2022 was a great year here at The Saltwater Edge. We have our customers, friends, and family to thank for that. There wouldn't be a Saltwater Edge without all of you, so thank you, and Happy New Year!
One of the things we are most proud of this year is the Striped Bass community coming together in support of Amendment 7. 99% of the public comments that were submitted as part of the Amendment process were focused on caution and conservation. The fight isn't over but it's hard not to be optimistic when seeing the support for the future of our favorite fish.
Throughout 2022 we had the opportunity to post some great photos and make some new friends on Instagram and Facebook. Our top nine posts of the year are below:
Three of the top 9 posts of the year have to do with one of our favorite days this past year, The Striper Season Kickoff. That was a day to remember! We had an amazing crowd of builders, brands, and customers come and hang out. We look forward to doing this event again in 2023 on April 22nd. We have an even bigger group of amazing plug builders coming this year, mark the date on your calendar, you won't want to miss it.
One of the next most popular posts is talking about the Albie Project. This was an ambitious project that the American Saltwater Guides Association undertook this year. This was the first ever large-scale research project in False Albacore. These little speedsters are a special fish to us so it was great to see the amount of effort going into learning more about them. The ASGA team successfully tagged and has begun receiving data from the tagged fish. This means that the tagging effort resulted in low mortality and that we'll begin to learn more about these fish.
It would be hard to talk about this year without talking about the amazing variety of species we had the opportunity to target. It may have been a bit of a tough year for the shore striper fisherman this year but the boat crowd had an incredible year in Narragansett Bay and at Block Island. There was a pretty incredible run of bass on the RI oceanfront at one point and many of the staff here at The Saltwater Edge took advantage.
The shore albie fisherman had an incredible season this year. We heard guys getting into the triple-digit catch amounts for this season. They don't call it Albie Fever for nothing. It was great to see such a large population of False Albacore come to Rhode Island and stick around for as long as they did. We even had a few dedicated striper SWE staff members put down their surf rods and get their first albies, it goes without saying but they can't wait for next year.
The offshore fishery lit up again this year and you didn't have to go very far offshore to find tuna, mahi, triggerfish, sharks, and other large pelagic species. We had a great time targeting those fish and the way the last few years have been trending next year is going to be even better.
We couldn't talk about 2022 without talking about the bottom fishing here in New England. It was an incredible year for tautog and black sea bass. One of the most exciting parts was starting to target tog with the fly rod. Turns out to be a great flats challenge here in New England!
The fluke fishing wasn't always great, but when it turned on it really turned on.
It wasn't all fishing this year though. We revived our Youtube channel and have been putting out a series of educational videos to help our customers pick the right gear and catch more fish. We had 132,000 views on our channel this year, something we are happy to see. Thank you all for tuning in!
Our most popular video of the year is about the new
Van Staal VSX2. We are excited about this new Van Staal and its improvements to the line.
A close second place to that video was a video we did with
Captain Jack Sprengel about black sea bass fishing.
This video lays out a great intro to the species and the gear you want to target them. We had the opportunity to work with Capt. Jack a lot this year and that was a highlight in itself!
This year The Saltwater Edge ran some fun tournaments. We had the most people ever enter our Albie Shootout. This tournament benefited the ASGA Albie project we talked about earlier so it was great to see that many people take part.
We also had a great time with the November to Remember Striped Bass tournament. It was a cold November so seeing anglers get out there and braving the cold to catch bass was great.
We finished out the year with a staff trip up to some fresh water and had the chance to float and fish with the Deerfield Fly Shop. That might have to turn into an annual event as well!
Thank you all for a great 2022. We can't wait to see what 2023 brings!
Happy New Year!
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