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Fishing at night

Now that I have a boat with a livewell, I'm looking into entering a simple tournament. Just to put this into perspective, I'm not looking to win, I just want to give it a try for the fun of it. I live in Florida and I've noticed that many of the tourney's are at night (6pm-9pm or 9pm-2am). I've fished until dusk before and then stopped as it just becomes difficult to fish when you cannot see anything. I'm wondering how people fish at night. Do you use spot lights to see the shore, tree limbs, surface vegetation, etc? Do people usually fish off shore for the most part? Any insight you can gie would be great!
Todd
Jul 14
2005
I just fished an evening tournament last night. 4:30 to 8:20. At 8:10 I put the pedal to the floor and let er roar. I had no problem seeing my way back to the weigh dock. So... Another hour and it would have been too dark to see well. I could probably have stilled fished. It was dark enough though that everybody should have had their lights on. I was a bit disappointed that I was the only one who did.

In the past I have gotten totally turned around and lost in a series of back channels fishing at night. I went around the same channel loop a dozen times it seemed like before I forced myself to use my head and watch the stars to keep my bearing and find my way out to the main lake I was fishing. We used a pocket flashlight to look at the banks that night. If it had been overcast I would have had to use a right turns only method to find my way out of that maze.

Shortly after that I bought my first GPSMap. I also bought a 2 million candle power portable spot light.

In the long distant past I used to fish for crappie at night by drifting a canoe across a pond with the breeze. We had a 5 gallon propane tank and one of those bulk tank adaptor stems to put a propane lantern on that put the lamp about 4 feet up in the air. It worked great. We could fish all night even on an overcast night. I had a snap on reflector that I would put on the rear side of the lantern to direct light only forward so I could see where we were going when it was time to head in.

A lot of guys who fish nights have black lights that clip on the rails of their boat.

If you know the water you are fishing really well it helps.

My personal biggest concern about night tournaments though is other boaters. Somebody sitting dead in the water with no lights on or ....

Bob
Jul 14
I fish a lot at night and one of my clubs has a couple of night tournaments - the first a week from Saturday.

I hate spotlights at night. There have been many times when I was catching bass and some idiot shined a spotlight on me and the bass quit. I like a rocky point or bank at night and fish a black plastic worm, black spinnerbait or crankbait with rattles.

If you will keep your running lights on but keep spotlights turned off, you will be able to see where you are going on most nights. Starlight, dock lights and moonlight will outline the bank and if you go slow you won't have problems. Turning on a spotlight blinds you to everything except what is right in the beam, so you can run up on problems fast.

Bass act at night much like they do during the day. Fish the same places the same way. Although I like black, I have been beat many times out of the back of my boat by folks using different colors. Deep structure holds bass at night, too. I won a club tournament last summer on a rocky ridge on the main lake fishing Mag 2 worms Texas and Carolina rigged in to 15 feet of water - had a limit of small keepers.

Ronnie
Jul 14
It is amazing how many dumbasses will sit out on the main lake fishing for catfish or stripers with no lights on. Just before you get too close they will light a match. Friggin dumbasses! Almost stops my heart!

Carlos

Carlos
Jul 14
My club has at least one annual tournament that runs overnight (7 or 8 PM to 6 AM). First rule is: Don't fish a body of water for the first time at night. Make sure you are somewhat familiar with the lake during daylight before you get out at night. Second thing is a GPS can be very valuable at night. Not only for helping you find any spots you may have marked, but also for finding your way back to the launch in the dark. Another thing is it may be safer to consider yourself under electric power in the dark. I see too many guys running around at some speeds when you never know if someone is out there with no lights or you get a little too close to structure or rocks or whatever, even floating debris. The spotlight can help but like Ronnie mentioned, it can turn the fish off so be careful not to point it where you or others are fishing. Just use it above the water to get a general view of any nearby obstacles.

Rich P

Rich
Jul 14
   

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