Small stream night fishing

[salmonoid]

Has anyone tried this, successfully? I guess I should put some definition to small stream first. By this, I mean generally low order streams (say second or third order). Most are the size you could straddle, with small plunge pools, interspersed with riffles.

I've ended up three-quarters of a mile upstream from my exit point on such a stream twice in the past two weeks, in the dark. The first time wasn't necessarily intentional, but I decided to take advantage of the walk out and see if I could pickup any fish. I did not succeed in catching any fish or even triggering a strike. The second time, it was intentional; I had my larger landing net on me, a heavier weight rod and multiple light sources. I still did not succeed, even though I spotted multiple fish as I worked my way downstream, and would hit the small pools with the spotlight after I fished them.

Of course, fishing these types of streams is done differently during the day, compared to larger order streams - you might have a drift of just a few feet and a very tight casting window, compared to say a larger creek. So naturally, I'd expect my night tactics to be a bit different on the small streams, compared to the larger streams. On the larger streams, I usually go with something surface (mouse or gurgler type flies), or something like a bunny leach or articulated streamer, and can pick up fish anywhere from ten feet to twenty-five yards away from me. And the room is there to make the casts without any hassle of getting hung up on underbrush, etc.

I have not figured out what works on a small stream at night. Conditions on the past two times I was out on a small stream at night were extremly low, gin clear water, so stealthy moving around the stream edge was definitely in order. I've tended to steer away from the surface flies and use more streamers but at this point, I can't do any worse by switching back to my larger stream standbys.

Interestingly enough, in the past 30 days, I think I've spent twice as much time night fishing as I have day fishing. I've caught nothing sizeable to speak of, but I can confirm that the dinks (9-12" browns) still feed at night. And it's not dinks that put me on a small stream at night. I missed a nice 16" brown during the day a few weeks ago, and put a spotlight on another 16"+ brown in a different hole this past Saturday night. I have caught larger than those at night from freestoners, but in larger streams, with much better habitat than what I've fished over the past few weeks, so those two fish probably represent the top of the food chain in that particular stream.

I know that the subset of night fishers is probably small, and the subset of those who actually fish small streams at night is even smaller, but I'm curious about any small stream night tactics that may have worked for you.

 

[afishinado]

Interesting. I've really never fished small streams at night but in general, night fishing is best when temps are fairly high during the day and cool at night.

In fact, with the cold weather coming in the next few days, I would believe that the fishing will most times be best in the warmest part of the day.

Secondly, there are night time hatches and/or nocturnal movements of insects and forage in the warmer months - none of that is likely to be happening now.

If you don't find small stream night fishing productive this time of year, don't give up, try it out during the warm season.

 

[pcray1231]

Agreed, I'd expect night fishing small streams to be effective, but perhaps not at this time of the year. Take a water temp. High 50's, very low 60's is usually the magic number. And by that, I don't mean it has to BE that, but changing in the direction OF that. If colder, it will fish best during the day. If warmer, it will fish well at night.

Anyway, to answer the question, no, I haven't. And while I have no real intent to start (life wouldn't allow it right now), I am very interested in monitoring your success or lack thereof, and whatever trends you may discover along the way.

I do have some friends that target big browns in those smaller, "mostly brookie but some browns" streams. And they go after the monsters at night in summertime. They usually scout by day and find a big freakin pool strangely absent of smaller brookies, and go in targeting those specific pools at night. Amazing what swims in some of these streams.

 

[sarce]

Haven't tried in the middle of the night, but have picked up a few just after sunset on woolly buggers. The one that stands out is an 11.5" brookie that came from one of those massive pools that strangely never seems to produce anything. No browns in that stream, but that fish sure acted like one.

 

[SteveG]

This is an interesting topic. I rarely night fish, but I wonder if some other things to consider might be moon cycle (visibility), forage activity (insects or baitfish), and lateral line usage.

 

[PhilC]

Dude can we get some bullet points? You're becoming the new pcray...
Nice report though!

 

[streamerguy]

Good stuff. Even though I have little to no night fishing experience, I agree with the above statements about the water temps. Who knows. I definitely want to try my hand at fishing small streams at night and target the pool bosses.

Keep us posted!!

