Went Night Fishing

[Justbass11]

So I went night fishing for the first time in my boat I brought My Wife with me because she loves the water, I didn’t get the fish as long as I wanted but it was OK. It didn’t turn out so good.
Didn’t catch anything which is ok, what got me real aggravating was when I went to make my first cast with my worm rod, I got a major major rat nest.And when it was time to go I couldn’t get the boat loaded properly. That being said I can’t wait for my next night fishing adventure. Hope you guys have a good one and always have tight lines.

[gim]

There's definitely a heightened sense of coordination, awareness, and perhaps most of all, organization required to effectively and safely fish at night time.  The first time I went fishing at night I encountered some of the issues you mentioned too.  Keep at it and refine a system that works for you.  Everything generally takes a little longer in the dark, such as unloading/loading the boat and re-tying line.

[2tall79]

I went out one hot August night .  Launched my Polarkraft into the dark waters, pulled it up onto the beach and went to park my truck.  When I returned, my stern nav light was a faint glow on the bottom of the lake.  First and last time I forgot my plug.

I won't boor you with the details, but I managed to get it back on the trailer after about an hour of trial and error.   Lesson learned.

[casts_by_fly]

I’m going Saturday night. I always start right at sundown to get that last hour of daylight and get into a rhythm. I might go all night this time until sun up. No where to be either day. Too hot to fish in daylight. 

[PhishLI]

1 hour ago, Justbass11 said:

what got me real aggravating was when I went to make my first cast with my worm rod, I got a major major rat nest.

You're going to lose track of your lure while it's in flight most of the time when it's dark out. You'll need to key in on the sound of your spool spinning up then slowing down to inform you of when to start slowing the bait down or to stop it before it lands. The easiest way to train yourself for this is to practice by launching your bait on a higher trajectory than usual which will allow you the time you need to hear how the spool bearings change tune during the process and what that actually means with reference to where your lure is. You'll not only hear this but feel it through your grip. Once you've processed this info, you'll be fine. I mostly fish at night, and I haven't trashed a spool in years because I've identified this factor and keyed in on it. I believe that anyone who successfully fishes with bait casters at night has registered this whether they know it or not.

 

Something else that will help ease your time while night fishing is using clips instead of tying on baits. Not snap swivels, but high-quality clips. Having tried just about every type I've settled on these shown below. I've never had a failure using them, and I fish in choked out jungles. Everything from Ned rigs to big swimbaits get clipped on painlessly without the chance of my pricey spectacles flopping into the drink because I don't need 'em for this. So nice.

 

[Skunkmaster-k]

What did your wife think of it ? I try to get my pooky bear to go with me, but at 12 or so, she’s ready to go home. 

[A-Jay]

When we master bassing at night,

Broad daylight seems like cheating.

Just getting to and back from the fishing area can be quite an adventure at first. 

A-Jay

[Swamp Girl]

@gimruis just taught Night Fishing 101. @PhishLI gave you a graduate level lesson. 

 

I don't night fish, but as anyone who sees my photos knows, I do catch bass in the dark. I'm always torn between using light, which burns my night vision, or going without, to keep my night vision at its maximum. As I told PhishLI the other day, my night vision works right up to the point of netting a black four-pound bass in black water beneath a black sky. Then I'm mostly guessing where the bass is.

[Catt]

K.I.S.S. ?

 

Casting is going to be your biggest challenge & @PhishLI covered that pretty well. 

 

Kick Bass 

[Pat Brown]

Full Moon Fever ™ is essentially happening from now til next weekend so I expect to be wetting a line in the dark a lot this week.

 

Got a devil's horse, clacking buzzbait, frogs, toads, poppers, spooks, ploppers, big Colorado spinnerbait and of course plenty of jigs and worms for the bottom.

 

Night fishing around the full moon in the summer is a special thing.

 

Fingers crossed for all of us!

[T-Billy]

I'm pretty well set with a chatterbait, a toad, and a jig in the dark. Lipless once in a blue moon. Chatterbait does the vast majority of the work. 

As mentioned above, keep it simple and be organized. 

[Woody B]

Decades ago when I had my old boat a friend and myself got lost (on Lake Norman) night fishing.  I "thought" I had a good sense of direction but figured out when night fishing I relied on the stars some.  It was a cloudy night.  We had no idea where we were so we just kept fishing until daylight.   We were only 1/2 mile from the landing.  Today, with modern GPS charts can keep you from getting lost.  

 

Be careful,  pay attention and don't go flying across a dark lake.  Even if you know the lake there might be something floating.  I stay under 15mph at night.   

 

I've been going really early quite a bit, but the only time I've went true night fishing was last Saturday.  I got to the lake around 1.  I didn't catch anything until right about Sunrise.  Then I ended up with a treble buried in my finger.   It wasn't darkness fault though, the Sun was up.  I'm going in the morning to a close lake for a short time.  If my still healing finger is OK I'm going back tomorrow night (to the lake I normally go to) around 10PM.  

[Catt]

48 minutes ago, Pat Brown said:

Full Moon Fever

 

When I say I night fish, I'll fish every moon phase possible. After 50+ years of record keeping no phase has an advantage. 

[crypt]

night fishing can be so much better when your the only one out there........you pay more attention to whats going on around you. your senses are heightened and you seem to be more aware of your surroundings. I love it. 

[gim]

6 minutes ago, Catt said:

 

When I say I night fish, I'll fish every moon phase possible. After 50+ years of record keeping no phase has an advantage. 

