Fishing Articles
Drift-Fishing in the Dead of Night
The pull of the rod will tell you everything
you need to know!
Timothy Kusherets
I’m surprised that not many fishermen actually fish during nighttime
hours. Drift-fishing the dead of night can be every bit as productive
as fishing during the day, even more so when the area has been heavily
pressured during daylight hours. The basic needs of fishing at night
are essentially the same as during the day with some minor modifications
such as a brief recon, practiced casting, scent, and corkies (lil' corky).
This fishing technique will put you into more fish than you ever dreamed
possible, but first you have to find them and that means a recon.
 Take
a look at this great looking fish. This buck was all fighting fury and
fighting him was no different had it been daylight. The only time light
was used was to snap the photograph and then it was released.
To establish where the fishing is good consult the regulation handbook.
It’ll give you a good idea where the fish are at any given time
of the year, which determines what species are available, where to go,
and how long it will take you to get there. When you get to the river
or tributary look around to see how pressured the water is and that’s
where you want to start. Look for the best fishing spots and assess
the amount of fishermen versus the amount of fish. You know the kind
of fishing hole that has fish jumping out of the water and nobody is
getting a hit with the exception of the occasional snag. When the fishing
is shoulder-to-shoulder ordinarily I would tell the experienced fishermen
to look somewhere else, but this time you’ll want to stay. Get
in line with the other fishermen and gear up the rod. What you use really
doesn’t matter since this day trip is to get you ready for night
fishing. Cast at the best holds, and many times that means hitting snags,
logs, and boulders that can get you hung up. Keep casting until it becomes
familiar to you and then close your eyes and try to hit the same drifts.
In a short time you’ll become accustomed to the distance and the
time it takes for the terminal gear to hit the water. You don’t
have to stay there long, but make sure to take notes of where you fished,
how long it took you to get there, and where all the snags are. It’s
really not that hard to recall all of this it just sounds like a lot
when you’re reading it.
 This
photograph was taken while I was still in the river. Even with the flash
of the camera the water looks black. There was no moon giving the impression
of total darkness, but fishing in the dead of night is really an easy
fishing technique.
Whatever you do, don’t take a light with you for any reason other
than lighting the trail or parking lot. This is an imperative element
of fishing the dead of night. There aren’t many fishermen who
know just how acute the sight of fish are or what spectrum of light
they see in, and believe me, they are very sensitive to anything at
night.
As an experiment some time ago, I wanted to see just how sensitive fish
could be. I had been fishing at night and hadn’t been getting
hits. I employed the same fishing techniques as everyone else, but they
weren’t getting any hookups either. When I learned that fish see
deep in the Ultraviolet Spectrum and not Visible Light, like humans
do, it occurred to me that they might actually be able to see at night
even though I couldn’t. On that experimental night I went down
to the river with a battery powered flashlight with half a million candle-watt
power. When I was in an area I knew would have fish I turned it on.
I was comically hysterical. Fish lit up like there was an x-ray and
they just sat there for a second or two. “It looked as though
they were waking up.” When they bolted that was it, there wasn’t
any fish the rest of the night. Progressively, I came back with weaker
and weaker lights until I was down to a penlight, and that was still
too much when the light was on the water. Ever since that last night
I haven’t used a light and I’ve gotten fish every time and
the only light that gets used on my night trips are the flashes it takes
to snap of a few photographs. Aside from the fishing light adventures,
the only thing left to consider was scent, and you better believe that
scent plays a central role in behavior day or night.
Drift-fishing with corkies (lil' corky) with scent is done almost
always with yarn. You don’t need a lot of yarn tied to egg-loop.
You just need enough to reach the bend of the hook. It really doesn’t
matter what scent you use so long as it’s consistently used and
not blended with other odors, especially sweat from your hands. Transfer
scent happen all the time, but there is a way to disguise human odors
with shrimp, eggs, and earthworm scents. The single best way to use
them all is to “Not” wipe your hands off once you’ve
applied it to the yarn. Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary
to put scent along the length of the leader. You might want to do it
during the day, but at night that kind of chumming can deter from the
strike zone by making it wider and costing you good hookups. The last
step is corkies.
Corkies are about as easy to use as any lure or bait gets. Slip it on
to your leader down to your hook and you’re good to go. Ironically,
it’s the ease of corkies that create debates on what kind to use.
While I think there is value in “glow-in-the-dark” corkies,
they actually mean more to fishermen than they do to fish. Since salmon
and steelhead see in the U.V. spectrum they can see just about anything
you put in the water at night. Glow-balls are great for letting you
know when to stop reeling in so you don’t end up with your terminal
gear in the first eye, but that’s about it. They still work fine,
but they won’t work for the first few casts until the glowing
subsides from the initial flash when they’re lit up. Make sure
that all the corkies fit in the bend of the hook to ensure the bite
area is clear. The color of corkies at night is irrelevant since they
all look the same anyway…dark.
When the strike comes don’t worry about it. The pull of the rod
will tell you everything you need to know! Fighting fish is the exact
same as it is in the daytime. If you can get the flailing fish downstream,
you can use a light away from the fishing hold and that’s it;
can you believe it?
 The
setup used to get this great looking fish was the exact same as if it
were daylight. Note the color of the corkie is flat pink and not glowing.
Scent is the primary locator for baits and lures at night. If you can,
fight each fish downriver from where fish are holding to keep the pressure
off other fish.
This fishing technique is so easy that getting fish the first time out
is really the norm. Don’t forget to Recon, Practice Casting, keep
Scent on your hands, and match the Corkies to the size of the hook and
you’ll be good to go. Sometimes it’s the easiest answer to
the question that gets you fish on the hook and this fishing technique
is one of them.
© Timothy Kusherets, 2004/09 |