 

[Chaz]

There are a lot of times I've been out on small streams and come back in the dark. To qualify that statement, there were times that there was a hatch in progress and I wasn't leaving. Then there were times when it just turned out that way.
Most of the time, I want to leave in the twilight, because I don't relish the idea of breaking a leg out there because it was dark. I pretty much limit night fishing to the warm weather months.
Now that the qualifiers are out of the way, I've done considerable night fishing on small streams. Headwaters of places like Cedar Run and Slate Run, West Creek, Babb Creek, and a number of streams I won't mention.
Temperature is a consideration when fishing these streams, in that the air temperature needs to be above the water temperature for the trout to continue hitting and feeding at night. Temperature affects the barometric pressure at a point as the temperature drops, and at some point this change turns off the trout and the bugs.
Night fishing on any stream during a hatch you want an evening when the temperature drops slowly until well after dark. A long slow drop in temperature prolongs the feeding. Several times after fishing a stream all day when the evening comes there is a break in feeding as the light changes, and posibly the stage of the insect changes.
Be ready for this break, changing the fly to the spinner of the insect that was hatching. It takes approximately 30 minutes for the eyes of trout to adjust to night feeding. Once their eyes change to night vision, if you would like to call it that, trout start feeding again. If they are taking the spinners you’ll see a difference in how the trout are rising, ie, slow and delibrate rises equal spinners. Spinner falls last a long time as long as the temperature is fairly stable.
I’ve never fished at night on 1st and 2nd order streams during the winter.
I can also tell you that during the summer when it's hot at night, depending on the stream it may not fish at all even through the evening, but at night it will turn on as temperatures drop. Few streams fish well when air temps are above 70 at night, the best time to fish those night is toward morning.
The stream next to my camp fishes well after dark, and since it holds mostly browns and bows is especially good during the last hour of light and up to 1 1/2 hours after dark.

 

[salmonoid]

I tend to think that small stream fish are opportunistic, so I'm not sure that whether something is hatching or not makes a huge difference. I agree with the temperature aspect, although this past Saturday, the temperature did not plummet in early evening. The fish were very aggressive during the day, so I don't think they completely shut off at night. But, come to think of it, I have never fished a small stream at night during more optimal temperatures. April and November are definitely not prime times of the year for optimal temperatures. Medium small streams, yes, but not small streams. Part of the draw this time of year is the fact that it gets dark by 5:30. In the summer, waiting until 9:30 can be a bit of a challenge (unless I'm traveling - then, the night is just getting started). I'd also prefer to not encounter copperheads and rattlers at night. But this all gives me some food for thought. I wanted to go out tonight, since it was a warmer day and tomorrow it looks like we start winter by the end of the day. But I didn't get out of work on time and it's too late to head out now.

Food for thought relating to temperature - the coldest temperature I've caught a night fish in is sub-freezing temperatures on December 18, 2013. Wind gusts of 10-15 MPH, air temps barely made it above freezing during the day and had probably dropped to about 28 when I caught the fish. It took a mouse. Water temp maybe in high thirties at best.

I'm missing a fish at night from January through April, although I had strikes at night on a mouse last January, so I'm pretty confident a fish can be caught at night each month of the year.

 

[HopBack]

Have you tried fishing the donegal at night? I know it doesn't exactly fit the small stream model your thinking of and its not a freestone but i bet that you could persuade some of those elusive Browns. Not sure how much the residents and property owners would like it but just a thought.

 

[Night_Stalker]

Less Talk…More Do!

Small streams can and do have very large fish. And you can figure it out by trying it…

It does not need to be at 2 am. Sun down and just after works, so today at 6:30 pm…I had put in an 1.5 hours.

Go

 

[Gone_Phishin]

^Nice stringer

 

[Night_Stalker]

Yeah that thing was utilized to allow fish to chill in water then a quick photo / release. It has been retired for almost 2 years.

 

[Chaz]

salmonoid wrote:
I tend to think that small stream fish are opportunistic, so I'm not sure that whether something is hatching or not makes a huge difference. I agree with the temperature aspect, although this past Saturday, the temperature did not plummet in early evening. The fish were very aggressive during the day, so I don't think they completely shut off at night. But, come to think of it, I have never fished a small stream at night during more optimal temperatures. April and November are definitely not prime times of the year for optimal temperatures. Medium small streams, yes, but not small streams. Part of the draw this time of year is the fact that it gets dark by 5:30. In the summer, waiting until 9:30 can be a bit of a challenge (unless I'm traveling - then, the night is just getting started). I'd also prefer to not encounter copperheads and rattlers at night. But this all gives me some food for thought. I wanted to go out tonight, since it was a warmer day and tomorrow it looks like we start winter by the end of the day. But I didn't get out of work on time and it's too late to head out now.

Food for thought relating to temperature - the coldest temperature I've caught a night fish in is sub-freezing temperatures on December 18, 2013. Wind gusts of 10-15 MPH, air temps barely made it above freezing during the day and had probably dropped to about 28 when I caught the fish. It took a mouse. Water temp maybe in high thirties at best.

I'm missing a fish at night from January through April, although I had strikes at night on a mouse last January, so I'm pretty confident a fish can be caught at night each month of the year.

I was out Tuesday on a Pocono Stream and the fishing was pretty slow, barometric pressure dropped over night. I caught one fish. Maybe by night it may have stabilized, but it just sucked yesterday, the weather was supposed to be much more favorable.
One other thing about the stream next to my camp, it's deep in a valley and has a prolonged evening time period, the sun goes down behind the mountain hours before sundown. But it still really turns on about an hour before sunset.

