News! - St Croix Demo Day, 2022 NJ Fluke Regs and a Fishing Report
First, some fisheries news. The New Jersey State Marine Fisheries council voted to implement fluke regulations where the size limit is two slot fish at 17 inches to 17.9999 inches and one fish at 18 inches or bigger, with a season running from May 2nd to September 27th. The special management zones of IBSP (2 fish at 16 inches) and Delaware Bay (3 fish at 17” west of the COLREGS) remains unchanged. This is the first ever slot size limit for summer flounder, and was chosen over other, simpler regulations that would have given a longer season. I guess we will see how this goes. At least here at Grumpys we know one thing about the upcoming fluke season. They will be hitting bucktails and Gulp!. (And by mid July I am going to be sick and tired of writing those 3 words. 😊 )
In shop news, we are having a St Croix demo day here at the shop on Sunday. You will be able to test cast the whole St Croix surf and inshore rod lineup and speak directly with representatives from St Croix. At the end of the day, one lucky participant will win a new St Croix Seage rod (model of the winners choosing). This will run from 11:00 am until 2:00 pm and will be in the field across from the shop for casting demos. To go along with this, Our BIG spring order of St Croix Rods came tin. We have the following models in stock: Legend Surf, Avid Surf, Seage Surf, Avid Inshore, Mojo Inshore, Triumph, Premier, Legend Extreme, & Legend Tournament.
We restocked on Kettle Creek shads. We also added a new color that is going to be killer, wonderbread. Actually, it already is, as you can see from the picture. We are well stocked on many of the other popular colors too. Pair them with a bullet head jig and the striped bass, bluefish, weakfish and fluke are going to be scared…
We added a new item to the online shop. The Yo-Zuri 3d Inshore Twitchbait, a great plastic bait that darts and glides, with an internal flash (on some colors) that really calls the fish in. Made with the quality you have come to expect from Yo-Zuri, don’t miss out on fishing these for your favorite gamefish.
We also have a new feature on the website for those of you who need reels serviced, but don’t want to come into the shop. (We get it, Scott can be a bit overwhelming and, quite frankly, scary). You can now go to our COA Reel Service Page (click the link or hit the button on the bottom of our Reel Repair page), fill out the form, and ship the reel in. We (well, really Frank) will service the reel when it arrives. Then someone here (likely John) will send you an invoice for the service and then ship the reel back to you. No unnecessary interactions with Scott needed.
We are switching off of our winter hours this weekend. Starting Friday 4/8, we will be opening at 4:30 am and closing at 8:00 pm.
As far as the fishing goes, the weather as I type this is terrible. That being said, there have been small weather windows recently and some of the local anglers have been getting out and catching striped bass. Mostly in the bay, and mostly at night, though we have had some reports of fish appearing out front. The weather for this weekend looks a little bit better and next week it looks like spring will finally show up. We will be ready this weekend and next week with both bloodworms and fresh bunker (assuming it is available) for bait. We will also have salted clams for those who prefer to use those.
We had some notable catches recently:
Congratulations to store regular Darrell Parkerson on this new personal best striped bass! He landed this fish using his Grumpy Custom built 10’ ODM Evolution and Van Staal VSX200 he recently purchased. The fish fell for a Scabelly glider.
We also had our first weigh in of the year. Jack Monterio caught this 36” 18.65lbs striped bass on Blood Worms in Barnegat Bay. He proves you don’t need to drive up to Raritan Bay to land a decent fish this time of year.
Here is Kevin Lorenz with an absolutely beautiful bass he caught recently on our Grumpy Sandstorm Surf Rod, the 10’-6” model. This model in the Sandstorm Series has been a hit this spring!
For those wondering why we said people might be scared to come into the shop when Scott is around. You guys think he is just one large, loveable, pink swaddled teddy bear, right? Well, this might be why some people are hesitant:
