Articles in the Category Night Fishing

Troutbitten Fly Box — The Harvey Pusher Night Fly (with VIDEO)

When you work the Pusher, imagine the wings flexing and pulsing as you hand twist retrieve and pulse the rod tip on a three count. See the fly in your mind’s eye and make it come alive in the dark. Then hold on tight . . .

Fish With Friends — Doc and Darling, Night Fishing and the Bad Mother Night Fly

The Fish With Friends series continues with Josh and Trevor on a night fishing trip, a few big wild trout and the Bad Mother Night Fly recipe . . .

Podcast: An Introduction to Night Fishing for Trout — S3-Ep14

Ambition is the fundamental characteristic of every good night fisher. We wade into the darkness for the experience. And we quickly realize that the night game is an unwritten book, with just a few clues and an infinite room for learning new things. Each exhilarating hit and every trout in the net is a unique reward, because night fishing requires that you assemble the puzzle yourself.

In this episode, I’m joined by my friends, Trevor Smith and Josh Darling, for an overview on night fishing for trout . . .

Podcast — Ep. 4: Wild Trout vs Stocked — The Hierarchy of River Trout

My friends join me for an honest discussion about the trout we pursue. All of us fish for every kind of trout on the list: wild trout, stocked trout, holdovers, fingerlings and club trout. And all of these trout hold value — but not equally. There are major differences in the types of trout we catch, and stocked fish are often nothing like their wild counterparts . . .

Night Fishing for Trout — Backstory: Drifting and Swinging

Jul 29, 2018 | Night Fishing, Stories, Tactics

For all the varied methods of casting a line and showing something interesting to a trout, presenting a fly always comes down to this: Are you drifting or swinging?

Daylight or night bite, we’re delivering our flies either with the current or against it — drifting or swinging. And while their are hundreds of variations on each approach, it helps to recognize the root of every tactic that we employ with a fly rod. When I talk shop with my night fishing friends, when I sit down to share a beer and swap a few tales about how last night’s fishing shook out, my first question is usually, “Were you drifting or swinging.”

Night Fishing for Trout — Headlamps, Flashlights and Glow-in-the-Dark Stuff

Jul 22, 2018 | Night Fishing

The moon and stars are either in the sky and lighting your way, or they are not. Heavy clouds may roll in and block out those natural lights, or you may have clear skies all night long. There’s nothing you can do to control any of it. But the modern night fisher can choose from an arsenal of artificial lights — headlamps, flashlights and glowing things — to find his way through the darkness . . .

Night Fishing for Trout — Moonlight, Starlight and City Light

Jul 18, 2018 | Night Fishing

Ironically, light is what defines night fishing. In the absence of natural daylight, it’s the moon and stars that provide the angler with sight. Of course, city lights, headlamps, flashlights, and glow-in-the-dark stuff are also factors in the night fishing experience. So in many natural and artificial forms, light draws the lines around night fishing.

Trout respond to changing light conditions in the daytime, and every good fisherman recognizes it. We look for shadows on sunny days. We fish at dusk, and we fish at dawn. All anglers are eager to search for trout on cloudy days. But when the daylight fades trout habits may shift dramatically — and that’s where this mystery begins . . .

Night Fishing for Trout — People, Places and Things

Jul 11, 2018 | Night Fishing, Tactics

The allure of night fishing arises from a mystery. We pursue unknowable things into the darkness and sort through the unpredictable behaviors of trout to catch them after the sun goes down. There are no experts in the night game, and that itself is what secures the puzzle — a simple lack of information. There is no treasure map after dark.

In large part, we fish because of what might happen. While night fishing, we begin to realize that anything can happen . . .

Hell-Hot Sun and the Strawberry Moon

Jun 29, 2018 | Night Fishing, Stories

I’m not a big fan of summer.

It’s the heat. Thing is, you can’t really get away from it. If you want to be outside in all seasons (and I do) you have to somehow make friends with or tolerate the weather. Against the cold of winter, you can add layers to fend off most discomfort, but in the summer heat, once the shirt is off and the flip flops are on, your done — that’s as cool as you’re gonna get. So there’s no option but to mow the grass, play baseball and have the family picnic in a thick, wet blanket of summer heat. People still tell me that I’ll get used to it. I doubt it.

The same people also tell me how much they love summers. I don’t believe them. I think they like the idea of it, and they like the parties, the parades, the fireworks, the longer daylight hours and the lax work schedules. But the actual season? The weather? Nah. Bitching about the heat (like I’m doing here) seems like another common summer recreation from the list, and I see a clear majority looking for the next air conditioner, cold lake or swimming pool.

The Shallows Below

Aug 16, 2016 | Night Fishing, Stories | 8 Comments

— This is the companion chapter to The Shallows Above, published a few days ago. ... I’ve done this nighttime thunderstorm thing before. Two summers ago, on a dark night in July, I was surprised by another thunderstorm. And once again, it was one of the most memorable...

The Shallows Above

Aug 12, 2016 | Night Fishing, Stories | 0 Comments

The thunderstorm came from nowhere. I’m not much for weather reports, and I hadn’t checked. I’d simply walked out of my garage and looked at some clouds in the sky at dusk. No moon, either. So it would be a dark night with only patches of starlight between the clouds:...

Calculated Fun

Aug 9, 2016 | Night Fishing, Stories | 3 Comments

The other day, my friend, Austin, mentioned something about me being a calculated fisherman. I guess I come off that way. The truth is, my planning and plotting and theory building mostly happens while I’m not fishing. When I'm on the water, a lot of that...

Night Shift — This River and the Other River

Jul 13, 2016 | Night Fishing, Stories | 2 Comments

I think I’ve night fished often enough now to make some conclusions -- not many, but a few basic determinations that allow me to have confidence in laying out a few principles. Here’s one: night fishing around here is hard. It takes dogged persistence over many...

Spaces

Dec 7, 2015 | Night Fishing, Stories | 22 Comments

The truth is, there is little to fear in the woods or the water at night. Do you want to know what’s out here in the dark after midnight? Nothing. Seriously, it’s startling how much nothing is going on. Maybe that’s what part of our instinctual fear of the dark is — fear of nothing existing in those smaller known spaces and trying not to be too claustrophobic about it . . .

Night Shift – The Porcupine

Sep 10, 2015 | Night Fishing, Stories | 12 Comments

So I was startled, but not surprised, when something heavy hit my legs in the dark around midnight. Fishing to the banks upstream while standing in the swift middle current, the hefty thump happened so fast that it was past me and downstream before I could move. That was too soft to be a log, I thought.

I flipped on my headlamp and looked downstream to see a porcupine returning my wide-eyed gaze. His head turned, and he glared back, as if the hit-and-run was somehow my fault. I almost expected him to flash a middle finger, but I guess he needed both paws for swimming . . .