Getting home from a fishing trip when the birds are just starting to sing is significant.

It can mean the fishing was so good you lost track of time. It can also mean you were stupid enough to leave your home before midnight and stay out long past where good sense should have compelled you to stop.

And sometimes it’s a little of both.

A bleary camera eye stares blankly at the microwave oven clock. 

We’ve been working the striper night shift here at currentseams for the past three weeks. While it’s been a mixed bag, it has been better than last year (pretty much a blank repeated ad nauseum), with only one skunking in the mix and my first keeper of the year. Most of the fishing has been wonderfully meditative greased line presentations with large flatwings. And I’ve had the chance to reconnect with my beloved five-weight.

The best striper of the spring so far, a 30-incher who found my Rock Island flatwing to her liking. I was lucky to catch this fish — she came at the end of the drift on my last cast of the evening, and saved me from the dreaded polecat. Loads of fun, and quickly landed on the five-weight.