Fish Don’t Mind the Dark
Darkness had fallen. The scattered fishing boats had headed home with little success. I was alone on the water, and it was a good deal colder than a few minutes earlier, when the sun was shining its last.
But I had dressed well. Zipping up the neck of my fleece turtleneck under a flannel-lined shirt and closing my foul weather coat around me, I settled down to wait.
Arriving just as everyone else was leaving was a little chancy. If the fish had shown up earlier, the commotion of anglers hooking, battling and landing them would have driven them off. But I was counting on the school of rock’s delayed arrival. This area had been fished hard the last few days, and I was guessing the bass were finally getting a little weary of all the attention.
About a half-hour after full dark, I began to cast. Working a half-ounce Rat-L-Trap-type bait over submerged structure, I started to search. Feeling the plug occasionally banging off of sunken rocks below gave me focus. I couldn’t allow the bait to get so deep that it would hang up, but caroming it off the scattered remains of old riprap was a strike trigger.
Pausing the retrieve for just a second after the initial contact just might emulate a fleeing baitfish that had stunned itself in its panic to escape. Could any nearby striper resist such an easy meal?
A quarter of an hour passed as I concentrated on casting and retrieving. Then at the pause, my lure hung up. Reflexively I set the hook but felt only the solid resistance of failure. Then came a healthy headshake, and my rod bent down as an unseen torpedo headed away and out toward the channel. The drag sang, and I relaxed.
Patiently waiting out the fish’s powerful didoes for escape and holding the rod tip high to minimize line contact with the rocks below, I let the fish exhaust itself. Slipping my net into the water, I eventually guided the striper into its folds and lifted it on board. My first night fight of the season had been a success.
Nighttime Primer
One of the difficulties in fall fishing, especially in shallow water, is that the sweet spots become well known almost at once. It is first-light and last-light action, so the window for success is usually little more than an hour or so on either end. If a few boats gather, it can be even shorter.
The evening bite usually dies as darkness falls. Wait about a half-hour longer, and the feed often starts again. Fishing after dark is usually not as frenetic as at sunset, but it can be very productive and the fish can get substantially larger.
I use a Rat-L-Trap-type bait as a searching tool because I can cast it farther and cover more water. As it’s a noisemaker, it tends to draw the fish from farther away.
If the bite slows after the first few fish on the Trap, I’ll then go to a swimming crank bait such as a Yozuri Crystal Minnow, a Bomber Long A or a jointed Rebel. If that’s not successful, I will change again to a BKD or a Bass Assassin and work it deep and slow. One of them usually does the trick.
The only cautions about this type of angling are that you should never fish an area or run a water route you haven’t gotten to know in daylight. Always wear some kind of life jacket, have a good waterproof radio or phone and let someone know where you are fishing and what time you‘ll be back. Dress warmly and bring a lot of lures. The rocks below, as well as the stripers, are famous for eating them up in the dark.