Night Fishing Has Begun!

During the summer I actually spend more time fishing after dark than I do during the day. Not only do I spend more time fishing then, but it is also my favorite fishing as well. The lake is quiet, the people are all gone, kids and pretty much everyone else are all in bed and I just sit on the dock sightfishing and catching monster fish like this all night long! BTW, for those of you who dont know me, I am a very large 280 lb man. Big guy, big Nate, big boned, and husky have been my nicknames and clothes sizes since I started out the 4th grade well over 100 lbs and nearly weighing twice as much as the other boys in the class. Anyhow my point is that its not too easy to make a 1 lb fish look big with me in the background.

So moving on, I mentioned sight fishing during the middle of the night? You did indeed read correctly. I have green monster underwater lights 45 feet out from the end of my dock and they light up the water like nothing you have ever seen before. I can see every fish that swims within casting distance of my dock all night long. Not only can I see the fish, but the light also attracts tons of microscopic phytoplankton, aquatic invertebrates, and insects. You know what happens when you congregate such delicious food items, so I wont even waste my timing describing the cycle of small fish, medium fish, and large fish that come to visit this favorite midnight snack shack. Here is a pic of a green monster, it is very hard to take a pic of it glowing with a cheapy camera, but here is the closest resemblance of what one looks like.

Two years ago in July I was eating dinner with Bob Lusk and Ray Scott down in Arlington, Texas and we were talking about Ray's personal fishing lake down in Alabama. Supposedly its pretty good bass fishing there. (BTW, he kills 100's of bass from his lake every year). Anyhow I let him know how badly his catch and release theory for bass has messed up private water bass fishing! He completely agreed, anyhow again the story I wanted to tell was about how I traded him a green monster underwater fishing light for some of his fishing rods. When he got back to Alabama he had a new green light waiting for him to install and he actually did. He liked the light so much, he bought 5 more and actually set up a meeting with Ronnie Dennis my good friend who makes the lights. He wanted to put his name on the lights and market them for Ronnie, but he wanted just a bit too much money to do that, so the green lights name remains Green Monster Fishing Light.

Anyhow, most nights I actually dont even fish by the lights, I just sit back till well past midnight just watching the fish eat each other and the bugs. Friday night though we stayed out at the lake and saw some big gills cruising around about 10 pm. Justin and I decided to try and catch a few. Even though all the pics are of me, Justin did catch a few. His pics just didnt turn out too good. (I wonder who took those shots?) Its not easy taking pics in complete darkness. Here are a couple more of the big boys. This was a 12 inch, 18 ounce bruiser.

Just a 10 incher.

We also caught several small crappie, a couple trout, and a hybrid striped bass. This was the only other decent pic that turned out. I am going to have to learn how to take pics better in complete darkness. I dont think the auto setting on my $50 camera is going to cut it after dark.

We spent the weekend working on all kinds of projects out at the lake. Docks, fish cages, bathroom additions, spring cleanup and organizing, etc. I am beat. I did take Tyden down fishing for northern pike with a number 3 blue fox spinner for about 10 minutes. He thought he had a pike on and was super excited, but it turned out to be this giant bluegill. (its fun to have a handful of pike in the lake just for the slightly remote chance of hooking into one. Makes fishing with a 9 year old boy just a bit more exciting for him)

Then later in the day we were doing some work on a dock half way down the lake and Tyden and Noah tag teemed this big 5 lb Hybrid Striped Bass. Tyden caught it all by himself with a fire tiger rapala shad rap and when I looked over to check on the commotion he had Noah helping him reel it in.

So Mae and her cousins thought they were pretty big stuff on Saturday. They packed their lunches and went for a hike and picnic with no adults. It was great, they walked about a 1/2 mile to the other side of the lake, ate their lunch and didnt come back for over an hour. This was their biggest unsupervised adventure to date. I do say I am looking forward to many more unsupervised adventures, seems like the last 4 years have been complete dependance and supervision.