If you don't try you can't know By: Steve

found in the sedges

      It's still late winter, despite air temps warm enough to get things on land going: bugs are hatching, trees are in bloom, and the groundhog came up from under the porch. The strong influence of the ocean in the vicinity of Barnegat inlet means water in the sedges is still in the low forties, too cold to expect much, but then you can't be sure, nor completely satisfied if you don't go try.

      I set up my new 10 weight fly rod and tied flies all week so the fly was all I planned to fish, left some casting rods in the truck in case it got too windy, it did, but I never went back for them. I used to fly fish a good bit for trout, freshwater bass, and the school stripers that live up on the rocky beats of the middle Delaware River,  the ten weight is a more robust setup, and I didn't fish out of a kayak back then so there's some getting comfortable with that to do. Fly casting in the wind, like kayaking in the wind, you'd rather not do, but sometimes you do do, and you just have to make it work however you can.

      The very shallow creeks and ponds had small bait, spearing and bay anchovies probably, but there was no sign of any bass around. standing in my boat and fly casting was working pretty well, just getting that to work some gave a sense of usefulness to the trip. That and we got our Island Beach parking passes for the year.

      As promised, we spent part of our trip picking up trash, to show our support for Margo Pellegrino and her efforts to get people to do something about the deplorable condition of our rivers, lakes and oceans. It's hard when I step onto the bank in some places and see more trash than I could even fit in my kayak, still I spend so much time in the Sedge Islands that I think if I fill a trash bag every trip it will make a real impact.

Trash we found