March 2016 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 www.swabc.org 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 Here s John Piazza & Steve Totten having a little fun In our booth at the Boat Show. A visitor from Bikini Bottom wanted to buy our raffle tickets by paying with sea shells, but not good enough for our super salesmen. Stories & Events Page 2 Presidents Corner, Up coming meetings & Past Presidents Dinner Page 3 Raffle info & Interesting Articles Page 4 Upcoming Events & Shows Page 5 Fishing Management Issues & Captain Background Page 6 Sponsors & Application Form 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.
President's Corner The Marine Trades Boat show has come and gone, but our members did a really good job in selling our raffle tickets and also promoting our club and its upcoming 5th Annual Fluke Tournament! This was a four-day event and it required a lot of coverage over this period and alternating shifts so that nobody had to work for a full day. Steve Totten could sell ice cubes to Eskimos, and he sold a lot of tickets along with John Piazza. Ray Sebecke tied a dollar bill to a fishing line and pulled it towards our booth with many show attendees following it and buying a lot tickets! A funny, but effective way to sell tickets! I want to thank all of our members who volunteered to work at this show and they include: Mike Cargill, Steve Totten (who also helped me with setting up our booth), Chuck Santoro, Ray Sebecke, and Jim Catanzaro. Craig Zincavage, John Piazza and Jim Galanaugh Jr. Also, 23 anglers signed up to get information on our upcoming Fluke Tournament. Mark Capalbo will send tournament applications out to them at a later date. Receiving information like this expands our data base for fluke entrees, and that is really important for the future success of our tournaments. So, attending this Boat Show was good for our club and it will be well worth attending it in 2017! As mentioned in our February bulletin, I am very actively involved in the New Jersey Outdoor Alliance (NJOA) and the NJOA is holding a fundraiser dinner at the Black Forest Inn, at 249 Highway 206, in Stanhope, NJ. The dinner includes appetizers, and a menu of: venison, wild boar, pheasant, turkey, and freshly caught fish. This dinner on March 13th starts at 4:00 p.m. and the ticket cost is $100. This is an exceptional dinner that will be prepared by the Aichem family, having three generations of world-renowned chefs. Also, 50/50 tickets and tricky trays will be available. Please call club member Arnie Ulrich at (201) 304-4691 to order your tickets or email him at Kaveester@aol.com. February 16th Meeting Recap We had Jeff Brust and Mike Celestino from the NJ Dep talk about anglers participating in their NJ Anglers Survey to give our state information about their fishing trips. The DEP needs this data to have a better picture of the stocks of our fisheries in responding to quotas from fishing management sources. Also, our chef, Nico, cooked up filet mignon for us that was both delicious and tender, along with some salad! Thanks Nico for a superb job in preparing our refreshments! Past President's Dinner - March 15, 2016 - Mountainside Inn - Last Call! The price for this year's Past President's Dinner is now $30 and it is still a bargain for what you get with food served family style along with chicken, roast beef, salad, dessert and beer and soda. We will have speakers to briefly touch on a variety of fishing-related topics, a huge Dark Horse, door prizes, and trophies to be presented to the winners of the Big Fish contest! If you have NOT already bought your dinner ticket yet, please call Harold Gusterson at (201) 337-6490 or email him at (halginoakland@yahoo.com) that you are coming to the dinner so that we can have a better head count to give to the Mountainside Inn. April 19th Meeting - Captain Art Lein to give a Presentation on Thundermist Lures Captain Art Lein (Katie James Sportfishing Charters) will give a presentation on how to use Thundermist lures that are very effective in catching fluke. He will explain how to use them under a variety of conditions. May 17th Meeting - Dave Lilly to Talk About Catching Fluke Dave Lilly, a very experienced angler who loves to catch fluke, will be our May 17th speaker to talk about catching fluke using live and artificial baits. He is coming at the right time with the fluke season just about to break open. Dave has won many fluke tournaments, including our own. He placed third in our 2015 fluke tournament and he has won a lot of money in other tournaments. Don't miss this meeting if you want to learn the best ways to catch fluke! 2016 Membership Dues Need to Be Paid by April Club membership dues are now payable and the dues are $35. April is the deadline for members to pay their dues and receive our club s bulletin and be listed as an active club member. Please see Membership Chairman, Jack O'Hara at our meetings to pay your dues or mail it to the American Legion Post # 170, 33 West Passaic Street, Rochelle Park, NJ 07622. Make the check payable to the Saltwater Anglers of Bergen County or just SWABC will do. Thank You! Welcome Aboard! Two new members joined our club and they are: Rob Callen from Hasbrouck Heights John Vitiello from Tappan, NY Glad to have you guys on board and good fishing with us!
