Maybe its over now. Maybe not?
Happy New Year from all of us at Grumpys. We all hope you started off the new year safe and healthy, and continue to remain that way throughout the year.
In shop news, we have switched over to our winter hours. We are now open every day at 7:00 am and will close at 7:00 pm. Winter weather, on some rare occasions, will change these hours. We will do our best to keep everyone posted via social media (Facebook and Instagram), but if there is snow or ice actively falling in Seaside Park, NJ, call the shop before you come over.
We got in a big order on Monday at the start of the snowstorm. We spent all of the day Tuesday unpacking it, checking it in and restocking the shelves in the Brick & Mortar store. It was an “all hands on deck” restock, and we made good time with it. The crew is in a kind of mutinous mode, as Ray previously promised us pizza when we did this and, as of yet, there is no pizza.
So what did we get? There is too much to list, but we restocked on XtraTuff boots, Owner Hooks, Got-Cha grubs, Hopkins Lures, aluminum rods racks for your truck, beach carts, and much more. We also added some new stuff, including tools from Cuda, Calcutta tackle backpacks, a de-hooker from Hurricane, and fishing rod cushions from Cush-It. Most of these items will be making their way to the online store in the next week.
As far as the fishing goes, it might actually be over now. Or it might not. We just had a strong winter storm roll through southern New jersey. The further south in the state you were, the more snow you received. Here at the shop was at the edge of the snow line it seemed, but that was definitely enough to keep the anglers home the past couple of days.
Prior to this storm, the fishing was good. Actually, for the end of December/beginning of January, it was fantastic. The striped bass were in the surf and just a bit offshore chasing herring. Anglers who found the birds in the fog each day were able to find the fish. Rubber shads were the name of the game, either Kettle creek shads, Storm shads, or Tsunami shads. Ava jigs and Bill Hurley Sand eels accounted for a few fish also.
Hopkins lures also worked, as George Browne proved with this weigh in from the other day.
On the boat side, our own John and his brother Jamie had a good “last trip” of the season. They ran the boat out through the fog and found the bass chasing herring off of IBSP. They managed to land between 25 and 30 bass between the two of them (they lost count) on white Kettle creek shads and olive Bill Hurley Sand Eels.
Will all this start up with the storm moving off? Who knows? It’s been a very weird year. Speaking of weird, John and Jamie, while fishing for striped bass, also landed not one, but two fluke. Summer flounder in the middle of winter in 20 feet of water? Yeah, it has been a weird year (in a good way).
As we have said before, a lot of times what happens in the store in real life is funnier than anything we can make up about Ray to pick on him. Well, tonight’s “in real life” Ray skit involved snowballs from the aforementioned winter storm. Ray started this one, but when Blackcloud Bob got involved, he finished it. Blackcloud has quite an arm from his years playing baseball, and he is not one that you want to go against in a snowball fight. Think velocity, force, and accuracy. Ray did not think this through. We have video of said snowball pummeling, but unfortunately it is too dark and grainy to be used here. So you will all have to settle for this recreation…
This doesn’t make up for the missing pizza…