It was one of those nights that sticks in your memory, that you know will stay with you for a long, long time.
The stars were out in all their glory and a great big shiny moon was just hanging there in the night sky. You could hear a hundred million crickets chirping away in the dark and almost as many frogs croaking to their heart’s content. Somewhere a loon was calling out to its mate and nearby I could hear a slight gurgle sound in among the reeds close to shore – a trout sipping in a merging damsel fly nymph I thought to myself.
When night descends and we find ourselves surrounded by complete and absolute darkness, there is a certain sense of almost apprehension that comes with looking out into the blackness. After all, we are creatures of the light. In the wild, however, there is a lot feeding activity that occurs under the cover of darkness. Fish are both daylight and nocturnal feeders. They are still in their element even when we are out of ours.
Be that as it may, there is some mighty good fishing to be done at night.
Fishing at night is pretty much the same as fishing in the day, except it’s harder to see what you’re doing.
Fish that feed during daylight hours in deeper waters along the drop-off move into the shallows to feed at night. They tend to feel more secure under the cover of darkness and will often be aggressive and opportunistic feeders.
When casting in fading light and under moonlit conditions, whether on a lake or stream, work an area by casting out in a fan pattern. Listen for the sound of fish rising to feed on the surface. Cast towards the sound. Set the hook when you feel a tug. A good indication there is an insect hatch coming off at night is when the adults keep flying past your ears or fly into your face. Get used to it. If there are insects flying around, the fish will most certainly be feeding on the emergers.
Having an insect flutter close to your head in the dark may be somewhat distracting, but it is nowhere near as disconcerting as having your own fly zip past your ear when you are casting. Wear a wide brimmed hat. It will not only keep your head warm, it will also protect you from getting impaled on the sharp point of your own hook.
An important thing to remember, especially when selecting a fly pattern, is that fish are seeing the potential food source while looking up from the shadowy depths of the water. Fish see the fly as a shadow or silhouette against the moonlit sky. Specific details that are important during the day become far less important when night fishing.
Patterns should generally be big, black and bushy. Dry fly patterns need only to sit high and well on the surface of the water. Subsurface patterns should impart some sort of lifelike, if not overt, movement that will attract fish even in the deep dark depths.
One thing I have noticed though is that the eye of a hook becomes proportionately smaller with a decrease in light. As the light fails, it becomes harder to thread your tippet through such a small opening.
A flashlight or head lamp helps, but a better idea is to know what insects will most likely be coming off, and have a number of flies tied up beforehand on two- or three-foot lengths of tippet material. A double surgeon’s knot is a lot easier to tie than a clinch knot, even under good light conditions. Having a flashlight on your boat is not only required by current boating regulations, it is also common sense. Not only does a flashlight allow you to see what you are doing on board, it also makes things a whole lot easier when you are searching the shoreline on your way back for the dock or boat launch.
I also keep a sweater or jacket on board just in case it turns cold.
Night time fishing is dependent on many of the same factors as daylight fishing. Water temperature, the life cycles of insects, availability of protective cover and even phases of the moon all have an effect on where the fish will be and what, if anything, they will be feeding on. The only real difference is that it all happens in the dark.