spring fishing

I love fishing, I love prepare a fishing trip. Wake up in the pitch black morning and brew a cup of coffee is always an exciting overture for my fishing trip. I like to set off a hunt when the world is still quiet, whether fishing or banding birds : ) The Spring fishing season is open as the river start to settle to it's regular shape. White bass run is almost ended but fellow with the exciting striper and hybrid run all summer long. Striper fishing is not easy,IMO. They are moody and finicky. Even I know they are there... it still would be hard to make them open their mouth, sometimes. I guess this feeding behavior maybe due to their diet. They can eat a lot of high energy and big amount of food at once (usually shad and minnow), so they don't need to eat readily. I also "suspect" they might work together in foraging or (alternatively) environmental conditions (cues) turn them on and coordinate the eating mode. When I hook one, more likely I will get another one, and my neighbor fishermen are likely to hook one soon.
Anyway, I went fishing and got some actions which is very good to me because I did not get a tug for a while. The water looked promising, the birds were singing and the riverside belong to myself! Awesome! I want this spot and I don't want to share with others in this particular morning.@@ ha... usually I like to share and fish with friends. But today I want to enjoy the whole mist and my new spey rod alone! I have practice this new baby in the park pond for a while. It was a ugly stick - ZPEY 13' 9/10. Ugly but powerful... so stiff that it hardly can bend. This is part of the reason I bought it, because I want to practice a new casting style - Scandinavian cast, A.K.A Underhand cast. Treat the top hand as pivot, it use more powerful underhand (lower hand) to power the cast follow by the body movement. A short stroke can lunch a laser beam cast a looog way..."if" I done it right! ha...

I want to use this big rod to explore more different spots that I can not reach before. Also it would be fun and easier to shoot bigger flies. I tied one of the striper candy Vlad sent me. First cast, a precise cast delivered the big eye flies into a sweet current... I mended the line, the line jerked and next time I have noticed was my reel start to scream and the powerful rod bend to the but... this is the first time I felt this 9/10 weight stiff rod has "a butt". The run are so powerful that I know immediately the landing chance is so small even I have 300 50lb gel spun backing with this powerful reel. The current was just too strong and the fish definitely not a "rookie". She know where to go (with the current) and she is powerful. I have 14lb fresh tied leader with this new line. So I put as much pressure as I can to the rod... but still... no return of this fish... all the way downnnn...well... After few minutes of exciting heart pumping arm wrestling... the rock cut the line and my new polyleader bounce back, it was a big shock to the leader that it separate the core and skin of the leader... weird to me, since this is my first time to use the polyleader. A good fight! And a great fun in the mist morning. I have no regret about the long distance release...ha... (a little bit maybe). "It's all about the take!" I am happy the new rod works, the new fly works and my arm definitely was worked!