The Troutbitten Podcast, Episode 3 is now available everywhere that you find and listen to your podcasts.
** Note ** The Podcast Player and links to your favorite providers appear below
Night Fishing For Trout, and the Mouse Emerger Concept
Night fishing is a mystery with no resolution. Every other aspect of fly fishing for trout has been written about, understood and expanded upon. Lifetimes of information are available at your fingertips — the lives of so many fishermen who’ve come before you. You can read the accounts of their discoveries, their failures, their new ideas and understandings.
But the night fishing game? It’s like a bare cupboard.
There are very, very few people who’ve spent much time on the water at night. And there are even fewer anglers who’ve written or shared good information about fishing for trout after dark.
Because there are so few practitioners of the night game, so few anglers willing (and able) to put in the hours and search for those answers, we find the same beliefs repeated time after time. The same advice. The same wives tales rerun again and again, because they sound like they make sense.
The truth is, night fishing is hard. Consistency is elusive — maybe it’s not even possible.
But after years of experiencing that kind of failure, I found an answer. I discovered a fly and a handful of tactics that turned the hook-up ratio around. And I started landing far more trout by fishing what I’ve come to think of as a mouse emerger.
In this podcast episode, my friends Josh and Trevor join me to discuss the mouse emerger concept.
What is it? And why does a mouse emerger fool more trout than other approaches? Why do trout attack flies but refuse them so often at night?
In this night fishing episode, we discuss the flies:
— The Bad Mother
— Lynch’s White Bellied Mouse
— The Pendragon
— The Black Rogue
— The Gypsy Queen
And we dig into the tactics for fishing a mouse emerger style:
— Locations
— Retrieves
— Angles
— Speed
— And the deadly Slow Slide
Since 2014, I’ve published over 700 articles on Troutbitten.com. These are fishing stories, tips, tactics and commentary. But it all started with a tale about night fishing that I titled, One of These Days. Since then, I’ve written a forty-part, ongoing series about Night Fishing for Trout, and there’s much more to be learned and discovered.
Find those night fishing articles and so much more at Troutbitten.com.
Resources
READ: Troutbitten | Series | Night Fishing for Trout
Presentations — The Deadly Slow Slide
Moonlight, Starlight and City Light
Back In Black — The Night Shift
Headlamps, Flashlights and Glow in the Dark Stuff
Upside Down and Backward
Listen with the player above, or . . .
Find the Troutbitten podcast on any of these services:
— Apple Podcasts
— Spotify
— Google Podcasts
— Amazon Music
— iHeartRadio
— Stitcher
— Pocketcast
— Podcast Addict
— Castro
— Podchaser
— Deezer
— Castbox
— Podfriend
— Player FM
— Podcast Index
— Listen Notes
— Overcast
Also, find the dedicated Troutbitten Podcast page at . . .
Thank You!
The Troutbitten Podcast continues to grow very quickly, and that’s thanks to you. I sincerely appreciate the support. Your downloads, subscriptions to the podcast and five star reviews are the key metrics in the podcast world. These kinds of stats help garner financial support from the industry and keep these podcasts coming. So thank you for being part of it all.
Fish hard, friends.
** Donate ** If you enjoy this podcast, please consider a donation. Your support is what keeps this Troutbitten project funded. Scroll below to find the Donate Button. And thank you.
Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com
5 Stars!
You have motivated me to literally go over to the Dark Side. Daytime fishing in my system is in a period of general decline as are the aquatic insect populations. My guess is that the nocturnal food chain (frogs, crayfish, baitfish, moths, etc.) may be a better bet.
Gary LaFontaine once devoted an entire season to night fishing only. He slept in the day and fished in the dark relentlessly. He was so devoted that he wore two pairs of sunglasses when he had to spend time in the sun so as not to ruin his night vision.
I don’t think I’ll get that extreme, but hey, you never know.
Gary Borger once wrote that all good night flies must,
“Move the water – and move in the water”
Sounds like the BMF and Pendragon fit the bill.
A few quick Q?s
Have you had much success with big spinners?
Is your night season a Spring through Fall (and into the spawn), nearly year round deal?
Or do you find that it’s mostly a summer thing?
Thanks Dom, and keep these coming.
Hi Rick, and thank you.
Do you mean spinners, such as the Green Drake Spinner? If so, only during those times of peak emergence.
My night season is really all year long. But my favorite times are between late may and late October.
I appreciate your support, Rick.
Dom
Thanks so much I learn a lot.
Cheers. THanks for listening.
Dom
On the “mouse-emerger” concept:
I see a lot a frogs at dusk and early dark, trout probably eat far more frogs than mice or voles. Those mouse-emerger tails that dangle down under with a large floating head make a pretty good frog silhouette, no? And the wiggle and hang probably looks and feels a lot like a struggling frog, no? Ever try a true frog pattern? Food for thought.
what kind of brush do you use for the pen dragon?
I fished last night and it was tough fishing until my mouse fully saturated and riding low. It was spot on to what you three were describing, these mice swim low in the water, not on the surface film. I wont use dessecant again. Also once it was saturated the mouse moved more water, you could feel the increased resistance.
Around here if you drive down river road near the housy youll see mice run accross the road, right towards the river bank. I see them every night. I saw one on my ride home and realized the pattern I was fishing was much smaller than the mice I typically see. Moving water at night is key for all of the night species I chase, stripers, walleye, crappie…
I also learned to go fish at night for the hits, rather than landing them. Still working on that.
Great discussion gentlemen. Thank you.
Nice
Interesting mouse pattern from Kelly Galloup- sounds similar in principle to what you described in the mouse emerger concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI3QmPwaA60
Hey Dom, as always thanks for all that you guys are doing.
On a night outing how long are you sticking with a particular pattern/technique. Would you dedicate the entire night to mixing up how and where you fish a mouse emerger regardless of productivity? Or do you give your self a designated amount of time or water to see if that presentation is going to work?
During the daytime I don’t often fish the same presentation for more than 30 minutes without changing something if it isn’t working. Night is a different story. It’s all still so new to me that I don’t have confidence that I am fishing patterns or certain presentations correctly. I am still at the point where I am doing more hoping than fishing. I find my self changing between swinging wets and using streamer patterns a lot. Catching a few fish here or there (so far only on wets) but not with enough consistency to develop any kind of theory about what is working for me, let alone a coherent game plan for the next outing.
Never-mind, page 253 of the expanded trout tactics has a pretty well defined prescription for utilizing different tactics throughout the night. I don’t know how I missed that on my first read through. I will try that for now. Based off of what Humphreys explains it sounds like the M.E. or streamer patterns would work best from midnight to daylight. I will start with his methodology and work my way out from there. Hopefully by the end of summer I will figure out a system that produces more than one 12”fish every 6hrs on my water.
Thanks.
Thank you for the description of the Pendragon – I tied up what I thought it would look like in my mind’s eye and then had a chance to fish a small version (4/6) and bigger version (2/4) on Colorado’s Front Range and on the western slope. Both have attracted attention and the bigger one was my go-to fly for an epic night float.