Easter Weekend Startup
New info for the fishing report, but first, shop news…
We have started our summer hours in the shop. Yeah, I know, it’s not summer yet, but we only have two sets of hours, so we went with calling them summer and winter. The new current hours are 4:30 am to 8:00 pm every day. Please be nice to the morning crew. Their days just got longer by 2.5 hours, and they have to get used to getting up early again. The night crews stays until zero-dark-thirty hours anyway, so the additional hour should not have changed their attitude much. If it seems like it has, blame the morning crew for it. Attitude is contagious.
We are having a sale that we are calling the “Not Sand Eel Season” sale. We have a 20% discount on all Sportfish Products Ava Jigs. The discount will be applied automatically, so you won’t see it until you put the ava jigs in your online cart. At that point, the 20% discount is applied. The sale will run until Sunday April 16th. This sale is NOT running in the brick and mortar store, however, if you want to avoid shipping costs, you can buy through the website and choose “In Store Pickup” for your shipping option. It's a good time to stock up for fall.
We got in a big shipment of S&S Bucktails products. You may be asking yourself why do the store’s shelves look exactly the same in the S&S Aisle? This order was strictly for the online store. We have everything in stock that S&S is still making.
We added a new product recently. Actually, two similar products from Pro-Cure Bait Scents. The first is their line of Super Gel Fish Attractants. The other is their line of Bait Oil Fish Attractants. Both products are made with real fish scent with added amino attractants and UV Flash added to the scents. What’s the difference? The Super Gel is thicker and is meant to be applied to the outside of artificial lures. They are very popular with people who fish lures like the NLBN shads or Z-man DieZel Minnows. The Bait Oil Fish attractant has a thinner viscosity and works well as a scent you marinate your soft plastic or natural baits in. It also works well as an injectable scent.
As far as the fishing goes, overall it is improving. With the weather we allegedly have coming this week, that trend should continue. The back bay is still producing striped bass. While small lures like the small NLBN and Z-Mans are working, blood worms still seems to be the best bet. We had one angler come in Sunday for a dozen worms, only to return two hours later for two dozen more. That is how well he was doing.
The ocean is starting to produce striped bass also. Clams are your best bet here, but we had a nice bass landed on a lure to take our final $50 gift certificate for an ocean caught fish. Clams have produced fish from “just short” to low 30 inch fish in the surf. We will have fresh shucked clams available mid-week and are expecting to get fresh bunker by the end of the week.
Blackfish are chewing too, with jigs baited with green crab taking most of the fish.
The Grumpys Youth Crew went to Shark River Surf Angler Annual Trout Contest for Kids and caught trout up to 4 pounds! Check out the pictures above. While prizes were won, the best was that everyone had a good time. Especially the dads. Thanks SRSA for putting on a great event.
Here are some notable local catches:
Anthony Rocco has claimed our last gift card. He landed this 40+ inch striped bass off the surf on a Tsunami swim shad!
@smgroutmaster with a beautiful 25 inch, 9.20 pound Tog on a S&S Bucktails Whitechin Wrecker Tog Jig tipped with a green crab.
You will almost never see Ray around Easter. He had a traumatic childhood experience and remains safely hidden from giant rabbits all of Easter Sunday.
You may also wonder why we don’t do a Grumpy Easter Bunny event similar to the way we do the Grumpy Santa event around Christmas. Well, for some reason, the Grumpy Easter Bunny is not as well received…
