Even though the weather was lousy, chilly, windy, Joe still managed to put a few in the tank. It was a before sunup bite and we got there with about 5 minutes left. A few fish to hand for him and a few of taps for me and then it shut down. Hit it later in the day again and played with one that I just couldn't feed.        Finally wet the "Spook Fly" and it swims, just at the surface, but doesn't have that Spook "walk the dog" action. In fact it looks more like a snake running the surface more than anything. I'll have to try some more retrieves with ..read more

     Each year I bring a couple of hybrid striped bass to hand. These fish a cross between striped bass and white bass. They bred in a hatchery and are stocked at some water either in New Jersey or Pennsylvania and find their way into the river.       There was also another catch but this one was a full breed striped bass. A few differences are hybrids have broken lines, a smaller mouth, and their bodies more slender but they are football shaped.       On the menu front we found a dead buck (male) shad that surely could be a meal for ..read more

     Started out May 2024 with one for the tank. I can't tell you how alarmed I am by the water levels in the river, but today we actually had a bump up. I don't know how or why, maybe they drained the big reservoirs up in the Catskills. It's now up to 11,300 but the temps are now 68, lower at night though.       It's going to be early first shift or the graveyard shifts as to not stress out the fish too much. It so reminds me of trout fishing. It's not that 68 is bad, but the trend is only going up. We need rain. Bad.       The fis ..read more

     Me and Delaware Joe gave it a go to end April. Two buds. No fish. I did have one bass follow my fly in and just stare at it before I twitched it and he blew out. Boat is in fine shape and I have just a few  things to tweak on it and it'll just be smooth sailing. New anchor rope, new running lights, re-mounting of the trailer wheel cover and some work on the trailer lights. It's slow to dead out there for me as of late and there aren't many people fishing at all. It's a quick come and go for those that are. Let's see what May brings as it has been a very different ..read more

     Crazy weather. What else is new. We went from one of the rainiest springs with cool temps and plenty of wind to dead air, bluebird skies with temps into the 90's, and now drought like conditions with the thermometer raising. If the striped bass were waiting for 60 degrees to spawn well now it's time to get their freak on.       Elsewhere things are starting to heat up. The back waters have finally cleared and bait, mostly bunker, is starting to show itself and the bass are on them. Bluefish have worked their way up from the south and are passing th ..read more

     I got this memory on Facebook the other day. It was Friday morning April 23, 2014 and I stopped by Pullman Avenue before heading up to Hancock for the FUDr One Bug. I was guiding in it and had my bags and boat packed for the trip. This weekend they held the One Bug yet again, and it has grown bigger every year since. I'm glad they had good weather, hopefully the blowing south wind we had didn't affect them up there much.     It's been such a weird year. Big water. Cold. Blowing winds. And they seem to have hit at all the wrong times. I wonder how that will affe ..read more

     Yesterday Delaware Joe came over and spent a good part of the day helping get the sled ready for the water. Some would say that I'm late to the party but I'm okay with that. I don't want to fish big water, I'm not really looking for big fish, and I prefer to fish on foot rather from a boat. I know boats usually have an advantage but I don't mind them having the advantage every now and again.      I started the day at the Trenton Motor Vehicles getting the boat and trailer all legated up. I'm good through May 2025. In between the DMV stop, which always give ..read more

      It was on my Bucket List. I wanted to see striped bass spawning in the Delaware River. Well, today I found it. I was in a slow section of the river throwing flies into water that was less than exciting. No bait. No bass. Just dead.      Then in the middle of the river I saw a splash. I thought maybe it was a cormorant diving underneath looking for a meal. Or maybe it was one of the ducks that I see from time to time. Maybe it was a goose. Then the water erupted with several fish creating what looked like a blitz for about a minute to a minute and a half. T ..read more

     I was lucky yo get this one in. A strong 42" fish in big current. Caught on a half-ass fly and a hook that wanted to go straight. The fly had all kinds of mechanical flaws going on. Mostly because I casted it about 1,000 times without every checking. Pinged off of rocks, dragged along the bottom, ripped through the current. You can see below what went wrong while going right. The fly was tied on an AHREX SA210 Bob Clouser Signature Streamer 4/0. I can't imagine what would have happened if this fish were a few years ago when the Partridge hooks were all the rage. Luckil ..read more

      On Tuesday April 23rd the second big moon event of the month will hit the skies. The first was the Lunar Eclipse that came on April 8th and in two days the sky will be lit up with the first full moon of the month. It's an important moon, hopefully, to us fishermen and women.       The Pink Moon gets its name from the plant, the creeping phlox, aka moss phlox or mountain phlox. It's one of the first flowering plants of the spring. It's also known as the Fish Moon because that is when the shad begin their migratory upstream to spawn. Well, it's in name ..read more