This is a good thread!
I'm Chris Schwartz, I've got a small General Contracting business that i just started in SE PA. Mostly doing high end Kitchens, and trim carpentry.
I grew up in Newark, moved to Dewey Beach (where i learned to hand-line crabs....
because i needed to eat), with friends, when i was 17, stayed a while and went to culinary school. since then I have bounced around
MD,
VA, and DC before settling in PA.
The first Striped Bass I ever saw was caught by my mother on the Cape Henlopen Pier when i was 9 years old. My dad decided to take us to CH to fish and camp, we grabbed a bunch of fishing gear from my grandpa's garage and headed for the beach. She caught it on a Penn Mariner #49, and an old fiberglass honey colored boat road with a turned wood handle, and guide wraps that were coming unwound. Did I mention the 30 year old Dacron on the reel? It was a short bass, But i think all Stripers were throwbacks at the time. It made a serious impression on me....
I've been throwing bait into the atlantic ocean, from the beach, since I've had a driver's license. But in the last 4 years i've been actively
surf fishing. Learning all i can about migrations, habits, lures, presentation, tides, wind, reading the waves, gear, location, light.....all the things that make it such an obsession.
Winching in Cow Stripers in the chesapeake is a thing of the past for me. I used to do it alot, and I can pull a bucket of water in too, with a giant reel and a short stout rod.
The only boat fishing I do anymore is Susky flats, there is no greater rush than a thrashing 30lb'er jumping clear of the 4' water, on a flyrod, or LT rod.
I love
AI, more often in the spring and fall, summers are more in
DE. I've got a Red 4-door Wrangler, I'm happy to shoot the bull, or hand-off some unused bait on the way out, just wave me down!