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I will be up on the Cape this week for the On The Water Magazine's Striper Festival that will be held on October 3rd from 2pm-7pm. This event has been a blast and celebrates a great season of fishing. We'll also be fishing the Cape Cod Canal on Friday night and Saturday morning. So come up, bring your stick and a bunch of bucktails from 2oz-5oz's and your favorite pencil popers and let's catch some fish and celebrate the 2009 fishing season!! Remember one of the lucky monthly winners will also be awarded a new Toyota Tacoma Pickup Truck! Can it get any better?

The fishing in Montauk has been very slow! Lots of bait with few fish on them, that is sure to change, so make sure you plan on fishing the last 3 weeks of October in Montauk around the New Moon.

Hope to see you on the Cape this Saturday afternoon at Striper Fest. . .remember it's the weekend of the full moon, so you won't be missing anything in your home waters!

The Northeast is on fire right now. . .with fish. Whether you're hunting cow striped bass along the coast or pelagics just offshore the season is well underway with some impressive catches.

One of the most impressive fish caught this month on the East End of Long Island, NY was the surf caught 63.4 lb cow by Robert Koch. Rob is an engineer and plug designer for North Bar Tackle. While testing one of their new plugs, the Bottle Darter, Rob connected with this beautiful fish.

This month has also experienced the return of the Bluefin Tuna off the Cape. I had an opportunity to spend an afternoon throwing some topwater baits at some 90 to 300lb tuna and we had a great time with some impressive hookups. Stay tuned for an in depth look at this fishery. However, if you want some information on how and where, contact the guys at Goose Hummock Shop in Orleans, MA. Give the guys a call at: 508-255-0455.

Remember the best catches this Spring will be available now we're coming off the full moon. . .so get out there and fish hard!

If you live anywhere on the East Coast you know that the annual migration has started. Reports from Key West to Maine are exciting with lots of fish. We have schools of moss bunker that haven't been seen in years and it's feeding a tremendous number of large striped bass, weakfish and bluefish from Cape May to Montauk. It's important that you get out there early because the "big girls" will move with the bunker schools and continue North. When you find the bunker school remember to fish around the edges with large metal lip swimming plugs or top water plugs and hang on! Call you local VS dealer and find out what's happening in your area.

If catching a Tarpon is on the agenda there's no better place right now then the Florida Keys. Give Nat or Ken a call down at The Angling Company of Key West (305-292-6306) and book a trip to tangle with a big slob of a tarpon. My suggestion is to chase some permit or bonefish while everyone is tarpon fishing. Tarpon season takes a lot of pressure off the other fish and you can usually fish in solitude.

Remember to share your successes and I look forward to seeing your photos.

SPRING IS HERE!
It's time to make sure that your reels are ready for another season of fishing. I've spent the last few months traveling around the country demonstrating the New VS Self Service Kits that allow you to do self maintence. It's been a great addition to the VS line and allows you to enter the reels to clean, lube and change the seals that wear the most. Combine the self service kits with the addition of two new factory trained service and warranty centers and you’ve got a lot of options to keep your reels ready. Find out more by clicking on VS Customer Service.

I'll be at the RISSA Salwater Fishing Show in Providence Rhode Island this weekend (April 3,4 & 5). This show has been a great show and your last chance to visit with your favorite manufactures and plug builders. If you attend please stop by to say hello.

I want to offer a special thanks to my good buddy Matthew Risser for sending me his story about a recent night trip. Click HERE to read this well-written piece.

If you've also got a great story to share, send it to me, I love hearing them.

I just returned from a recent trip to the Northeast Coast of Florida. It’s garunteed that when I arrive in Florida for my sales trips the coldest temperatures of the year will follow. This trip was no different, temperatures in the high thirties to low forties were forcasted for the entire week of my trip. However, this is exactly the temperatures that make the surf fishing productive from Jacksonville to Ft. Pierce Inlet.

I met up with some fellow surf fanatics from the Northeast that were vacationing at the Camp grounds near Sebastian Inlet and we had a tremendous time catching Redfish from 15lbs to 45lbs casting bucktail Jigs into an ebbing tide. This fishery has been terrific in February and March and allows for some accessible and inexpensive surf fishing opportunities for Snook, Tarpon and Redfish.

All you need is a 9’ surf rod and a VS150 or VSB150 spooled with some 30lb braid and some white bucktails or the local flair jigs. The key to this technique is you have to feel bottom and quickly move it off bottom before becoming bottom! All three species can be caught with the bucktail jigs on the ebb tide and you can effectively fish both sides of the Sebastian Inlet, just remember to go lighter on the South side since it’s much shallower.

For more information on this great fishery give the guys over at Strike Zone Fishing in Melbourne a call at: 321-956-3474 or Harry Goode Outdoor Shop: 321-723-4751. If you would like to experience this fishery with a Liscensed fishing guide then give Capt. Charley Fornabio a call at: 772-388-9773.

A trememdous event in 2008 was the Striper Cup organized by the great people at On The Water Magazine in Falmouth, Mass. The Striper Cup is a contest that allows fishing clubs around the North East to compete for the legendary Stiper Cup. The tournament has both a boat division and a surf division, and the winning monthly anglers compete at the end of the year for either a new boat or a new Toyota Tundra truck - how cool is that?! You're out there fishing hard anyway, why not enter to win a new boat or truck?

In this past tournament, like most since the OTW Striper Cup was started, all the monthly winners that used spinning gear in the surf caught their winning fish on VS Series spinning reels. It was great to see the hard work and dedication that put these guys up on the podium, and congratulations to all.

The StriperFest is the award ceremony that's held at the Harpoon Brewery in Boxton. It was supported by many manufacturers and contestants that shared both stories and brew to celebrate teh Club that scored the most points to bring the Striper Cup home. This year's winner was Team Striper with some impressive catches, all from the surf. Check out more about the event here.

Van Staal, Quantum and Fin-Nor factory personnel had an opportunity to fish the fabled Elizabeth Islands and Cuttyhunk a few days before the event. We toughed out 25-knot winds while throwing plugs around the cuts and rocky shorelines and managed a few nice fish. We also had a chance to visit the Cuttyhunk Fishing Club and took in some of the history of one of the Northeast's fishiest islands. You can check out more here.