At The American Legion Hall, Post # 170, 33 West Passaic Street, Rochelle Park, N. J.

Transcription

1 December 2015 At The American Legion Hall, Post # 170, 33 West Passaic Street, Rochelle Park, N. J. President/ Writer/ Editor John Toth Visit our revised Web page & try some of the new functions tothjohn@verizon.net 1 st Vice President Bill Fish Icecreambill1122@ gmail.com 2 nd Vice President Mark Capalbo markcapalbo@aol.com Membership Secretary. Jack O Hara Jacko5577@gmail.com Treasurer Jim Galanaugh Jr. Jgalan4962@aol.com Assistant Treasurer Charles Santoro Boats62@aol.com Assistant Writer/Editor Fred Villanova Rich DeMelo with his 12 lb. 4 oz. Fluke. Looks like he s struggling just to hold it! Stories & Events Page 2 Presidents Corner, Up coming meetings Page 3 Election canidates, Past Presendent s Dinner, Big Fish Contest Page 4 Upcoming Events, Flounder Trivia Page 5 Fishing Management Issues Page 6 Sponsors & Application Form Good fishing, good friends. That s what SWABC is all about The Best Fishing Club in NJ The regular meetings will be held on the third Tuesday of the month, at 8:00P.M. The only meeting that is not held at the Legion Hall on Tuesday will be the night of the Past President Dinner. That month is March. A $5 fee is required, for non-members, this entitles them to the 50/50 drawing, refreshments, snacks, and some new tricks about fishing. Welcome all; we hope you enjoy the evening.

2 President's Corner At our November 17th meeting, we had our auction on fishing gear and not much club business was discussed since we wanted to move quickly into the auction and we had so much gear to auction off! There were very good buys to be had on many good rods and even some reels that were not used and still in their original boxes! A minimum price was set on this gear and most of the auction followed this procedure with bids going to higher prices. In some cases, the seller wanted his gear sold and even negotiated a lower price from the floor which at times made for an entertaining discussion that generated a lot of laughs! It was a fun night and one that had good gear sold at bargain prices, a ham and turkey raffle for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, a 50/50 raffle with the winner (our chef, Nico) taking home $112 as the 50/50 winner, and for those of our members who signed up early to pay their 2016 dues, a special drawing was held with the winning ticket holder receiving a free turkey! What a night with chicken fingers, meatballs in a nice sauce for refreshments made by our Chef Nico. Thanks Nico for that good food! Kevin Morgan, along with Bill Fish, auctioned the gear and they also had their friends as "runners" to quickly take the auctioned items to the successful bidders so that the meeting could move along faster given all the gear that had to be auctioned. These "runners included: Pete Orenzo & Ray Zampono "- spelling of names according to Kevin - and member Dennis Nieradka was also a runner. Kevin was very fast in barking the bids at the audience with his arms flailing about like a traffic cop directing 50 cars at the same time! I want thank all of you who made this auction happen and all of you who participated in the bidding process! It was a good night and a very enjoyable one! Thanks for making it all happen! December 15th Meeting - Christmas Party This is our Christmas meeting and no speakers are scheduled. We want to do just a little club business and then have a good time with our fishing friends and enjoy eating a lot of goodies and forgetting about any diets! Members can also bring their favorite food items to this meeting. Our members always bring a lot of food and we eat very well, and that is what we are supposed to do during the holidays! Please tell Vice President Bill Fish what you are bringing so that we do not have duplicate food items. Bill can also be reached at (201) or at icecreambill1122@gmail.com. We will also have an exchange of gifts and Santa Claus will hand them out. If you want to participate in the exchange of gifts, please bring an item (preferably a fishing-related one) that is approximately $10 in value. In keeping with the Holiday spirit, we will be collecting toys to give to the Rochelle Park Police Department to give to kids that do not receive much for Christmas. These toys must be new and unwrapped. This is a good opportunity to give to children who are in need. Also at this meeting, we will have our traditional turkey and ham raffle so that you can prepare for your Christmas dinner by winning one of them. Our club will have cards on hand and you can simply write your name in a numbered box for a $1 dollar chance. At the end of the meeting, we will draw a number for each card and if you have the winning number you get to take home a turkey or a ham to start the holiday If you pay your 2016 dues at this meeting, you will receive a numbered ticket. At the end of the meeting, we will have a special raffle just for those anglers who pay their 2016 dues. The prize is a turkey or a ham! So pay your 2016 dues at the meeting and get another chance to win a turkey or a ham. Speaker for our January 19, 2016 Meeting - Chris Lido Chris is a dynamic speaker and Chris is very familiar with fishing, both salt and fresh water. Chris is going to do a power point presentation on ice fishing and the extreme lengths that fishermen will go to pursue this type of fishing. It will be enjoyable to watch it! Speakers for our February 2016 Meeting - Jeff Brust and Michael Celestino from the NJ Division of Fish & Wildlife Both Jeff and Michael will give a power point presentation on the importance of NJ's angler survey. This survey can be very helpful in giving the Fish & Wildlife the data it needs to better manage our state s fisheries. New Club T- Shirts on Sale We will have our new club T- Shirts on sale at all of our meetings. We will have medium, large, X large, XX large and XXX large for our skinny members. They all have a pocket. We have two colors to choose from - red and burgundy. The cost is $15 for any shirt to make our accounting simple. Designs for new hats under review. Welcome Aboard! Joe Salib (from Hasbrouck Heights) was looking for a good fishing club to join and his good fortune steered him our way. Welcome Aboard Joe!

