Jacked Up!!!

For the past two weeks I have been fishing for carp and trout. Most days were decent with the occasional goose egg to remind me Mother Nature is all powerful. Mixing in some birding with the fishing and I can safely say I've had a good time. However, today was different.

Today I went striper fishing. I got a call to see if  I wanted to go fish for holdovers ( sorry guys, the "fresh" fish were not here quite yet, although the countdown is on). I jumped on the opportunity to fish for stripers before the invite was finished. Then after I already committed, he told me that a lot were caught over the weekend.

Well, I'll tell you what. At that point my heart started racing and my adrenaline started flowing. I had the exact same feeling one would have when they open up their last Christmas gift and inside are tickets to Disney World. No joke, no over the top exaggeration. I was so excited. I can't even explain why striper fishing, even for holdover schoolies gets me so jacked up, but it does. 

So we go fishing. We don't get anything for an hour. But, I don't care. I'm fishing a backwater. I have my new seven foot rod that I only bought  two weeks ago. No fish, but I am on cloud nine. Then Dave hooks a fish. It's a tiny little guy. We wonder how a fish that small ever migrated up the coast, nevermind over wintered in New England. Then nothing for a few minutes then a bump, then a hook up. I'm on! I reel in my first striper of the season. 

After my first striper, Dave goes on a run of four consecutive fish and a few other hits. For me, nothing. I start to wonder at first to myself then out loud if he is getting so many fish and I'm not because I'm using braid. Then boom! I get a real solid hook up. It's not a big fish, but it is spirited. I release it.

And for the next 90 minutes we catch stripers. They are not big but they are plentiful. We catch an embarrassingly lot of fish. Neither of us go three consecutive casts without a hit. Truthfully, I'd have been happy to get four or five fish combined. We got twelve times that. Then as quickly as it started, it was over. We fished the last ten minutes without a bite. Did the fish move on? Did they just stop feeding? These are important questions that we discussed. Of course, we will never know the true answer. 

What I do know is the striper season has started for us. I enjoy fishing for carp and trout. I get a thrill out of catching exotic fish such as bowfin, landlocked salmon, and even weird green sunfish. But to catch those seven lined bass on a warm spring evening. That is something I love.