Surfcaster's Striper Blog

With some free time I decided to have a little fun with Photoshop and mimic the cover-style of the popular Surfcaster’s Journal webzine.  I hope that Zeno doesn’t mind!  His is a fine publication, of which I have subscribed to reading for years.  After all, I like the resulting image I composed, and namely, this is one surfcaster's Striper blog.    

The fish I’m holding was caught in my “backyard” less than a week ago, from a location that I historically never paid mind to, but it was from this other direction, where she was calling my eye, around some corner where she’s been waiting to meet me.  So I thought, it could be an illusion, but I might as well try, might as well try.  And good thing I did, because as luck had it, she was my first run-in with one of her striped-kind this year.  Heck, once in a while you get shown the stripes in the strangest of places if you reel at it right...

A Mounting, Migratory Manifestation

May Sax's mounting, migratory manifestations during this month of May brave as the swimming envy of your every neglected exchange of nocturnal retrieve and prelude of sudden, striking anticipation.  

No County For Old Fishermen

“What you got ain’t nothin’ new.  This country is hard on people.  You can’t stop what’s comin.  Ain’t all waiting on you.  That’s vanity,” reasons the character Uncle Ellis in No Country for Old Men.

In a way, I find his monologue to be a foreboding and relevant parallel for today’s state of affairs regarding fishing, as this county is hard on surfcasters.  Monmouth County.  Let’s see.  Newly-erected fences, locked gates, notched groins and jetties, county-wide beach replenishments, flat beaches, no natural beach structure, buried groins, the death of Jetty Country, seasonal beach closures, the new shore-town craze of metered parking spaces, prohibited parking, no public parking, private property, members only, privileged access only, no trespassing signs, no fishing signs.  Those, to note a few of the most egregious.     

Yet, to a similar extent, as the words of Ellis heed, to quit surfcasting or to give-up the seeking and the finding of premier access or midnight-hour entry to best spots because of this or that would be vanity.  We may have it harder than ever (I would argue we certainly do), but just because the means have changed, doesn’t mean the ends are near.  They’re just nearer, so-to-speak.  Abandoning the sport, for me, would be unthinkable.  That’s vanity.  In the meantime, I’ma do what I want.    

School Portraits

When school is finally back in session and the year's Bass and new classes arrive en masse, I eagerly anticipate those days that I may volunteer my time and reeling-devotion in order to frame the matriculated, returning undersea ranks under a lens, shooting their updated portraits for the annual yearbook that may document yet another salty season on the sand straddled before the Atlantic's wave of uncertain discoveries.