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.