Here’s how you can avoid the blistering August heat, catch fish and not have to worry about another boat taking your favorite spot.
Speckled trout tend to settle into deeper, cooler water around outside rigs and structures, and many anglers choose to stay home rather than deal with the insects and the heat.
Night fishing is an obvious alternative. Think of the advantages:
• You don’t have to wake up at 3 a.m. to go fishing because you don’t leave until late in the afternoon.
• You don’t have to deal with the break-of-dawn “rush hour” of nervous fishermen at the marina, all vying for bait, fuel and dock space. When you arrive at the launch in the late afternoon, most places have all the time in the world to tend to your requests. They’re finishing up for the day and preparing to head for home.
• Once launched, there’s no hurry to zip to your favorite honey hole, because nobody is going to beat you to it. When you fish late, you have it virtually all to yourself.
• You beat the stifling summer heat, you stay out of the blistering sun, and you get to fish the late-evening bite, which at times can be nothing short of phenomenal.
August seems to be the most common-sense month to switch to night fishing because it is so incredibly hot. I’ve noticed that as I’ve aged, the heat seems to bother me more. But then 90-degree weather has the ability to wilt even the sturdiest angler.
Basically, there are three ways to fish evenings and nights. One, you head out late in the afternoon, take advantage of the late-evening bite, and once it gets too dark to see, head back to the dock. Or if you plan your trips accordingly, you can fish on clear nights with a full moon, and the bite could be extended indefinitely. No special equipment or preparation is necessary, and all you need is a launch site that doesn’t close up at 6 p.m.
I’ve made many a productive trip like this, and it is definitely one of my favorite summertime tactics. And ever since a few of us invested in a boathouse/condo in Shell Beach, I’ve promised myself I’m going to do it more often.
Two, you head out in the late afternoon, allowing yourself plenty enough daylight to get hooked onto your favorite lighted rig or structure. This way, you not only fish the late-evening bite, but you stay and fish under the lighted rig after dark. Using this strategy, you can park on a spot and stay all night, until you catch your limits or just get too tired to fish. Then you either head for home in the dark or catch some winks until its light enough to see.
Some anglers opt to spend the night at the rig and be in position for the daybreak bite the next morning.
This tactic requires a bit more preparation, but nothing too demanding. Since you’ll be fishing at a well-lit structure of some kind, all you’ll need are some lights or lanterns for the cockpit so you can see to tie knots, unhook and net fish, and find your bait and tackle.
If you plan to stay overnight, some thought ought to be given to that, like bringing a lawn chair or bean bag to sack out in. You might not think you’ll need it, but you’ll be mighty glad you brought it somewhere around 1 a.m., especially if the bite is slow. Trust me on that.
This method can be used virtually anywhere you find structures lit up at night — from fishing piers, to docks, to coastal structures and deepwater offshore rigs.
The drawback to this strategy, however, is that you are limited to fishing lighted structures, and while there are plenty of lighted rigs and other structures to choose from, it is possible that you’ll head to your favorite spot only to find that some other night angler had the same idea and got there just before you did.
Oh yeah, the stuff you read earlier about having the place completely to yourself if you fish at night — well, that’s not entirely true. There are quite a few anglers who choose to ply their passion after dark, and their number seems to be growing.
The third strategy is to make complete preparations for a full-blown night trip. This method involves a lot more work, more planning and more significantly, more equipment. This is a “fish-anywhere-you-want-to” strategy, because you will be bringing your own lights and generating your own electricity to power them, either by batteries or by generator.
A friend told me recently he was heading out for a late-evening trip, and he said he “wished there would be a full moon” that night for them to fish by. I told him I was going out fishing that night also, but we were bringing the moon with us.
Actually, I was heading out with guide Rory Rorison (504-439-1680), who operates United Charters out of Shell Beach. Rorison fishes out of a 22-foot Larson center console, pushed by a 225-horsepower Suzuki, and happens to be our next-door neighbor down in Proctors Landing.
Since I knew he was well equipped for full-fledged night fishing, I pestered him until he agreed to take me along on a Breton Sound trip.
Rorison has two huge, specially rigged HID (high-intensity discharge) 320-watt metal halide lights, mounted on brackets that slip into his rod holders. The HID units provide a great deal of light with only a small amount of wattage. Those would be our “moon” to attract baitfish and the predators who feed off them.
To power the HID lights and the floodlights he has hooked up to provide light in the cockpit, Rorison carries a 1,800-watt gasoline-powered generator.
When I transferred my gear into his boat on the afternoon of our trip, I noticed how he had the lights and generator well strapped down, and everything was sitting on thick rubber pads to prevent jarring. As it turned out, it’s a good thing he did, because we were in for a bone-jarring ride into the Sound.
The weather that evening was questionable at best, due to strong southeast winds and numerous squalls and thunderstorms. But I knew it would be a rough ride the moment we turned south into the Ship Channel and were greeted by whitecaps.
