Night fishing for browns

[Hunttrapfish17]

Does anyone have any night fishing tactics for brown trout? I plan to swing/dead drift black woolly buggers in the deeper holes on the stream i will be fishing. Any suggestions will be appreciated! this will be my first time fly fishing at night for wild browns!

 

[afishinado]

Hunttrapfish17 wrote:
Does anyone have any night fishing tactics for brown trout? I plan to swing/dead drift black woolly buggers in the deeper holes on the stream i will be fishing. Any suggestions will be appreciated! this will be my first time fly fishing at night for wild browns!

My advise....hang on!!

I've no doubt caught more trout night fishing a black wooly bugger than any other fly. Most times the pattern does not make a difference. The dark color shows up well to fish in low light, the bugger has a lot of movement and pushes water.

You have the right idea to try different techniques > drift > swing > strip.

Scout out the stream before you fish it at night. Find a spot that shouts out big fish and pick a place(s) where you can cast and fish the hole most effectively and safely.

Bring dependable lights (plural) and be sure to bring a buddy.

 

[pete41]

Don't wade where you should fish--often the ones you are looking for will be in shallow waters looking for smaller fish.
As an avid nite fisherman for 3 decades I will say in my experience on bigger rivers in the west any way, the feed,if and when it happened would suddenly just happen,the river would come alive and then just stop-why,can't say.
3 good tips
[1] don't let anyone tell you the moon is a problem-I would take a week to fish the full moon in Sept. most years.
[2] watch out for skunks-lol
[3] don't let beaver tail slap scare the crap out of you.

 

[Hunttrapfish17]

afishinado- We plan to fish the stream the morning prior to us night fishing it. We have done a fair amount of fishing on the stream in the past just never at night. Have you ever had any issues with your lights spooking fish?


pete41- thanks for the words. The stream we are fishing is rather small but has some very deep holes. The beaver tail slap is a familiar sound to my buddies and i as we have done a fair amount of waterfowl hunting in beaver territory in the past! haha

 

[afishinado]

Hunttrapfish17 wrote:
afishinado- We plan to fish the stream the morning prior to us night fishing it. We have done a fair amount of fishing on the stream in the past just never at night. Have you ever had any issues with your lights spooking fish?

pete41- thanks for the words. The stream we are fishing is rather small but has some very deep holes. The beaver tail slap is a familiar sound to my buddies and i as we have done a fair amount of waterfowl hunting in beaver territory in the past! haha

When stream side use your light sparingly and turn away from the stream as not to shine towards the water. Also lights with red lenses are supposed to be less spooky to fish.

 

[pete41]

and if you are talking dog days and not fall-leech flies are DEADLY.

 

[salmonoid]

Hunttrapfish17 wrote:
afishinado- We plan to fish the stream the morning prior to us night fishing it. We have done a fair amount of fishing on the stream in the past just never at night. Have you ever had any issues with your lights spooking fish?


pete41- thanks for the words. The stream we are fishing is rather small but has some very deep holes. The beaver tail slap is a familiar sound to my buddies and i as we have done a fair amount of waterfowl hunting in beaver territory in the past! haha

While I would not personally recommend fishing with your light on for obvious reasons, I have hit a big fish with a headlamp and a minute later, caught that same big fish (or a reasonably similar fish) from the exact location it was holding in. Some fish do nothing when you shine a light on them and others go completely spastics, darting all around and even jumping out of the water in an attempt to get away from the photons. George Harvey used to use a light to locate the big fish, and then target them.

If I hook a fish, I used to turn my headlamp on, particularly if I'm fishing from a spot on the bank where it's a bit dicey to get down to the stream. I used to think that by catching that first fish and using my light, I blew up the hole for the night, but I threw that wisdom out when I caught three fish from the same hole in the same night. I now tend to play the fish in the dark (sometimes 9" fish seem like monsters, and I'm at times surprised when a softer fight yields a much larger fish), and only use the light to aid landing navigation.

But in all of this, you'll get different opinions - about the moon, about lights, about what fly to use. Take them all in, try them out and find a methodology that works best for you. Don't get too caught up in doing it the right way.

I've had the beaver slap already, and probably the most startling event was when a muskrat swam upstream right between my legs. I'm not sure who was most startled - me or the 'rat..

I'll post a few pics of spotlight night fish, if I can figure out how to embed photos with Google Photo+ (since Picasa is sadly going the way of all good things Google produces - to the trash heap).

 

[Reeder]

I've only ever fished larger freestones like Lycoming and Loyalsock at night. My strategy on those is to always find the deepest darkest holes with the most cover and hiding places for the big browns, and fish the nearest riffles, shallow water, weeds, tribs or wherever else baitfish congregate, and they will come at some point in the night. Just about any streamer and any method of fishing it you could think of can produce fish. Crayfish imitations can be effective as well. I have walked up on more than one big brown working the bottom of shallow riffles for crayfish first thing in the morning.