"The early bird gets the worm" Morning session at the city lake. Started at 06:00 - wrapped up at 10:00 Today I decided to dedicate my morning fishing to metal lures - spinners, spoons, jigging spoons, and tail spinners. For probably the first time ever, my backpack was half-empty with just two boxes inside. One for hardware (connectors), and the other packed with colorful metal fish temptations ))) Finally felt some lightness and freedom in my movements and actions...))) At the water I was greeted by a sweet-voiced chorus of birds and the cool morning breeze. Mist hung over the water. There's no way to describe those extraordinary morning colors. And the feeling... that feeling - that you're alone on the entire planet and the whole planet exists just for you... You gotta experience it, hear it, see it at least once in your life, to become forever hooked, so you keep coming back to these moments in your thoughts and know - that's where real life lives. Today I had my new Ever Green Salty Sensation Neo NEOS-77ML-S 2.31m 0.5-10g spinning rod with me. To say I was satisfied with it - that's saying nothing at all! But more on that later. Getting closer to the water, I saw an active predator chasing fry here and there. Since there are Asp in this lake, the strikes looked more like asp-style. But perch were occasionally "smacking" too. All my attempts to hook the "dominant" perch or whoever was running the show... came up empty. Finally managed to land the first perch by dropping a spinner on the bottom and only on a super-slow retrieve did it finally give in. The perch was just a bit bigger than my palm, but every head-shake the rod transmitted to my hand while also absorbing the shock - giving the fish no chance to escape. In a moment I had the perch in my hands filming for my TikTok, then after a quick shoot released it back to its element. Decided not to stay in one spot too long, especially since the perch stopped biting. Guess the sun was getting too high. Right call - because a surprise was waiting for me ahead... Moving to a pretty promising spot, I switched lures and put on a tail spinner. On the second cast at 3.5 turns and a pause on the bottom I felt a powerful hit, but very much like a snag. Like I'd buried the lure in a snag. But in a moment that "snag" came alive... and started putting on a show.... The Daiwa Ninja 2000LT reel and delicate rod sang in unison while I'm cursing and gasping along with them... And when I finally got the fish to the surface... I was both amazed and shocked... A kilo-plus Pike perch hanging on by the "neck"), by the fin... Just imagine what an epic battle that was with this guy... As I promised, a few words about the rod. This delicate and super-sensitive tool impressed me with its elegant action, with how it absorbed the powerful runs of the Pike perch. Didn't let me down on the "balance," was reliable and smart. From today on it's become one of my favorites in its class from my arsenal. From today it's my trusted friend and partner! I'll write separately about how it works on the lower end, but on the upper end I can say there's some reserve. Not huge, but it's there. The Savage Gear tail spinner weighed 9g, one more gram and that's max, but there's definitely room if you approach it sensibly. Clock shows 10:00, which means time to pack it in and head to work. A glorious morning it was, thanks to Saint Tryphon and everyone up there who watches over fishing! More to come...! P.S. All fish were released back to their natural habitat after a quick photo/video session - though now sporting a tiny piercing... You can check out the video report from this session on my TikTok channel DShFishing, as well as my YouTube DShFishing

Ukraine, Kyiv, Tyahloe

01.05.2024

Spinning fishing

Zander

Free