We took a pounding until we reached Bayou Loutre, where we turned off and followed it to Bay Eloi and on into Breton Sound. Our destination: the big, unlit satellite rigs near Central.
Rorison said he’d made several previous trips to the same area with success, and he had a bait well stocked full of live croakers and shrimp to see if he could pull off a repeat performance. The seas were solid 3-footers, and we could make no time on the bone-jarring ride.
The trip took at least an hour longer than we expected due to the rough conditions, but all of us were pumped and primed for a night on the water, and we weren’t going to let a few waves turn us around.
We arrived at our target rig with an hour or so of daylight to spare, and hooked on with a sturdy rig hook. Under better conditions, Rory said he would also consider using an anchor to fall back toward the rig, allowing us to fish with the wind at our backs. But he didn’t want to have to worry about the anchor slipping, which would immediately send us crashing into the rig.
Besides, we hoped that by hiding behind the structure, the rig would soften the blow of the waves and make it easier for us to fish in the rough conditions. Even so, we still had to move slowly and carefully around the boat as the seas pounded us relentlessly. In fact, if anything, they seemed to be building.
We came prepared to fish under either a sliding cork or a sliding sinker. I opted for the sinker, hooked on a live shrimp, and tossed it over. I gave the weight enough time to reach bottom about 18 feet down, and turned the handle to take out the slack.
Rorison and our partner for the evening, Perry Matulich, did the same. At first, absolutely nothing happened. No strikes, no thumps, not even a nibble. We sat there for 20 minutes or so, waiting and hoping the action would turn on.
Then Rorison got a strike, and a nice-sized trout put up a dancing topwater protest. I netted the fish — a solid 2 1/2-pounder — and before I could unhook it and get it into the ice chest, we had another fish on the line.
In rapid succession, we dropped five or six beautiful trout into the ice box, all caught on the bottom, and both the shrimp and the croakers were garnering equal attention from the trout. Then just as fast as it started, the action stopped.
Rorison quickly positioned the lights in the rod holders and cranked up the generator just as it was turning dark. The last ray of sunshine was replaced by surrounding darkness.
Once he turned on the lights, however, we had no trouble seeing all around us. In spite of the rough seas, the water was pretty clear, and in short time we began to see signs of baitfish just below the surface.
We watched as crabs, needlefish and a variety of baitfish began to move in around the boat. Some of the fish seemed dazed by the light, and I even managed to scoop one up in the dip net. It looked like a hardtail, but before I could decide whether it was one or not, two of our rods doubled over simultaneously. Drags were screaming and bodies were flying to pull them out of the rod holders and set the hooks.
Fifteen minutes later, we netted two big reds, 16 and 18 pounds. For the next couple hours, we couldn’t keep the big bull redfish off our lines. My 12-pound monofilament line handled the fish for the most part (though I did have several break-offs), but I had to take my time and wear them out.
Rorison fishes with 30- or 40-pound Power Pro braided line out there, and is able to horse the big fish back to the boat. I made a mental note to string up with some sturdier line the next time out.
Then, when we didn’t catch a red, we’d catch big banana fish (sometimes called ladyfish, and also known as a “poor man’s tarpon”). These are incredibly acrobatic fish that put up an excellent fight, and should be prized just for the sake of the thrilling action they provide.
But down here in Cajun Land, if you can’t eat it, no matter how hard it fights or how much of a thrill it provides, nobody wants to catch it. In many parts of the country, anglers pay good money to catch fish that are inedible, or for other reasons unkeepable, just for the thrill of the catch. And I guarantee most of what they catch won’t fight as hard, pound for pound, as a banana fish.
As the night wore on, we began to wear out. The constant battles with banana fish, mixed in with monster redfish and occasional trout were taking their toll. The seas never did lay down as we’d hoped, and my knees were still aching three days after the trip from banging into the side of the boat while I fished.
But the night sky on the open water is a thing of beauty. And believe it or not, it really gets cool, almost cold, out on the water somewhere around 2 a.m.
Night fishermen have to make choices like day anglers: Do we stay here and wait them out, or do we run to another rig and hope for better results?
Rorison generally likes to stay put, following the logic that the lights will attract the fish to you. That is, after all, the whole purpose of bringing the lights. And there are a variety of lights to choose from.
Rorison says some people use battery-powered lights, such as floating lights or submersible lights, with clear or green bulbs, with varying success. Others use halogen quartz lights that draw a ton of watts but provide far less light than HID lighting. Some anglers are opting for the high-pressure sodium lights, which probably put out the most light, or the metal halide lights like he uses, all of which require generators.
And I can’t help wondering what would happen if I sat at the rock jetties one night with these lights, or at Seabrook, or at…
August is not the time to sit at home waiting out the heat. Get in on what might be the very best summertime action around, and beat the heat in the process.