SWABC Fund Raising Raffle Tickets are now on sale for our fund raising raffle that helps to support the many activities of our club and to essentially help pay our club bills related to hall rental, food and beverages for our meetings, printing and mailing of our newsletters and other related expenses. Please see member Fred Villanova at our meetings and take at least two raffle books or more to sell or buy! Each book has 10 raffle tickets in it and at a cost of $1 for each ticket. We have some very nice prizes to offer and they are: 1. Charter Fishing Trip - Reel Fun Sport Fishing LLC - $600 value 2. Canyon Reel HS 16 and Shimano - Rod - $500 value 3. Canyon Reel HS 15 and Shimano - Rod - $450 value 4. 32 inch LCD High Definition TV - $300 value 5. Fishing Trip 2 Tickets for the Party Boat Fisherman - $150 value 6. Gift Certificate Dick s Sporting Goods - $100 value 7. Gift Certificate Dick s Sporting Goods - $100 value The drawing of the winning raffle tickets will be held on the night of our club s May 17, 2016 meeting and the tickets will be pulled at 9:00 p.m. We want to thank Captain John Kolias of Reel Fun Sport Fishing for his continued support of our club's activities! More information on his charters can be found at: www.reelfunsportfishing.com Thanks also goes to Don Par for selling two Canyon reels for our raffle at discounted prices www.canyonreels.com., and also Jigging World for selling rods to us at discounted prices - www.jigging World.com. Diver Recovers Couple's Wedding Ring from Ocean - Amazing Story! Jay Bradford, 27, of Point Pleasant, NJ helps out his good friend Nick Barsa, Captain of the Lock-N-Load charter out of Belmar when Jay is not working on tug boats. Jay acts as a mate and does the usual routine of cutting bait etc. On a December 12th trip for blackfish that required picking up and moving the anchor several times since the fish were uncooperative, Jay's wedding ring fell off when he was pulling the anchor in! His hand hit the bow rail and the ring came off his knuckle and sank to the bottom. It gave Jay a similar sinking feeling in his stomach and he nearly threw up! Jay (27) and his newlywed wife Meagan (29) were married just June 19th of last year! His wife, Meagan was not worried about the cost of the ring, but what it symbolized. As soon as the ring was lost, Captain Nick Barsa called Mark Thompson who owns Dive and Salvage in Sea Bright with the hope that this ring could be found. The odds are big time against finding it in a big ocean! Four days later, the boat returned to the spot where the ring was lost guided by the boat's GPS system. Making this recovery all the more difficult was 35 MPH winds that were moving the boat around along with a big swell. Mark threw metal wash bands in the water to make a trail that could possibly lead him to the ring that was down in about 33 feet of water. Visibility was less than one foot, but Mark followed the trail of washers and found the ring resting on a rock in 10 minutes! Luckily, it was not covered by sand! When the ring was found, all were ecstatic and Meagan said it was the beat Christmas present she ever had! Jay will not wear his wedding ring again while working on a boat! Truly, finding a needle in a haystack story! More Plastic than Fish in the Ocean Plastic Could Exceed the Number of Fish in the Ocean! If we continue down our current path, by 2050 it is estimated that the world's oceans are expected to contain more plastic by weight than fish, a recent study has found. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, each year at least 8 million tons of plastic leaks into the oceans causing $13 billion in damages to the marine environment. It is equivalent to dumping the contents of a garbage truck into the ocean every minute! If no action is taken, this dumping is expected to increase to two-per-minute by 2030, and four - per- minute by 2050, the report predicts. Already, there are areas in the oceans that have garbage, including large amounts of plastics that are like garbage dumps the size of the United States floating on top of the ocean's waters. While a large amount of plastics are recycled, 32% of plastic packaging escapes collection systems, making its way into the ocean. (Asbury Park Press - January 22, 2016). Big Blackfish Caught Over the weekend (2/27-2/28) the Big Mohawk practically broke their scale by weighing a 22 lb. 13- ounce blackfish! It was caught on one of our local reefs by Howard DiCicco.
