Night fishing during the Dog Days of Summer

[Catt]

I was asked if I night fish during summer because I thought the water temperatures cool overnight. Or if I night fished because I believed the bass feed better at night.

 

I shocked them when I said no, I night fish because it's to stinking hot during the day.

 

[Chris Catignani]

Dude...Last night, I'm idling into the channel on Percy Priest about to get on plane. I see a boat to my left about a 1/4 mile away.

I look at the console...then look up and the guy is cutting across my bow, WOT, about 10 yards away.

This is about as close to tragic as it gets. I spent a good part of the day looking at upgrading light systems to some brighter LED's.

Will keep the 1,000,000 CP light handy next time.

The number one cause of boating accidents in TN is "improper lookout". 2020 TN stats...and almost all of those are in the daytime!!

I pick up one of these today too...

[Cbump]

Tried night fishing for the first time the other night. Also was focusing on top water because I don’t throw them often and want to get more confident in them. Got a few bites at dusk but after the sun went down, nothing. 
I mentioned the top water thing because night might not have had anything to do with the lack of bites and more to do with me sucking at topwater. 
It was something though. 

[Captain Phil]

6 hours ago, Cbump said:

Tried night fishing for the first time the other night. Also was focusing on top water because I don’t throw them often and want to get more confident in them. Got a few bites at dusk but after the sun went down, nothing. 

 

There is always a lull in fishing action right after full dark.  It takes awhile for the fish to adjust.  If you start fishing at midnight, you will do much better.  

[Catt]

The eyes of a bass go through a night adaptation cycle beginning at twilight and are usually adapted for black, white, and all shades of gray within an hour after darkness. 

 

Just like daylight fishing topwater ain't always the answer.

 

Bass DO NOT morph into a new creature just because the sun went down. FYI neither do their food source.

 

During daylight we try to figure out their "active" time periods, you do the same thing at night.

 

But Catt the bass move up shallow to feed at night...and they don't during the daytime?

 

[Cbump]

57 minutes ago, Captain Phil said:

 

There is always a lull in fishing action right after full dark.  It takes awhile for the fish to adjust.  If you start fishing at midnight, you will do much better.  

 
 

I’ll have to try that!

[softwateronly]

59 minutes ago, Cbump said:

 
 

I’ll have to try that!

 

I don't know if the why is correct, but my experience says the same thing.  2-3 hours after nightfall is a much more active and successful period for me.  A grass jig/beaver and swim jig/paddle tail have been my best day baits on this lake, and also my best baits at night.  Really, my main takeaways are to spend my nights in the same productive day areas, using mostly the same baits in the same colors, in mostly the same depth of water, working similar structure and cover.  The caveat being that I'll spend some time exploring dirt shallow, but that usually goes quick for me because if they're there, they'll chase down anything close.

 

scott

 

 

[gim]

As far as lure selection, I generally do better with a dark colored one at night, or at least I have in the past.  I usually start about an hour before it gets dark to get my bearings, and then fish for a couple hours.  I've also found that lakes which are clearer during the day making for a more difficult bite will often produce better at night time.

 

I mentioned this in another thread, but being organized in the boat is vital during darkness.  Get yourself and your gear ready ahead of time.

[Skunkmaster-k]

2 hours ago, Captain Phil said:

 

There is always a lull in fishing action right after full dark.  It takes awhile for the fish to adjust.  If you start fishing at midnight, you will do much better.  

I agree. The bite at my home lake really picks up at around 2am. By that time most people have become discouraged and gone to the house. 

[Catt]

The early morning bite & the late afternoon bite can be seen as a "daytime" or "nighttime" bite. 

 

During daylight there's a "active" bite around mid-day, at night this occurs around midnight.

 

A bass doesn't know if it's 6 am, noon, 6 pm, or midnight. It knows it's hungry so it feeds, whatever time that is.

[PhishLI]

I can only speak about what happens in my local super shallow spots, and I won't try to project this onto anywhere else.

 

When I fish every night for several weeks in a row during the summer, the hot bite window shifts every night. I define a hot bite window as several bass in a zone that are competitively feeding and striking hard. Bite-and-run hits are the best indicator that there are multiple bass there, or several wolfpacks. Catch one and you'll probably catch more. If they're keyed in on tiny bait on the bottom where bites are subtle, there can still be a load of them in there, but the window remains the same at 20-40 minutes, then poof, it's over. They seem to gorge, then rest.

 

One night this might begin at 9:30 pm, and the next it's at 3:00 am, or any time in between. Sometimes it's at twilight. One can try to connect the dots here, but predicting when is simply a gamble. I'm not claiming that singles aren't or can't be caught in between these windows, because they are.

 

One hypothesis I have is that fast moving schools of crappie on the hunt drive bait which often activates the bass. Catch a few crappie quickly at night and there will be bass pulled into the zone by the frenzy. A floating jerkbait slowly reeled on the surface will usually attract crappie if they're around. If they bite, throw bass baits.

