Night Shift

Last night, Keith and I did a night trip. Arriving to the beach at around 7pm, we had excellent conditions. With an incoming tide, light breeze and sunset at 8:30, we hit the grass flat along the drop-off with no fish but a lot of diving bird action.

I set up a lighting rig with battery powered camping lanterns inside large, clear,water tight food storage containers fore and aft. Worked like a charm until the batteries died after 3 hours use. Keith said he could see me a long ways off.

Keith caught a small trout along the weed line, then we paddled over to the bridge. There was bait everywhere...glass minnows, needlefish, and majorra. I hooked up with a 15 inch trout on a shrimp pattern, but switched to a white baitfish pattern when I observed snook blasting bait on the surface.

I changed to a topwater, crease fly pattern which drew a few misses. I tried working it fast, slow, painstakingly SLOW to no avail.

Keith caught another trout, but we couldn't seem to entice any of the snook to take our offerings. I think they would have turned their noses up at live bait.

We worked the rock jetty, nothing....the bridge pilings...nothing....all the while watching and listening to "SLUR-POP!" happening all around us.

We headed in at about 1:00 am on a falling tide with a lot of activity still happening. Night fishing is great because the heat isn't as intense, the fish are out, and there is no boat traffic to speak of.

We'll be doing more of this night fishing to be sure!