My New Surf Rod and Reel

April 23 is my birthday, so my wonderful wife surprised me by taking to Bass Pro Shops to pick out a new surf rod and reel.  I was able to get whatever I wanted, but with the primary purpose of this to be a "back-up" for the days when it isn't a good idea to be fly fishing.  We headed to Arundel Mills, to pick out my present.  I had been looking at the St. Croix Mojo Surf, but decided to make a more economical decision and went with the Tsunami Airwave in the 9' length to cast lures in the 1 to 3 1/4 oz. range.  I matched that up with the Penn Battle 5000 spinning reel and I picked up Suffix 832 30lb. braid to spool it up with.  That should make an awesome, striper ass kicking set up for those days when the fly rod won't get it done, due to crowds, wind, or some other circumstance.  I need to pick up some bombers, poppers, etc. to cast with it, so look for a post with my haul once I get to the store to pick those up.  Also, after a few trips with the new set-up I will be posting my thoughts.

It's Getting Better

Saturday we headed for Lewes with thoughts of flounder again dancing in our heads.  Left the house at 500AM, got the boat hooked up and headed south.  After an uneventful ride, we arrived at the boat launch to find a boat or two getting underway, but relatively light boat traffic.  The weather was in stark contrast to the previous trip.  Winds were light, weather was warm, and the seas were calm.  We were going to fish the canal again, and drift minnows on flounder rigs.  Made a few drifts before my father-in-law hooked up with the first fish for the day.  After it was in the net, we knew this fish was close to the 18" minimum size required in Delaware.  But no matter what, we couldn't stretch this fish past the 17 inch mark.  We made a lot more drifts in different parts of the canal and even ran out to the bay at one point, but in the end we were only able to land three short flounders total.  Sorry, no pictures, which makes this a boring blog post, but I wanted to update on my adventures.

Like being outdoors in PA?

Thanks to BeerTrout for alerting me to this.  Under the proposed budget from Gov. Corbett, PA's land, water, and air are under serious attack.  There has been additional pressure put on our natural resources by the Marcellus Shale fracking, and now there are proposed budget cuts to funding conservation and recreation programs. 



Check out this petition to make your voice heard: http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/2012budget

Among the proposed cuts in the budget:

1. Transferring $30 million from Keystone Recreation, Park, and Conservation Fund to the general fund, which would completely eliminate the KRPCF.
2. Taking the funds from the state's cigarette sales tax, which has historically been used for farmland preservation, and transferring them to the general fund.  This would be a permanent change that would end the farmland preservation fund unless additional funding was found.
3. Continue using the Environmental Stewardship Fund to to pay the Growing Greener II bond debt service.  This would leave $23 million for Growing Greener programs and projects, the lowest amount in decades.

If you care at all about being outdoors, whatever your passion is and where ever you live, please sign the petition.  Don't let the government think that we will sit idly by as they try and take away what is important to us.  Once the natural areas are developed, we can't get them back.