Shop News, Fishing Reports, more "Excited Ray", and a Blackcloud Cameo
The shop has been buzzing lately. We have had a few new shipments come in. We got a restock of the Penn Battle III DX reels. These are very nice reels from Penn, come in and check them out. The 3000 size is perfect for the striped bass we are getting right now locally (more to come on that). We also got in more Van Staals, some more rods from Tsunami, and some more St Croix rods.
Speaking of Van Staals, we have a promotion going on. Purchase a Van Staal VR150, VR175 or VR200 and receive a free (yes free) spare spool for it. This applies in-store and online, while supplies last.
Ray has been working on the upcoming "Spring Has Sprung" sale, occurring the first day of spring (and technically the day after too). In other words, March 20th and 21st. He should have something more to share with you later this week, or, at the latest, next Sunday. However, I can tell you now that we will be having two special things happening during this event. One, we are teaming up with our neighbors next door, Yakkity Yak Kayaks who are going to have some specials sales on kayaks. More details on that as we get closer. And on Saturday of the sale, we will have a special guest in-store. John Hudler of Scabelly plugs will be there selling his plugs and answering any questions you might have. Come on in and meet the legend.
We have another big announcement too. S&S Bucktails are debuting a new bucktail in our shop. Appropriately named the Fluke Nuke’em, this bucktail will take over the fluke game. With two tie-off points, you can rig them for jigging or casting (for the guys who fluke from the beach), and the hook with a Gulp! keeper will perfectly hold the Gulp! Grubs and Swimming Mullets on the hook. Only available here, both in store and online. Watch our Facebook and Instagram accounts for the announcement when they arrive at the shop.
With the opening acts done, it is now time for the headliner, the fishing report.
Things are heating up. Quite literally. We have had a couple of days of sunny weather, which heats up the shallow, muddy bottom spots in the bay and gets the fish chewing. We have had good reports of striped bass coming in from the west side of the bay and the rivers and creeks that feed into the bay.
Without putting street addresses, that is about as much of a spot burn you are getting here.
The usual suspects have been working too. For those who like to fish bait, blood worms are the hot bait ticket, though smaller pieces of salted clam will pick a few fish too. Remember you need to use inline circle hooks for striped bass now when using bait.
For those who like to throw lures, it’s the same as the mid-week report. Kettle Creek shads on light bullet head jig heads have been a hot lure. Small shads, like the Tsunami Holographic Swim Shads, Storm WildEye Swim Shads, and Vudu shads have been working too. Hard plastics, like the smallest Rapala X-rap and small Yo-zuri Mag Darters have worked. And as always, Scabelly Gliders.
We have also been hearing good reports of winter flounder from the early “flounder pounders”. Blood worms again are the hot bait, but small bits of clam and small pieces of Fish Bites work too. We have all of that in the shop for you, along with the necessary clam chum to attract them to you. Chum pots too. This is all in-store only. You don’t want us shipping you a frozen clam chum log. With some of the shipping delays we have seen lately, it won’t be pretty when it gets to you.
Anyway, the upcoming week has higher air temps and some sunny days predicted, which should start moving the striped bass from the warmer west side of the bay to the east side as the whole bay warms up. We are expecting very good things next week.
And what would a Sunday night/Monday morning fishing report be without a little fun at Ray’s expense. Ray is on vacation this week. He’s excited, as you can see…
Again, not sure where that hair is coming from…
(Ray is kinda creepy as a cartoon, isn't he?)
That puts Blackcloud Bob in charge, as if he is not busy enough with custom rods. He’s pretty happy about it though, as you can see below…