3 Election Time - Board Members for 2016 Also the December 15th meeting, the list of officers running for the following positions will be read and club members will be asked if they want to run for any of these positions. If you are interested in running for any of these positions, see Bill Fish at this December meeting or him at Icecreambill1122@gmail.com or call him at (201) The list of officers follows: President John Toth 1 st Vice President Bill Fish 2 nd Vice President- Mark Capalbo Treasurer Jim Galanaugh Jr. Assistant Treasurer Chuck Santoro Recording Secretary Chuck Santoro Assistant Recording Sec.- Rich Cybulsky Corresponding Secretary - Fred Villanova Ass t Corresponding Sec.- Jim Zimmer Membership Secretary Jack O'Hara Assistant Membership Sec.- Charles Altman Sergeant at Arms- Harold Gusterson Assistant Sergeant at Arms- Harry Vogt Chaplin Dan Eberle Publicity Officer John Toth Assistant Publicity Officer Fred Villanova At our December 15 th meeting, we will have a final vote on these positions. Past President's Dinner - March 15, Mountainside Inn Save this date! We had a very good time at this dinner in March of last year with a nice crowd and food served Family style with roast beef, chicken, salad, pasta, potatoes and dessert all for $25. The price for this year's Past President's Dinner remains the same at $25, in spite of inflation! Can't beat the price for what you get! We will a variety of speakers to touch briefly on a variety of fishingrelated topics, a huge Dark Horse, door prizes, and trophies to be presented to the winners of the Big Fish contest! Tickets will be on sale for the dinner at $25 starting at our Christmas Party and will sell at the $25 price until our January 19, 2016 club meeting. On January 20 th, 2016 the price for the dinner will go to $30. We are making this change in the hope that members will buy their dinner tickets at an earlier date. By doing this, we can have a better head count of how many members are coming to the dinner and also reduce confusion that we usually experience of processing dinner tickets at the entrance of the restaurant. SPECIES MIN. WEIGHT BLACKFISH 4 ENTRY WEIGHT 11 lbs. 3oz. BLUEFISH lbs COD FISH 10 ANGLER Tim Mahoney Chuck Santoro FLOUNDER 1lb.8oz. 2 lb. 8 oz. Bill Fish FLUKE 4 LING 2 POLLOCK lbs.4 oz. Rich DeMelo PORGY 1lb.8oz. 2 lb. 2 oz. Bill Fish SEA BASS 2 STRIPED BASS WEAKFISH 2 4 lbs. 8 oz. John Toth lbs. Rich Reitano HRFA 14th Annul Surf fishing tournament at Seaside Park Report Our club had two teams (6 members each) that participated in the Hudson River Fisherman's Surf Tournament at Seaside Park and unfortunately, a very strong Northwest wind placed a damper on this tournament with a lot of sundials caught with no bass or blues to make this tournament more exciting. Our club teams caught a few sundials and the winning team caught 70 of them! Nevertheless, all participants had a lot of good food and cheer at the Italian American Club. Fishing also involves friendships and even if the fish are not biting as wished for, it still is fun just to participate in a tournament and enjoy the fresh air and have a few a laughs while doing so! What is a Genetically Engineered fish? For an Atlantic salmon it means that its genes have been modified so that it grows to market size faster than a non-genetically salmon in as little as half the time.

