to snagging it, we finally got close enough to gaff it and I grabbed it's bill with gloved hands and pulled him on board. It was approx. 100 pounds. It was thrashing me about as I held onto it's bill. Another guy sat on it's back and another guy tried holding it's tail until we were able to tie it's bill and tail to the port and starboard stern cleats. Needless to say I dined on fresh Sword Fish steaks tonight. No bull s***. This is the truth. I got pictures."

   As the hero in one of my favorite movies said in one of my all-time favorite movie lines "You like apples? Well how you like them apples!"

    Much more in the line of new pictures and new pages! There's now photo's of the nearly 3oz SOLaris Popper! All the Dani II pictures are finally up. New ones for the Stumpy Needlefish. Pretty much, the only one left to do is the one for the Pencil Poppers! Check 'em out. So far, the new ones are up in Suspending Crystal Minnow, Crystal Minnow, Emperor Minnow, Tobimaru, Lex II, Lex I, Dani I, Dani III, FatBoy I, FatBoy II, and Super Shad Rap pages...whew! Also, we're going to run our very first special, by any 5 Lex Lures and get any 1 ounce Lex for free! Just order 6 total and one 1 oz Lex will be removed from the total! 

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent