Articles

Review: Airflo Sniper Sink 7 Fly Line

by Chad Shmukler - Wednesday, Nov 9th, 2011

Airflo Striper Sink 7 (left) spooled on an Allen XL reel.

November is striper time in New Jersey. Schools of striped bass that have remained in waters farther north finally return to the waters of coastal New Jersey, to be greeted by many a waiting angler. Once November rolls around, I try to get down to the beach as often as I can. Given that the steelhead rivers of the Great Lakes are at least four to five times a farther drive for me, these returning stripers are the best show in town. For the last couple of years, I've been making due with a mutli-tip line system that ventures to be, and accomplishes doing so fairly well, a line system that can fit any purpose. Even though this multi-purpose line hasn't been a thorn in my side, it also isn't ideal and I've known for some time that I wanted to start fishing lines specifically tailored for the task at hand. The reasons are obvious, so I won't go into them here.

Most often, when fishing for stripers, I'll fish an intermediate line. Something that sinks at around 1-3 inches per second. However, in New Jersey and elsewhere, a good deal of my fishing is done from jetties. When fishing from the jetty or in particularly rough surf, I'll often prefer to use a full sink line. On a few recent, premature trips to the beach in search of stripers that hadn't yet shown up, I had the chance to test out Airflo's Sniper Sink 7. This is one of Airflo's fastest sinking cold saltwater lines. Unlike the Ridged Striper series of lines in Airflo's cold saltwater lineup, this line is un-ridged. If you're unfamiliar with Airflo's ridge system, it is a unique style of fly line coating that allows for tremendous shootability.

Bunker Advocates Deliver Over 90,000 Comments to the ASMFC, Vote Pending

by Ben Kryzinski - Tuesday, Nov 8th, 2011

Omega Protein accounts for over 90% of the current bunker harvest.

In an article published last week, Don't Let Bunker Go Bust, Captain Paul Eidman detailed the current threats looming to the population of bunker (formally known as Atlantic Menhaden) and the potential catastrophic impacts of a collapse of that population. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is set to vote tomorrow on a proposal to protect Atlantic Menhaden through the imposition of catch limits, which do not currently exist for bunker. According to advocates for the protection of menhaden, the absence of these limits is the main culprit for the sharp drop offs in populations of bunker. Representatives of the fishing industry responsible for the bulk of the bunker harvest in Atlantic waters, Omega Protein, disagrees.

According to H. Bruce Franklin, author of 'The Most Important Fish in the Sea', “if we do not put the heat on the ASMFC to do the right thing in November, Omega Protein will prevent any meaningful protection, the menhaden population will continue to crash, and species after species of the valued fish dependent on menhaden will crash with them." It is this sort of scenario that has proponents of catch limits motivated. This motivation has led a variety of environmental advocacy groups, recreational fishing organizations and individual concerned citizens to deliver over 90,000 comments to the ASMFC in order to make their voice heard pending tomorrow's vote.

Don't Let Bunker Go Bust

by Captain Paul Eidman - Wednesday, Nov 2nd, 2011

Menhaden are harvested for use in aquaculture feed, pet foods, livestock feed and dietary supplements. (Photo: NOAA)

Raritan Bay is home base for many of New York and New Jersey’s fishermen. In season fishermen leave the many marinas that dot the bay shore of Staten Island, Monmouth and Middlesex county and head out to the bay in search of striped bass, bluefish, summer flounder (fluke) and other game fish. In order to have a successful day on the bay, anglers look for baitfish. Find the bait, you find the gamefish. The predominant baitfish in Raritan Bay is bunker (formally known as Atlantic Menhaden), both large adults and immature small bunker that we call “peanuts”. Without bunker in the water, you might as well play golf.

Ranked right up there with the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, Central New Jersey’s Raritan Bay is one of the predominant nurseries/estuaries for Atlantic Menhaden stocks. Bunker spawn out at sea and the fry get caught up in the currents and ride them into the back bays and estuary areas where they stay the summer and grow larger until fall. The adult bunker are herring-like fish which swim together in very large schools and feed on micro-organisms like algae, copepods and plankton. They are a lynchpin in the ecology of the bay – converting the micro organisms into flesh and becoming a protein enriched package for our carnivorous fish, marine mammals and marine birds.

Lethal Virus Found for First Time in Pacfic Northwest Salmon

by Chad Shmukler - Tuesday, Nov 1st, 2011

Spawning sockeye salmon.

Researchers at Canada's Simon Fraser University announced recently that Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) was detected in two wild sockeye salmon collected from the waters of Rivers Inlet, British Columbia. This marks the first time that ISA has been detected in fish found in pacific northwest waters, whether wild or farmed. The discovery has caused a considerable amount of alarm, given the potential threat that ISA poses to the already-dwindling stocks of wild salmon in pacific northwest waters.

ISA has long been a problem for salmon farming operations in the waters off Norway, Scotland, eastern Canada and Chile. The virus, by infecting the red blood cells, causes severe anemia in affected fish, often leading to death. Mortality rates in infected farming operations as high as 100% have been observed. Loss rates of 70% are not uncommon. There is no treatment for the disease once a fish is infected and vaccines designed to prevent infection are considered less than effective and difficult to administer.

Gas Companies Targeting State Parks for Drilling

by Ben Kryzinski - Sunday, Oct 30th, 2011

The Youghiogheny River ("The Yough") in Ohiopyle State Park, is one of Pennsylvania's premier trout fisheries.

PennFuture, one of Pennsylvania's leading environmental advocacy organizations, is calling for support for their efforts to bring legislative action to stop the prospect of natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania's state parks. Gas companies, which are steadily expanding drilling operations throughout the state, are current performing preliminary studies evaluating state parks for drilling operations. Most importantly, despite seeming counter-intuitive, drilling for gas in Pennsylvania's state parks is currently completely legal.

Although it may come as a surprise to many, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania does not own the mineral rights to over 80 percent of the land in Pennsylvania's state parks. This is a result of the fact that when the state acquired the majority of the land currently established as state park lands, the mineral rights to these lands had already been purchased or were too expensive to acquire. The state acquired only the land, not the right to drill below its surface, and the current laws of Pennsylvania give the current owners of these mineral rights full authority to develop their assets.