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3 weeks ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
April is here, marking the start of spring tautog season throughout New England. The water is a bit chilly for early-spring togging, but our neighbors in Rhode Island are already picking away at some small fish in shallow water. Like striper fishing, the tog bite hits a sweet spot when water temperatures approach (or reach) 50 degrees.
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1 month ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
As we close out another week at the OTW office, the refrigerator has been a bit of a revolving door. Recently, our staff has taste-tested Rockport Brewing’s Jetty Juice and Pescato—two equally refreshing, locally-made brews with entirely different flavor profiles. This week, we’re trying out Hog Island’s White Shark Wheat—a light American wheat ale that has less of a “bite” than one would expect.
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1 month ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Growing up on Cape Cod, Taf Schaefer lived just a stone’s throw from the marshes and feeder creeks of Nantucket Sound. Annual runs of river herring brought striped bass and ospreys to the wetlands snaking through her neighborhood each spring.Those early interactions with local wildlife and marine life put her on course to a conservation-focused career in art, with emphasis in fashion design.
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1 month ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Surf fishermen are no strangers to interactions with seals. Seals attacking hooked fish is an increasingly regular occurrence at Montauk, Nantucket, and the outer beaches of Cape Cod. This makes them extremely unpopular among anglers. Conflicts between seals and fishermen go back over a century, when there was actually a bounty on the heads of the gray seals. Under the protection of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the grey seal population has grown exponentially, especially around Cape Cod.
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1 month ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
There’s a term my friend and co-worker, Adam Eldridge, uses for the cold, wet, and dreary days associated with early March: he calls it “Farch,” which is a combination of February and March conditions that sounds as ugly as it looks. In Farch, air temperatures teeter between frigid and frighteningly mild, storms frequently roll through, and overcast skies dominate the forecast for weeks at a time.
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1 month ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Jetties, by design, are intended to inhibit beach erosion or shelter marinas. But these man-made, multi-purpose structures are much more than just a protective pile of rocks. Jetties are special places where recreational fishermen—often accompanied by coolers full of cold beer and the day’s catch—gather for long hours in pursuit of acclaimed gamefish, like striped bass, bluefish, Spanish mackerel and tautog.
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1 month ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Last week, the Instagram algorithm served me a video from a page called @gothamwhale, which showed dolphins in the East River, gleefully leaping and swimming about without a care in the world. Like most people would be, I was surprised and slightly concerned. Are they supposed to be here in New York City? Is there ample forage for them to survive through the cold winter months? That’s when I remembered a separate video that made rounds on the interwebs just two years ago.
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2 months ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
I like a good, crisp lager, and I’m not talking about American light lagers, such as Bud Light. I lean toward drinking pilsners much of the time. In the same way quahogs are clams, but not all clams are quahogs—pilsners are lagers, but not all lagers are pilsners. A well-brewed pilsner is refreshing, light, and mostly mild in taste, which is perfect for someone who doesn’t fancy himself an “IPA guy”.
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2 months ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Ten years ago, Greg Hackney put on an absolute clinic during the final day of the 2014 Bassmaster Elite Series on Cayuga Lake. He ended day four, the final leg of the tournament, with a nearly 24-pound bag, boosting his total catch weight to 85 pounds while gaining a cushy 9-pound lead to claim first place. I was beginning my sophomore year at Ithaca College, and Hackney’s win was the talk of the town. That was my introduction to the bass factory in my new backyard.
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2 months ago | 
onthewater.com | Matt Haeffner
Fishing is a bonding exercise—it gets us outdoors and forges connections with our loved ones and the environment. Matt Doyle felt that connection developing as early as age 10, when he joined his father and grandfather on bass-fishing trips in the rivers and ponds of south-central Pennsylvania. The surging headshakes of smallmouth bass were enough to keep him returning to the water’s edge for years to come and, eventually, it led him to a career in fine art.