4 97 Sunfield Avenue, Edison, NJ ( The First show of 2016 is the Garden State Outdoor Sportsmen Show (Raritan Expo) and it will have a huge variety of fishing and hunting gear along with many delicious food items for sale. Try to attend this show since it will have fishing gear available at discounted prices to get you prepared for the upcoming 2016 fishing season. This is the time to walk around the many booths to not only buy the fishing gear that you need, but to also see the many new items on the fishing market that you did not know about but would like to have to enhance your fishing opportunities. Our club will have a booth at this show and we will be looking for volunteers to staff our booth and to sell our raffle tickets and to also promote our 5th Annual Fluke Tournament. The following are the dates and times that we would like to have volunteers for this show. See John Toth at our December meeting to sign up for this show or call him at (732) or him at tothjohn@verizon.net. This schedule is set up to have at least two persons to staff the booth to allow for breaks and to give ample opportunities for members to see the show. Volunteers working at this show do NOT pay an entry fee for this show. John needs help to set up for the show on Thursday morning around 10:00 a.m. (especially a guy taller than John) to set up our club banner over our booth. Volunteer Staffing Thursday, January 7 th 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. - Mike Cargill, John Toth; 4:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Friday, January 8 th 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. 4:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Saturday, January 9 th 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. - John Piazza, Steve Totten 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. - Harry Vogt, Harold Gusterson Sunday, January 10 th 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. - John Piazza, Steve Totten 2:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. - Jim Piobino, Mike Peluso, Dave Nicholson 2nd Show - NJ Boat Sale & Expo NJ Convention Center (Raritan) - February 18-21, rd Show - The Saltwater Fishing Expo- Somerset, NJ) - March 18-20, 2016 (The schedule for volunteers for these future show will be posted in later newsletters) Winter Flounder Trivia Winter Flounder; so named because it spends the winter in shallow inshore water, and has one of the shortest migrations. It seldom leaves estuaries and coastal areas. Spawning in January through March, smaller three-year old females lay 500,000 eggs while larger 8-pounders lay 1,500,000 eggs! It was recently discovered that flounder may return to the same site to spawn year after year. Unlike other flatfish, the winter flounder's eggs do not float, but instead sink to the bottom where they hatch after 15 to 18 days. (Amazing Fishing - Facts and Trivia page 25 by Tony Lolli Chartwell Books 2012). Striped Bass - New Jersey's State Fish? There is a movement by a number of anglers and fishing clubs to have striped bass designated as the official saltwater fish of the state of New Jersey. Two bills could make that a reality are sitting in both state houses waiting on a vote. The bills were sponsored by Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D- Middlesex) and Senators Jeff Van Drew (D-Cumerland and Christopher J. Connors (R-Ocean). The Assembly bill (A4563) was introduced in June and the companion Senate bill (S3192) followed in October. Currently, our state recognizes one fish, the trout with that distinction. Stripers are also known as "Rockfish" and can live up to 30 years. The Navesink River was used to seine striped bass that were transported to California by train, allowing the successful introduction of the fish to the pacific coast in (Asbury Park Press, November 27th - Dan Radel).