 

My gamble is 9:00 pm through 3:00 am. I've had many 10 days or more of really good catching streaks during this time frame. More than once the place turned on at 2:45 am when we were dead on our feet, but then we just had to suck it up and stay.

 

You've just have to put in the time. It's the only way to sort of figure things out. It's worth it for me. 95% of my bigs were caught at night.

[geo g]

I have night fished the Everglades many times   Over the years I stopped doing this because as the wind dies down, the mosquitos will carry you away and they are so thick deet doesn’t help that much.  I love fishing and catching big bass, but it’s just not enjoyable enough to put up with that crap!  Welcome to life in the true tropics!

[WRB]

Our SoCal lakes are small, under 3,000 acres when full pool.

Boating traffic starts 1/2 hour after sunrise and closes 1/2 before sunset 7 days a week. Average is about 1 boat for each 10 acres or 300 mix of recreational and fishing boats, weekends are higher.

Night fishing is special about 5 events each summer from 8A to 2P or a max of 6 hours limited to tournaments, with 1 a charity event.

The night events draw anywhere from 40 to 100 boats. 

Night fishing is always good about 2x the weight of day events do to less traffic and the bass have acclimated to feeding during quite times that night offers year around. 

We are blessed with very few bugs at night.

I love night fishing in our local lakes.

Tom

[gim]

55 minutes ago, geo g said:

the mosquitos will carry you away and they are so thick deet doesn’t help that much

 

I do agree that the bugs are much worse at night.  I don't usually run into mosquitoes on the water though.  The bugs I encounter are non-biting bugs.  They just tend to get into everything.  They are often attracted to light too, so there is a constant swarm of them around my stern white light.

[Catt]

@PhishLI pretty much my experience & if you think about it, it's kinda like daylight.

[geo g]

57 minutes ago, gimruis said:

 

I do agree that the bugs are much worse at night.  I don't usually run into mosquitoes on the water though.  The bugs I encounter are non-biting bugs.  They just tend to get into everything.  They are often attracted to light too, so there is a constant swarm of them around my stern white light.

 

 

I have fished several lakes in North Georgia, and the Carolinas, at night.  There is no comparison to the Mosquito action of the Everglades.  It is beyond belief at times, almost funny!  To me it's not worth putting up with the aggravation of it all, and if it rains a little and humid, God help you!

[LrgmouthShad]

2 hours ago, PhishLI said:

I can only speak about what happens in my local super shallow spots, and I won't try to project this onto anywhere else.

 

When I fish every night for several weeks in a row during the summer, the hot bite window shifts every night. I define a hot bite window as several bass in a zone that are competitively feeding and striking hard. Bite-and-run hits are the best indicator that there are multiple bass there, or several wolfpacks. Catch one and you'll probably catch more. If they're keyed in on tiny bait on the bottom where bites are subtle, there can still be a load of them in there, but the window remains the same at 20-40 minutes, then poof, it's over. They seem to gorge, then rest.

 

One night this might begin at 9:30 pm, and the next it's at 3:00 am, or any time in between. Sometimes it's at twilight. One can try to connect the dots here, but predicting when is simply a gamble. I'm not claiming that singles aren't or can't be caught in between these windows, because they are.

 

One hypothesis I have is that fast moving schools of crappie on the hunt drive bait which often activates the bass. Catch a few crappie quickly at night and there will be bass pulled into the zone by the frenzy. A floating jerkbait slowly reeled on the surface will usually attract crappie if they're around. If they bite, throw bass baits.

 

My gamble is 9:00 pm through 3:00 am. I've had many 10 days or more of really good catching streaks during this time frame. More than once the place turned on at 2:45 am when we were dead on our feet, but then we just had to suck it up and stay.

 

You've just have to put in the time. It's the only way to sort of figure things out. It's worth it for me. 95% of my bigs were caught at night.

That was a really good read. Thank you man

[T-Billy]

Hit my favorite lake last thurs night and did pretty well on a chatterbait on outside weedlines. Then, being the genius that I am, when that stretch slowed, instead of hitting another of several weedy flats that have been productive in the past, I decided to go Trig deep wood instead. That produced a couple dinks. LOL. I'm not a smart man. ? I'm going back tonight seeking redemption. Had the lake completely to myself last week. Night Time is the Right Time in the summer.

 @Catt I gotta tell ya brother, I'm finding it hard to put my XF rods down these days. I bought an Ark Tharp Hammer awhile back (7' MH XF) for skipping and liked it well enough that I bought the same blank in the Invoker series. I keep finding more uses for 'em. They're more versatile than I expected. I ran across a very lightly used St Croix Avid X 6'8" M XF at ALF today. It's on it's way. I'll pair it with a 70 series Curado. I expect it's gonna see lots of action too. 

