The ORVIS Company and Green Mountain Digital Launch Orvis Fly Fishing App for the iPhone and iPod Touch

• Step by step knot-tying animations and videos with over 20 fly-fishing knots featured
• A guide to 100 top flies including information on when and how to use them
• An intuitive search function and glossary and much more.
• Over an hour of video and dozens of pictures and animations for both casting and knot tying instruction.

“We are very pleased to collaborate with Green Mountain Digital in the development of a high quality, comprehensive mobile guide for fly fishers,” said Tom Rosenbauer, author of the renowned Orvis Fly Fishing Guide book.  “The digital field guide is a must-have for any serious fly fisher and ensures a successful day on the water, and the casting tips and detailed knot tying animations and video are especially helpful.  ”

“We’re happy to be working with the industry leading Orvis Company,” said David Roberts, CEO of Green Mountain Digital. “Fly fishers will instantly see the benefits of this on-the-go technology, and Orvis is a name they can trust”.
Pricing and Availability

Orvis Fly Fishing is available for $24.99 from the Reference Section of the iTunes Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Free upgrades will come on a continual basis and additional modules will be available for purchase soon. 

Android users can get the App for only 14.99 and receive a $10. coupon fro Orvis

Monica Holland

Arkansas blackbirds falling from the sky; limp turtle doves raining down in Italy; scores of dead spots on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay: Mass animal deaths seem to be the signature events of January, 2011. You didn't think North Carolina would make it out of the month unscathed did you?

Two weekends ago near Oregon Inlet, recreational boaters found themselves floating amid a mass of perished striped bass. The cause of these thousands of striper deaths was not cold water temperatures, an unusual disease or a looming Armageddon. The fish were regulatory discharge from the overloaded nets of a trawler. And on the dozens of recreational boats nearby, digital-age anglers pulled out their cell phones and captured the moment for all to see.

It's easy to pile on the commercial trawler. You see the dead fish. You know they are there because he netted them by the thousand when his trip limit is 50 fish. But here's the thing: His actions were legal. Ethical? Absolutely not, but you don't get fined for ethics.

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The news is that Captain Robbie of the Captree Princess has moved the boat  to Montauk and is now booking cod trips. Thanks to the UPS store of Babylon and Long Beach, Ray Bartlett has chartered the Captree Princess for Monday February 7 201. The trip is limited to 40 fishermen so that there will be plenty of room at the rails and inside the cabin.

Here are some things you need to know.
Use the pass word UPS Store when booking the trip for February 7th and the fare is only $100.00 per man.

Weather permitting we will leave Montauk about 5 am unless we learn of an earlier bite than it will be 3 am. Check Skimmeroutdoors.com  for the last minute info.

If there is bad weather we are not sailing and a weather date will be established, if you can not make the alternate  date your fare will be refunded in full, you will not have to take a credit.

Captain Robbie will supply all the jigs and tackle you need so all you need to bring is a rod and reel all other tackle will be supplied for free.(You can not take the tackle home guys!!)

 The galley will be open and this will give you a chance to experience first mate Pats’ egg sandwiches the best I tell ya. I will almost bet that Frankie from Francesco's Restaurant & Pizzeria may just bring a tray or two along of some of his doings.

So far around 20 guys are sign in and I expect the rest of the spots to go fast. Capt Al (Skimmer) and Tim C Smith, will be on board documenting the day and so is Frankie and his crew.
So contact Captain Rob Andresen Office 631 859 8799   Boat 631 404 6817 to sign in.

Last note here if you can not make the trip be sure to book a night out at Francesco’s Restaurant & Pizzeria 29 John Street Babylon, NY 11702 - (631) 587-1340.   The best “local fresh caught wild cod” dishes at a real reasonable price. Friday nights you just may see a few familiar faces.

The striped bass is in trouble again.

During the 1980s, wildlife managers said these big, full-bodied fish — favorites of anglers along the East Coast — were overfished. So they laid down severe catch limits. The population recovered, and fishing resumed in what is considered one of conservation's great success stories.

But now catches are down again, and some biologists say the problem may not be overfishing this time: It could be the weather.

Brad Burns, who started fishing for striped bass in 1960, says he and his fellow anglers, Stripers Forever, are singing the blues about striped bass.

"What we hear from people that go striped bass fishing — the general trend very decidedly is down," Burns says.

Stripers live in the ocean as well as in estuaries and some rivers. Burns says members have been reporting fewer fish for the past five years. As for the cause?

"Well I don't know," he says, "and I don't know that anybody does."