 

[salmonoid]

I decided to have one more go at this stream on Wednesday evening. I was watching the forecast and wasn't sure when the cold front would blow through, but wasn't relishing fighting with potential 30MPH wind gusts. However, the temps didn't plummet and the wind, while a bit bursty, wasn't gusting to 30MPH. So, since Wednesday is an ideal night to head out, from a family activity perspective, after stopping off at home for a few minutes, I headed to the small freestoner.

The wind must have gusted sometime during the day, because the parking lot had a bunch of smaller limbs lying it in, as well as one big old dead limb that succumbed to gravity. I didn't get there until 6:30, so the sun had pretty much set. The very first thing that I noticed when lining up the rod at the car was the stars. The night was crystal clear and the stars stole the show. If you haven't fished on a crystal clear night with no moon, you might be surprised at just how much light the stars provide, especially if you are in an area with no light pollution. Sometimes the fish make the night time memories stick, but I have an equally satisfying body of memories that stem from starlit nights, and one time, the winking of thousands of fireflies on earth and thousands of stars in the sky.

I had tied together a couple dropper combos before I left home - one was an Irresistible Moosetail, with a Yuk Bug dropper and the other was a Gurgler, with a stonefly. I went with the Moosetail Irresistible/Yuk Bug combo. I was quickly reminded of my inadequacies at night-time small stream casting, as the combo spent some amount of the evening hung up on dead branches, fallen tree trunks and rhododendron. Distance perception doesn't work real well in the dark for me; that fallen tree that looks like it's 15 feet away is actually ten feet closer. I managed to take no major falls, although it is an other world experience to be feeling your away along a narrow and somewhat slippery rock cliff path by starlight, with a six foot pool off to your left. Looking forward to trying out some Patagonia Rock Grip boots, with aluminum bars, which just arrived home last night. Given some of the ice skating like experiences I've had with rubber soles, night or day, I'm looking forward to finally, hopefully, getting a grip.

I took a water temp of around 49 degrees about 7:30. The air temp was falling and was probably in the upper 40s by the time I wrapped up my outing. I did not see any larger fish and the small browns that I did see were not very active. But water levels were low, perhaps the lowest I've seen them on this particular stream. The Yuk Bug lived up to its name though. On one hole, I crouched/perched behind a large boulder and made a few casts. The line went tight and it moved as well, so I was certain I wasn't snagged on an overhanging rhododendron or tree branch. I lifted the line out of the water and could see a fish glittering in the starlight. But, up close, the silhouette looked weird. This was either a brown with a pug face, or it wasn't a brown. Unfortunately, it was the latter. Snapped on the light and an 8" chub stared back at me. Yuk Bug indeed. Next time, I'll drop the stonefly.

That's probably it for the night fishing for awhile, unless I make it to the Cumberland Valley or Centre County limestoners this winter.

 

[salmonoid]

HopBack wrote:
Have you tried fishing the donegal at night? I know it doesn't exactly fit the small stream model your thinking of and its not a freestone but i bet that you could persuade some of those elusive Browns. Not sure how much the residents and property owners would like it but just a thought.

I've considered Donegal, but it is all private land. I know the one woodland parcel is managed for deer and I believe the signs state to fish from the other side of the stream October - December. So I don't want to tick off a landowner by traipsing in there at dusk. That being said, I think it would be a fine and challenging stream to fish at night. I'd have to locate some larger fish to target before I'd tip in the direction of giving it a try.

 

[geebee]

i can imagine that some of the those big bows on Big Spring Creek might be more accomodating on a moonlit night.

i'd go with a red headlamp and want to know the stream very well or you could quite easily roll an ankle or worse out there.

are DHALO's dawn to dusk only ? - what waters let you fish at night ?

 

[salmonoid]

geebee wrote:
i can imagine that some of the those big bows on Big Spring Creek might be more accomodating on a moonlit night.

i'd go with a red headlamp and want to know the stream very well or you could quite easily roll an ankle or worse out there.

are DHALO's dawn to dusk only ? - what waters let you fish at night ?

Special reg waters used to be open only from dawn to dusk (hour before and after). The regs changed in 2013 and they are open 24 hours a day, unless a landowner prohibits access to their property during certain hours of the day.

One of the benefits to fishing a stream regularly is that you do learn it well. It's one of the reasons I often like to explore streams in low water conditions. The fishing is usually not great, but you get a reall good look at every rock. It gives you a slight advantage when you get to fish it in high water or at night; you know what the underwater structure is, where the holes are, etc.. However, fluvial systems are dynamic, so what you knew well yesterday may not be the same today. So a double dose of caution is always on order for high water or night fishing escapades.