2016 Calendar of Events With a number of club events going on, the following gives a quick snapshot of our 2016 activities. It is preliminary since fishing trips are still being planned and two new ones have been added to this list. Other trips to be added at a later time. March 13th - NJOA Fundraising Dinner at the Black Forest Inn in Stanhope March 15th - Past President's Dinner - Mountainside Inn - Clifton, NJ March 18-20 - Saltwater Fishing Expo - Somerset, NJ April 19th club meeting - Captain Art Lein speaker on Thundermist Lures May 17th club meeting - Dave Lilly, winner of many tournaments, to talk about catching fluke June 20th - Club Charter Fish Trip for Ranch Hope Youths on the MiJo July 14th - Fluke Trip on the MiJo August 13th - 5th Annual Club Fluke Tournament August 20th - Club Charter Bus Trip to Rhode Island for Fluke December 3rd - Club Charter Trip for Blackfish on the Tag Fish ******************************************************************************************** March 18th -20th - The Saltwater Fishing Expo (NJ Convention Center Somerset, NJ) Our club will also have a booth at this -not to be missed show- to promote our club and sell raffle tickets. We will need volunteers (who do not pay an entrance fee) to work at it. See John Toth at our Past President's dinner or call him at (732) 656-0139 or email him at tothjohn@verizon.net. John will also need helper(s) to set up for this show at 10:00 a.m. on March 18th. John also would like to have two volunteers to work on the Friday (March 18th) 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. shift). Friday, March 18 th Saturday, March 19 th Sunday, March 20th Noon to 4:00 p.m. Bob Cameron, John Toth 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (Need Volunteers) 10:00 AM to 2:00 p.m. - John Piazza, Steve Totten 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Bill Fish, Barry Paull, Gali Fish 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. - John Piazza, Steve Totten 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Craig Zincavage, (Need Volunteer) We always have at least two members in a time slot to allow for breaks and the opportunity to see the show. See John Toth at our meetings to sign up for it or call him at (732) 656-0139 or email him at tothjohn@verizon.net. ******************************************************************************************** Fluke Charter Trip to Rhode Island - August 20th Mark Capalbo & Bill Fish organized this trip last year and they are doing it again this year. Only 40 club members can sign up for this trip so that there is plenty of room on the boat. Spots are filling up fast and 23 members signed up for it when it was first announced at our February meeting! See Mark at our meetings or email him at markcapalbo@aol.com to be on this popular trip. ******************************************************************************************** New Charter Fishing Trip Added Member Craig Zincavage has set up a charter trip on the boat "Tag Fish" that sails from the Highlands and it is a very popular boat that fishes for blackfish and there is even a waiting list to charter it! Craig says that he has been trying for quite some time (like a year) to set up this trip since this boat is so popular with blackfish anglers. The cost is $130 and with adding the tip it comes to about $155. The trip is scheduled for December 3, 2016. While that seems far away, this trip is limited to only 10 anglers. See Craig at our meetings or call him at (973) 234-9618 or email him at: zincman70 @ yahoo.com. Craig is also trying to set up a charter trip sometime in October on the Skylarker from Belmar that would be for bottom fishing. Craig wants to see how many members would be interested in going on this charter. Please see Craig at our meetings or contact him by email or telephone at the info listed above.
