Sandy Hook, NJ

I fished at the tip of Sandy Hook, NJ in Memorial Day weekend.
In the evening a seal appeared in the water. It wasn't afraid of fishermen and was swimming back and forth right in front of us, playing with the rolling water in the wash.
We, fishermen enjoyed this unexpected visitor, even though it bothered our fishing.
After entertaining us for awhile, the seal finally landed on the beach for a rest.

Although the seal gave me joy, I was disappointed at the day's fishing for I didn't catch any while many spin fishermen around me caught the bluefish.
Last year I visited Sandy Hook also around this time and caught many bluefishes.

I tried to figure out the reason of no catch.
I've been using the fast sinking poly leader recently because it makes my casting better.
I suspected the color of this leader, which is black, might cause alarm to the bluefish.
Some time ago I read an article about the bluefish being more sensitive than the striped bass.

I will change to use a clear long leader and see if my catch improving.                    

Tenkara Fishing in Croton

Yesterday I visited the East Branch of Croton again. Two weeks ago when I was there, I had a good time catching a carp, a bass and several trouts. Because that carp was rather large for my tenkara rod to be handled, it gave me a thrill
I was looking forward to repeating the experience and even maybe I caught a larger one.
Somehow this time I caught many pan-fishes and a few small trouts. 
I fished several spots and always the pan-fishes were the first ones getting my flies.     

Robert Moses State Park, Long Island, NY

Since I had caught first stripers in Little Neck Bay, I also fished in several other places, and got all skunked.
Well, this is the reality of my surf fly fishing for stripers, full of hopes and disappointments.
Hoping for the best, this morning I hit the Robert Moses and finally got schoolies again.  Bingo!

I landed three. Two of them were micro.

Many times when I was retrieving the line, I got bites but without hooking up.
I would guess in most cases these stripers were too tiny even for my small flies.

First Tenkara Fishing of the Season

I fished the East Branch of Croton River with a tenkara rod today - this season's first outing to the river.
Though the water level was quite high, I caught .....

The first freshwater fish of the season.

The second !

The third !
..... and few more trouts.

All of them were caught by this bead-head nymph.
I didn't expect I could catch such a variety of fish.
It was a surprising and fantastic first tenkara fishing of the season in the river.