I haven’t really noticed a huge difference between a full moon phase and a new moon phase either. I’m sure you have many more hours out there at night than I do, specifically targeting bass.

 

I’ve had some tremendous nights with a full moon for walleyes.

[Pat Brown]

Even if it's all in my head it's a good time if only because it's well lit ?

 

I seem to catch my biggest fish around the full moons or new moons almost categorically, so maybe my local fish are more worried about it for some reason.  ?‍♂️

 

I'm gonna go with 'it never hurt nothing' ??

[Catt]

From April through October I do not fish during the day except for a couple hours before dark & a couple after daylight. 

 

Like daylight I'm more concerned with with weather patterns than moon phase. Weather will keep me off the lake, moon phase...not!

[Pat Brown]

I can get with that @Catt.  I'm a 'fish whenever I can' kinda dude so mostly I'm looking at weather and if the water is wet and then if all signs point to it, I'm going!

 

I caught one lil guy on a buzz toad tonight and then a t storm hit hard and fast.

 

Nope!

 

Night fishing another night.

[throttleplate]

The last time i did a real overnight fishing trip was in the calif delta in 2002 I took my jet boat out with a friend and went out to catch stripers or whatever would bite. Well i got lost in the dark and ended up anchoring up and fishing but the mosquitoes were so bad i had to take up smoking my friends cigaretts to try to keep them out of my face. It got so thick with skeeters that at midnite we quit fishing and each wrapped ourselves up in sleeping bags and tried to sleep. Come morning we got back to the ramp and a coupe months later i sold my beloved jet boat. It wasnt made for the delta and neither was I. I then took up gold mining in the Sierias and the rest is history.

 

[PhishLI]

43 minutes ago, throttleplate said:

It got so thick with skeeters that at midnite we quit fishing and each wrapped ourselves up in sleeping bags and tried to sleep.

This is why you'll see me in a heavy sweat jacket, jeans, and wool winter cap during the height of summer on night missions. This is my only solution to keep them from eating me alive. They simply cannot sting me through the thickness of these garments. The last time I wore a ball cap I had several lumps on my scalp that lingered for days. They stung right through it. The wool cap also keeps them from flying into my earholes. What a nightmare when that happens. Zzzzzzzzt. The upside is that I'm not spraying myself and inhaling deet every half hour, just some natural stuff on my gloves. The downside is that I'm soaked through during and afterward, but I can live with that. Besides, a nice schvitz is good for the heath. I keep fresh shirts in the truck, so I don't freeze in the A/C during the ride home.

 

The first two weeks of July were brutal here, and they're brutal again.

 

July 9th. It was steaming hot, but I went untouched.

[Captain Phil]

Kudos for getting your wife to go night fishing with you. Most women wouldn't.  I did a ton of summer night fishing when I lived in South Florida.   The days are so hot you can't fish except for a few hours at dawn and in the evening.  At night, I had the water mostly to myself.   Night bass fishing is not for everyone.  First, there is the limited visibility.  Little things that wouldn't be much of a crisis during the day can become major disasters.  The Everglades is really dark without the moon, but it's surprising what you can see.  Then there's the mosquitoes. We tried everything, most of it didn't work.  Our most effective bug repellent was dousing ourselves with orange label Cutter and burning PIC bug coils.  At one time we had nylon screen nets made to go over of heads.  All that did was make them mad.  Make sure your family knows where you plan to fish in case you don't come back on time.   Never fish alone unless you have a death wish.  I have had to walk by more than one dead body laying on the ramp.  Summer night fishing can be fantastic fishing.  The bite can be good right up until dark, then it slows for a few hours.  I never launched my boat until midnight.  The best night bass fishing for me was around 2 AM.  I fished Okeechobee at night too.  It's scary being on that huge lake at night.   That is until an eight or nine pounder eats your lure.  ?

[flyfisher]

On 7/28/2023 at 1:02 PM, casts_by_fly said:

I’m going Saturday night. I always start right at sundown to get that last hour of daylight and get into a rhythm. I might go all night this time until sun up. No where to be either day. Too hot to fish in daylight. 

I also think this helps your eyes adjust more naturally than unlaoding in the dark with lights on and the like.  It is too hot here lately in the day so I have relegated myself to wade fishing smaller rivers and checking out new spots in the process.

[casts_by_fly]

8 hours ago, flyfisher said:

I also think this helps your eyes adjust more naturally than unlaoding in the dark with lights on and the like.  It is too hot here lately in the day so I have relegated myself to wade fishing smaller rivers and checking out new spots in the process.

definitely true and another reason why I do it. 
 

tonight it was a 3/4 moon and almost cloudless. Plenty of light to go around. Fish were up and moving. Landed 6, lost a couple more at the boat, and had twice as many blowups that didn’t get a hook. All topwater. Then the wind came and everything shut off. 

[Justbass11]

I must say getting my wife to go fishing with me is not hard at all, she loves the water but hates fishing. She might fish for about 10 to 15 minutes, if that. She also says she knows how much I love to fish and likes to spend that time together. So when we go to big lakes like Hartwell or Murray I will stop fishing and find a small island that has a little beach and we’ll go swimming and cool off, she loves that and quite frankly it took me a while to get used to it.  But when it all comes down to it, it’s worth it for me to do that. I love it when she with me.

The one problem about night fishing at the closest lake to me closes at 12 midnight so it’s hard to get in a real good groove. 

[Will Ketchum]

All I remember from the little bit of night fishing I did was mosquitoes, a beaver who did a lot of what beavers do at night, and wishing I hadn't gone night fishing in the first place causing me to be overtired the next day,