Fishing Management Issues - By John Toth Striped Bass - The NJ Marine Fisheries Council held a Striped Bass Committee meeting at Anclote Creek on February 17th and our club member, Sergio Radossi who is also a member of this Council, presided at this meeting's agenda that focused only on the Bonus Tag program. I went to this meeting as an advisor representing the JCAA, NJOA and our club. While not final at the time of this writing, it appears that the same Bonus Tag program we had last year will be in effect for 2016 with a starting date of September 1, to December 31, 2016. Only one tag will be issued to an angler to catch a striper between 24 to less than 28 inches. The concern with last year's Bonus tag program was that anglers would catch so many stripers that we would exceed the allotted quota of 215, 912 lbs. and that this program would have to be quickly shut down. In fact, this fear was unfounded since only 21; 106 lbs. were caught representing only 9.3% of this quota. The Bonus Tag program is not only popular with anglers, but our state's fishing managers receive data from anglers, especially the party/charter boat captains, on how many stripers were harvested. This information helps our state's fishing managers to justify implementing this Bonus Tag program and it is also helpful in responding to other fishing management issues. There is a possible problem with funding this program, but I will save this issue for another club bulletin. Summer Flounder & Sea Bass - I attended another NJ Marine Fisheries Council meeting at Nacote Creek on February 24th presided over again by our Sergio Radossi with the subjects of fluke and sea bass seasons for 2016. To cut to the chase with fluke, it appears that the 2016 season for fluke will be the same as last year with a 5 bag limit at 18 inches and 128 days. The season for fluke is expected to run from May 21st to September 25th. Sea Bass is another story and sea bass is the "Poster Child" of fishing MISMANAGEMENT! In spite of the abundance of sea bass in our waters, we are facing a 23% reduction in our 2016 quota because we overfished our 2015 quota. As I have said before, the fishing mangers do not know how many sea bass are out there, but they want to be conservative and give us a quota that is so low that we are bound to go over it. We all sat together to try to figure out the best ways to juggle the sea bass data to spread it over the 2016 sea bass season to cause the least pain for all of us. It looks like we will be seeing a smaller bag limit during the summer months (2 fish at 12.5 inches). The fall season toward late October through the end of December we could see a bag limit of 15 fish, but with a size limit of 13 inches! At 13 inches, we will be throwing back a lot of sea bass with more of them dying as a result. Once the sea bass regulations have been finalized, I will post it in our next bulletin. While driving home from this meeting on the Parkway, I frankly was depressed thinking about this stupidity and the broken system that allows it to happen. Why can't we get better data on sea bass so that we don't end up with a situation like this! The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) was created to better manage our fisheries. In my opinion, they have failed miserably over the years in fulfilling this mission. By the way, a representative from NMFS will be coming to one of our club meetings in the near future to talk about their data collection methods. It will be an interesting meeting! Captains Who belong to our Club! It is always interesting to see how these captains got into the charter fishing business and the first one that comes into our focus is Captain John Kolias of Reel Fun Sportsfishing: By trade, Captain John was a machine designer and worked for numerous pharmaceutical companies for over 30 years including Bristol Myers Squibb as the Department Manager of Design and Drafting. His entire department was dissolved (outsourced); a familiar story for so many Americans who lost and continue to lose their jobs, especially to countries abroad. As they say "when one door closes, another one opens". Captain John's real love has always been bottom fishing and he decided to go into the charter business as his next job. His father took him weekly to the Long Branch fishing pier for porgies and flounder to start him interested in fishing and he quickly fell in love with it. His Reel Fun Sportfishing LLC was incorporated in 2004 and he started his fishing business at the Anglers Marina in Sea Bright, but moved to Twin Lights Marina in 2012 mainly because of his customer base. His first fishing boat was a 20 Wellcraft, until his purchase of 25 Parker in 2002. He has learned so much about charter fishing with his fellow captains (both Captain Art Lein & Frank Tenore) along with Dave Lilly (our May speaker to talk about catching fluke). Captain John indicated that he has never been happier in his life doing what he does now and meeting so many great people who are in the fishing business as well as anglers who have steadily fished with him over the past 12 years, including so many of our club members! Captains Art Lein & Captain Frank Tenore's stories may be told in future bulletins.
SWABC 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. 07622 Please enclose a check or money order made out to SWABC 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 #. E-mail Address