Commercial fishermen trawling off of the Outer Banks of North Carolina are slaughtering thousands of striped bass in “culling” operations and tossing them overboard trying to keep larger stripers and remain under their 50 fish limit.

Both recreational anglers and smaller operation commercial fishermen have been aghast at the actions of the trawlers who are wiping out massive schools of stripers and discarding smaller fish to stay under the state 50 fish creel but maximize their profits.

A video of the striper carnage has been posted on You Tube showing some of the thousands of floating dead fish left in the wake of the trawlers. Outer Banks fishermen who are witnessing the fish kill have been taking to message boards and calling authorities to protest this striped bass massacre.

“It’s an atrocity,” said Captain Aaron Kelly, a top striper guide with over 15 years of experience on the Outer Banks. “It’s gone on before but I think this was the first time it was in front of such a large crowd.”

Captain Kelly said that the day before the video was shot he and the members of his charter followed one trawler for five miles leaving a long wake of dead stripers.

“It’s like they have an endless quota,” he said. “Under the actual numbers are so many dead fish. It’s a frightful waste.”

The striper trawling season is not set to close until this Saturday, January 20. The fishery can be closed earlier if a certain quota is reached, but the quota does not count the thousands of dead discards.

Captain JH Miller was on the water the day the video was made and called the scene “disturbing.”

“I’m not anti-commercial fishing in the least bit, but there is no justification for leaving miles and miles of dead fish out there,” said Captain Miller. “These were legal-sized fish just thrown away to die.”

Striped bass have to be 28 inches in size to be kept legally, and all of the charter captains confirmed that among the thousands of dead stripers were many that were over 28 inches and in the 15 pound range and higher.

Continue reading on Examiner.com:  

WSJ 1-13-2011

The bluefin tuna is one of the most majestic and prized creatures in the sea. Last week, one caught off Japan sold in Tokyo for $396,000, to be used as sushi.

Now the fish is the subject of a scientific fight that shows how hard it will be to gauge the environmental fallout of the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The U.S. government will wrap up public meetings next week on whether to recommend declaring the Atlantic bluefin an endangered species. If the government declared the fish endangered, it would bar fishermen from targeting the fish in U.S. waters. An environmental group filed the request last year, claiming in part that the western-Atlantic stock of the fish, long believed to spawn only in the Gulf of Mexico, would "be devastated" by last year's spill from a blown-out BP PLC well.

But scientists disagree about what portion of last spring's crop of young tuna, or larvae, were hit by oil. They disagree about whether the Gulf is the only place where the western-Atlantic bluefin spawns. In short, they disagree about virtually every aspect of the spill's effect on the fish. Read More

Apparently the NC fishing record for striped bass was been broken last week at Oregon Inlet. Then, it was broken again.

Believe it or not, two NC state record stripers were decked in some furious striper fishing at Oregon Inlet last week.

On Wednesday a NC record striped bass weighing 63 pounds was caught by 12-year-old Stephen Furlough while fishing with guide Charles Haywood aboard the boat Rigged Up just outside of Oregon Inlet.

The feel-good story of young Stephen’s catch lasted only two days however, as on Friday angler Keith Angel pulled in a new NC record 64-pound striped bass while fishing with guide Devin Cage on The Poacher.

Both of the huge stripers were weighed in at the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center where the paperwork was filled out for the state records.

Read the complete story

Last week I sent out a call for New Year's resolutions from local fishing experts. I managed to get an interesting list of ideas and cannot wait to share them. It is an eclectic group with most serious and a few self-deprecating.

Noted fishing captain and national fishing writer Al Ristori is a true sportsman and conservationist. His New Year's wish is that more anglers would learn to use circle hooks in 2011 to help reduce the mortality rate on the fish we release.
With fishing regulations becoming more and more stringent and anglers releasing more fish, it is truly important the released fish survive and increase our fish stocks.

Darren Dorris is a captain, outdoors writer, producer of fishing videos, captain, and founder of the fishing club at Southern Regional High School. Darren pledges to get back to his roots and the basics of fishing. He notes that "all too often we get sucked into the latest and greatest fishing advances and lose touch with the basics."

Darren also resolves to keep his tackle better organized and in better shape this year. He says that Santa gave him a "ton of tackle boxes" to help him out with this one.
Read the complete story in Asbury Park Press

KENT ISLAND, Md. -- The Maryland Department of the Environment said that tens of thousands of small fish have died in the Chesapeake Bay due to the stress of the cold water.

MDE spokeswoman Dawn Stolzfus said reports of a fish kill started coming in last week from Calvert County and Kent Island.

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