Bass and Blues by Dave Spendiff

Posted on July 27, 2017 by VHFC

It has been near impossible to get out and fish lately with the extreme heat, wind and thunder storms. My son and his family were up from GA and a night fishing trip for stripers was not possible so we headed for the bridges in the afternoon on Tuesday the 25th. Neither my son nor his two sons had ever caught a striper. My son picked up his first among loads of snappers and his youngest son caught his first decent bluefish at 6lbs. His oldest and most competitive angler alive caught the most snappers, but he and his brother will have to wait until next year to get their first stripers.

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Fishing Facts

Of the fifty United States, thirty-eight have a striped-bass record. New Jersey has the largest striped-bass record—a 78-pound 8·ounce whopper that was caught in 1982. The state with the smallest striped-bass record is Iowa. That landlocked striper weighed only 9 pounds 4 ounces and was caught in 1983.

There’s something fishy about beer these days. Fish Tail Ale is popular as ever, and New Jersey’s Flying Fish Brewery is one of the state’s largest specialty breweries. There’s also Washington’s Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale, Florida’s Land Shark beer, Delaware’s Dogfish Head beer, and two versions of Stingray beer—a lighter version from the Cayman Islands and a dark beer from Canada.

The triangle fly is probably the most unusual of saltwater flies. It’s one of the few, if not only, flies tied to a treble hook. It’s also barely a fly at all, because hardly any material is used. It is complete after tying the two straw pearl twinkle flashes and the tiny tuft of natural squirrel, leaving an entire hook fully exposed. Incredibly this barebacked treble fly is a knockout when it comes to sea trout.