[Captain Phil]

2 hours ago, geo g said:

I have night fished the Everglades many times   Over the years I stopped doing this because as the wind dies down, the mosquitos will carry you away and they are so thick deet doesn’t help that much.  I love fishing and catching big bass, but it’s just not enjoyable enough to put up with that crap!  Welcome to life in the true tropics!

 

I started fishing the Everglades at night when I was about 13 years old.  My first experience was with an older friend of my parents who was an avid bass fisherman.  His kids were too young to fish and I wanted to learn how.  There were no electric trolling motors back then.  We would take turns at the paddle.  In the summer, we fished the old bombing range off highway 84, Sawgrass and what is now known as Holiday Park.  This was before they built Alligator Alley. My mentor was a very experienced bass fishermen.  We would launch our Jon boat around 2 AM and fish until 9 AM.  We fished with a black Musky Jitterbug at night and a homemade buzz bait during the day.  By the time I got my own boat, night bass fishing had progressed quite a bit.  I fished the Everglades and Okeechobee weekly until moving to Central Florida in 1997.

 

Everglades mosquitoes are not your average everyday mosquitoes.   We tried everything to keep them off.  We covered the gunnels of our boat with PIC insect coils.  We doused ourselves with cans of Orange Cutter insect repellent.  We coated ourselves with straight DEET until our skin burned.  One time, we made hoods out of mosquito netting to put over our heads.  All this did was make them mad.   It's amazing the things you can tolerate just to catch fish.  

 

Did we catch fish?  You bet!  We caught boat loads of bass up to 8 pounds.  We once had a night bass tournament out of Holiday Park that took over 100 pounds to win.  It was during a drought when the game officials temporarily lifted the limits.  Our best baits were large black plastic worms, black spinnerbaits and black Johnson spoons.  One night I was fishing about 2 AM 20 miles down L67 by myself.  I got a strike on the bottom with a worm. When I set the hook, the boat began to move.  I fought whatever it was to the surface and a very angry 10 foot gator had my hook stuck in the side of it's head.  Needless to say, I let him keep it. ?

[gim]

32 minutes ago, T-Billy said:

Hit my favorite lake last thurs night and did pretty well on a chatterbait on outside weedlines.

What color chatterbait are you tossing at night?  I assume its a dark colored one.  I normally use a black spinnerbait but I can envision a chatterbait working too.

[Hammer 4]

With my eyesight, I don't see very well at night. I did try night fishing twice, but just could not see much. You guys are lucky that you can fish at night..

[T-Billy]

1 hour ago, gimruis said:

What color chatterbait are you tossing at night?  I assume its a dark colored one.  I normally use a black spinnerbait but I can envision a chatterbait working too.

Green Pumpkin. I used to throw black&blue at night but GP works just as well. 

10 minutes ago, Hammer 4 said:

With my eyesight, I don't see very well at night. I did try night fishing twice, but just could not see much. You guys are lucky that you can fish at night..

I feel for ya brother. You could try running some green LED's. They allow you to see pretty well, don't attract bugs, and don't spook fish, in fact they attract schools of minnows.

[WRB]

Night fishing from the bank can be very difficult if not dangerous. Poisonous rattle snakes are active after dark hunting rodents and the waters edge is a prime location.

KISS is the rule at night, Keep It Simple Stupid and use 1 rod at a time, put everything else away. Enough light to see dawn and dusk isn’t night, it’s low light day time so normal fishing.

Dark your eye pupils are wide open to gather in light and the result is very poor depth perception making casting accuracy difficult if not impossible.

My night vision was horrible since childhood and didn’t know any better. 8 years ago I had cataract surgery replaces the eye lens and my sight is 20-20 with no night light halos and good night vision. Unbelievable difference vision.

Colors at night the black with blue bottom contact lures like works and jigs. Faster moving lures like crankbaits is either black-red craw or white shad colors, trail and error.

Black Musky wooden Jitterbug worked until discovered big rat lures. Probably caught more bass at night on 10” black blue flake Power worms then Amy other lure. Black and blue hair jig with black pork is a close second in the dark.

Deep diving crank baits and rats dusk are very good.

KISS; Jigs, worms, cranks and rats is all I use at night.

Tom

[Catt]

I throw the same colors at night that I throw during the day. 

 

Redbug, Plum Apple, Tequila Sunrise, Watermelons, Green Pumpkins.

 

Spinnerbaits, Chatterbaits, & Buzzbaits I throw white more than black because we have a lot of Shad. 

[Koz]

Good timing with this post. I'm planning on heading out on my kayak around 2 or 3 am tonight. I actually have a day off tomorrow, but with the brutal heat this weak it's time for some night fishing.

 

The last few times of I've been out at night I've my section of the lake to myself.  But I still stay out of the main channel just in case some boats show up. Even with my light pole and headlamp I worry boaters can't judge the distance.