5 Fishing Management Issues - by John Toth Beach Access - Deal's City Council tried to restrict access surf anglers and surfers by passing a bill with parking restrictions and thought that they could get away with it. There was a ground swell of opposition to it, especially by surf anglers when they learned about it (most notably by the NJ Beach Buggy Assoc.) and they really turned out to the council meeting to protest it. This council tabled the bill and there is no word of movement on it. However, this Council is being watched to see if they will try to reintroduce these parking restrictions again. These shore towns receive beach replenishment sand that is paid for by public funds, yet they don't want the public to use "their" beaches. A case in point that always bugs me when I drive through is Sea Bright and see that big wall with stairways people use for access to the beach. At the foot of these stairways are the No Access signs or something to that effect that only the locals can use these stairways. Of course, there are "NO Parking" signs are along this wall to make sure nobody but the locals can use the stairs. This has been an ongoing problem for anglers and maybe one of these days this situation will change even though the beach towns will fight it tooth and nail. LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) - representing both the Jersey Coast Anglers Association and the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance, I gave oral and presented written comments at a public hearing held at the Sheraton hotel in Eatontown on November 4th opposing LNG. I have condensed my one page comments to these numbered points for you readers: 1. the LNG port will be located at the gateway to the NY/NJ harbor, a heavily traffic area and this LNG port could pose a navigation hazard 2. Another storm like Sandy could toss the LNG port with devastating effects in our entire region. 3. Exclusion zones will extend two (2) miles from each docking buoy that will prohibit fishing in this area (much like the Earle pier location). 4. A LNG facility would be a prime target for Islamic terrorists with disastrous results from explosions. 5. Gas is in itself a potential hazard and any leakage or rupture can be hard to repair like the BP problem we experienced in the Gulf. 6. The construction of new pipe lines will dredge up to 20 miles of sea floor that has been already damaged by Sandy and the ongoing dredging needed for beach replenishment because of this storm. (On November 12th, Governor Cuomo vetoed this LNG project and this veto effectively stopped it from going forward. He was very concerned about Islamic terrorists attacking it and the terrific explosion it would cause and the resulting damages to our region and its shipping lanes). Artificial Reefs - the new regulations concerning the two reefs in our local waters (Axel Carlson & Sandy Hook) are in force. The areas of these two reefs that have been designated for commercial use will be required to be marked with high flyer flags or buoys to be clearly visible to all boaters and anglers so that they can easily be avoided. As part of this new agreement, a new reef located just outside of the Manasquan inlet will be built. The Manasquan reef will be over a square mile in size and be limited to recreational use only. No potting by commercial anglers will be permitted. The next focus will be on the 13 artificial reefs located in federal waters to be designated as Special Management Zones (SMZ) that would also prohibit commercial use. As info on becomes available, I will update you on it. For your information, Jeff Tittel, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, opposes construction of this new reef since it will lead to overfishing! When asked on one occasion by a JCAA member to tell him one thing that the Sierra Club has done for fishing and hunting enthusiasts, he was amazingly lost for words! When you are writing checks for charity etc., keep this info in mind! New Jersey Fishing Suffered $300 Million Losses from Sandy The U.S. Department of Commerce report indicates that New Jersey suffered nearly $300 million estimated damages as a result of Sandy. The findings were part of an exhaustive survey of 2,278 commercial and charter fishermen, seafood dealers, bait and tackle shops, marinas and hatcheries in NJ. Some of the findings of this report: 1. $294, 334, 219 estimated physical damages on all levels of fishing business in NJ and only about 15% of it covered by insurance % of fishing business owners said that they learned valuable lessons from Sandy, with the most cited one was to better secure their equipment and vessels. 3. Three (3) months was the average time that commercial and charter fishing boats were unable to catch fish. 4. Only two (2) charter boats reported an increase in business after Sandy, which they attributed to their competitors being inoperable. 5. Some of the fishermen and other business owners will never return to their previous occupations. 6. One (1) fewer employee on average was working at each of the bait shops and the marinas that responded to the survey. The average fishing crew size was halved, going from four to two people on each boat. (Asbury Park Press, September 7, 2015 pages 1A & 2A). Winter Flounder Trivia Winter Flounder; so named because it spends the winter in shallow inshore water, and has one of the shortest migrations. It seldom leaves estuaries and coastal areas. Spawning in January through March, smaller three-year old females lay 500,000 eggs while larger 8-pounders lay 1,500,000 eggs! It was recently discovered that flounder may return to the same site to spawn year after year. Unlike other flatfish, the winter flounder's eggs do not float, but instead sink to the bottom where they hatch after 15 to 18 days. (Amazing Fishing - Facts and Trivia page 25 by Tony Lolli Chartwell Books 2012).

6 Salt Water Anglers of Bergen County, New Jersey Sponsors Membership Application for the Saltwater Anglers of Bergen County Mail To: American Legion Hall Post # 170, 33 West Passaic Street, Rochelle Park, N.J Please enclose a check or money order in the amount of $40.00 for a one-year membership, into New Jersey s #1 Salt Water Fishing Club. Name Address Home/Business Ph #. Address