In the past week I have hit the water pretty hard... but fishing is slow, to say the least. Bites have been hard to come by and the weather hasn’t made things easier. Last week was really windy and we had another little cold front that added to my frustration. To make things worse I missed a few big fish. One of those fish was lost due to a stupid mistake by yours truly… I used too light of a hook in a swim bait and the fish straightened out my hook… (Its embarrassing to talk about and I feel like I’m starring in a reality fishing show called “Amateur Hour”…). On one of my days off the water I took the time to re-organize my boat. I was about half way done the inside of the boat when I discovered that it was also doubling as a home for a family of a thousand bull ants that had nested in my passenger seat. I spent the next 45 minutes trying to drown them. Fun fact, apparently some ants can live a full day in water. Needless to say, drowning them was an epic fail, but I found some wasp killer that did the job. With all the insect killing I’m doing down here, I should open up a exterminator business. Anyway, the lake that I normally like to fish (Lake Istapokga) hasn’t been producing for me so I figured it was time to throw in a little change up. The other night Byron (my brother in-law) and I decided to hit up a little night fishing on Lake Jackson. Kari and I followed that night up with another night fishing adventure last night.
Night fishing for bass is something I’m new to, but it is a blast and a good way to catch big fish, especially in the clearer water lakes. Another reason why I like it so much is that you normally have the lake to yourself, but you do have a few struggles when you're fishing at night. Of course your sight is the biggest loss. A few years ago I had the privilege to guide a man who was blind. We were smallmouth bass fishing during the spawn. What impressed me most about this guy was how amazing his sense of feel was. I would give him a rough idea on where to cast and he would continually come close to hitting the mark. At night your depth perception is pretty much gone and you are basically fishing blind. A few times I must have launched my bait 20 yards into the cattails... During the day I watch my line constantly because I can see the subtle bites that I don’t feel, but at night that is impossible to do and I have to rely strictly on feel. Plus, simple things like tying knots, picking out backlashes, and re-rigging baits get a lot harder when you forget a flashlight (chalk another one up for the “Amateur Hour” show).
The other night the fish moved in to the shallow water, which I believe is the tendency for most clear water dwelling fish. Most of the fish we caught were located close to the bull-rushes in 1ft-4ft of water. Most of our success came from slowly swimming weightless, soft plastic, swim baits close to the surface. Last night Kari and I had more success on 10” Texas rigged worms in submerged brush piles in 6ft-8ft of water. Overall I have had more success with baits with a little bigger profile and have a lot of action. I believe that both the size of the bait and the amount of water it displaces helps trigger strikes in low light hours. Through all my night fishing experiences, color or colour (for my Canadian friends) doesn’t seem to matter very much. At night, I think fish mostly just see silhouettes and rely more on their lateral line and sense of smell.
Well I’m going to head off to bed so I’ll catch up with you all later. By the way if you have any comments or questions feel free to post them. All I ask is that you keep it PG.
Later
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