Since reading accounts of fishing Lake Chopaka at night, my interest has been piqued. I need to know more about this night fishing thing. The closest thing I have tried is the late evening hexagenia hatch at Merrill Lake. Honestly, I didn't know it was generally legal to fish lakes at night. Are they all open at night, or is it a situation that requires consulting the reg book for each lake?

I think I would feel pretty freaked out in the middle of a lake by myself at night (especially one with a fair amount of stumps and other structure on or just below the surface - that stuff gives me the willies during the day), but I bet my apprehension would disappear pretty quickly once the fish started biting.

Has anyone tried fishing at night on a full moon? My experience has been that fishing generally sucks during the day 2 or 3 days either side of the full moon. Is that because they feed in a frenzy at night around the full moon? If nothing else, it would be fun to kick/paddle around a lake by the moonlight.

I've done plenty of it...pick very hot days, the fuller the moon the better...both will direct their feeding to night time.

I usually hang around camp during the heat of the day, and hit the lake around 10pm or so...or later.

Short, heavy leaders (six pound straight), and black and bushy leeches, something with a big profile that can be seen at night by the fish looking up...you'll wonder where all those damn fish have been all day when you see how many are on the surface near the shorelines eating at night!

Hopefully you're not too squeamish, you WILL catch the occasional bat, and they don't survive the encounter very well, to say the least.

Fish on...

Todd

Somewhere on a disk from my long dead PC, I've got a pic of a friend of mine at about 2 am on a full moon, on a large private "pondlake" near Breckenridge,CO. The midsection of the giant brown is draped across the floattube, and he's lifting the massive head up with the giant deerhair mouse fly sticking out. It had been a private pond for many years, then the land got sold, and a new high end neighborhood was going in, and it suddenly became "poachable".....I caught fish, but nothing like this "hogbeast"....Gonna have to find that pic.....Chopaka at night sounds fun.....Tom

My favorite memory of night fishing is this time of year on Big Twin out of Twisp...2am, trout biting like mad, bats buzzing around, and in the middle of a meteor shower there is pink aurora borealis shooting across the sky...about as close as I've ever come to being a trout fisherman instead of a steelheader!

Fish on...

Todd

Todd pretty much nailed it.
The only other thing I'll add is make sure you have a really good head light. Of course it helps on the water, but a hike through the desert at night to the lake can be rather interesting in regards to crawling things with rattles.....

Thanks, all. This is sounding better and better all the time. Next weekend is a full moon.... Any takers?

So we know Eastern WA has good action on the lakes at night, and the sights sound good as well. Don't think I'll be able to get over to the East side anytime too soon, so I may have to try something a little closer to home.

I don't much like the idea of unhooking bats, but given that they catch their food while airborne, I imagine encounters are all but inevitable. Bats don't bother me much. For that matter, anything above the surface doesn't scare me much. In the dark, I might be more concerned about what lies beneath. The imagination works best when not beset by what the eyes can see. Who knows? I might just "see" Nessie herself.

In the lake at 10 PM, out at dawn. What a show the evening sky puts on. My best is a 26" Brown, many 20 fish nights. Well worth the time.
+1 on the big bushy leaches, go for the purple ones.

Ducker!

Dry Falls....stash the tubes in the bushes at the lake, then leave and wait until the gate is closed for the night and take the path down from the overlook above. Slow troll big leaches or streamers for browns. Very productive and very creepy, bumping into submerged things with your fins in the dark.....just might be gill man!

Walking down that trail at night would be interesting.
I'm not sure it is even open anymore. It looks pretty sketchy looking up at it from the lake. I think the last time I saw someone go down it was over 10 years or so ago.
When was the last time you went down it Chip?

Two tips. First, don't hesitate to cut your leader when you hook a bat. Losing a fly and six inches of leader is worth not dealing with the bat. Second, get an LED headlight and hang it in a branch at the put in/take out. Makes it much easier to find your way home if you don't stay out until dawn. Good luck.

More like 20 years ago Stone, time flies!