Northwest Fishing Reports

I am going to this opening day durby that starts at midnight. Anyone got any advice for fishing trout in the dark, techniques, lure/bait choices, anything would help. Thanx

PJ

I was at lake wilderness last year and started fishing at midnight using powerbait off of the bottom and it worked as we had a light in the boat and it was pretty cool cause u had to hold the rod and feel the bite.

Buy yourself a “Night Bobby”. It is a bobber with a light powered by small watch batteries. Just dangle a worm a few feet below and watch. It works!

I fish at night off my dock using the classic powerbait,split shot about 2-3 feet off the bottom. I then use a lattern to see movement in the rods. However,these fish caught are intended as a meal unless they don't swallow the hook. My experience with this tactic leads to approx.75% of trout being kept. Not sure if this will work for ya. Good Luck

awesome... thats good stuff.... i will definitely give it a shot.

Night fishing is some of the best fishing one can participate in. One thing that will bail you out while night fishing, a head lamp. Try to get the smallest one, they can get really bulky and will be more of a drag than anything.

Most people think night fishing, need glow in the dark lures and glow in the dark scent. The scent I dont really have any experince with. But dont waste your time. Glow in the dark stuff will catch fish but so will everything else.

I would go with some sort of bait. Either a power egg above a peice of powerbait, 3 power eggs single file on the hook or 2 mallows and a full crawler for the hold overs. Also some sort of scent, I prefer krill. Either way, I would steer clear of lures until the first sign of light. But if there are browns in the lake, throwing a floating rapala in the shallows might be worth a shot.

i did this at Silver Lake (Pierce County) a few year back and first tried powerbait off the bottom, which produced absolutely nothing, so I switched to bobber and worm and sure enough that was the ticket. Both methods do work though, just depends on what the fish want. By the way, what lake is having this derby?

Is it legal in all lakes? I heard only catfish in one? Where does it say in the regs. ? I am from Oregon and you can't fish trout at night. I would like to do this!!!

bigbasstaz wrote:Is it legal in all lakes? I heard only catfish in one? Where does it say in the regs. ? I am from Oregon and you can't fish trout at night. I would like to do this!!!

Yep your good to go taz. I just found out about the night closer for the state of Oregon and it blew my mind, after a little reaserch I found out that state night closures is pretty common. Dont bother with offut, go down and throw a handful of food in the pen at night, those fish dont even eat at night. But you know that lake pretty well, so you will probally do better than I do there at night. Make sure to put a light on your boat, you need one at night.


ooops.... forgot to mention that a lot of the rivers in WA have night closures though. Hour after dark - an our before sunrise is when the rule takes effect

Some BIG BIG trout have been seen splashing and feeding pretty actively during warm calm full moon summer nights!:-$

Ooooh very intresting. I just put 2 and 2 together, with a lake that is that shallow, and holds some HUGE trout, when do them big boys come out to play durring the summer months..... Huh, see ya there in july taz

gpc wrote:Ooooh very intresting. I just put 2 and 2 together, with a lake that is that shallow, and holds some HUGE trout, when do them big boys come out to play durring the summer months..... Huh, see ya there in july taz

bigbasstaz wrote:Is it legal in all lakes? I heard only catfish in one? Where does it say in the regs. ? I am from Oregon and you can't fish trout at night. I would like to do this!!!

I have seen some states where you could not fish at night, but most of them have changed. I did not know the Oregon still had that rule.

I know that Utah had that rule in the 60's, but they dropped it. I wonder, does anyone know of any other State where you cannot fish trout, or any other species, at night?

gpc wrote:Ooooh very intresting. I just put 2 and 2 together, with a lake that is that shallow, and holds some HUGE trout, when do them big boys come out to play durring the summer months..... Huh, see ya there in july taz

I found one of those lakes by accident a few years ago. It is a deep lake, with rocks and clifs at the edges.

I was throwing buzz baits for bass, and found the big ole Browns kind of like them to.

Anglinarcher wrote:

gpc wrote:Ooooh very intresting. I just put 2 and 2 together, with a lake that is that shallow, and holds some HUGE trout, when do them big boys come out to play durring the summer months..... Huh, see ya there in july taz

I found one of those lakes by accident a few years ago. It is a deep lake, with rocks and clifs at the edges.

I was throwing buzz baits for bass, and found the big ole Browns kind of like them to.

I know what you mean. Those browns are pretty vicious. I look at them as the bass of the trout family

I love to fish at night. Most of the boat launches will have a sign posted that the park closes at night. My question is if I am still on the water when it gets dark will I be ticketed or will WDFW lock the gate on me?

bassmasterderek wrote:I love to fish at night. Most of the boat launches will have a sign posted that the park closes at night. My question is if I am still on the water when it gets dark will I be ticketed or will WDFW lock the gate on me?

I have heard that as long as you have someone drop you off and take your truck and trailor out of the parking lot you are good. But you have to stay out there all night and wait till day light to get your boat off the water. I have never done it myself however.

bassmasterderek wrote:I love to fish at night. Most of the boat launches will have a sign posted that the park closes at night. My question is if I am still on the water when it gets dark will I be ticketed or will WDFW lock the gate on me?

I have experienced that they won't usually ticket you but instead lock you in all night (I think they consider it more of a punishment) assuming that the wdfw locks that particular gate that night. I know that there is a couple of lakes that don't get locked out that often because of the understaffing in the wdfw. Don't go directly off of my experience, it could be different at certain lakes. So If you do plan on fishing a lake with a gate I would suggest that you at least plan on being out there all night just in case.

If you fish lures use dark colors such as blacks, blues and browns. Bait is usually the better bet at night though, and I have had my best experieces with a piece of night crawler and glow bobber or power bait with a glow in the dark corky.

Anglinarcher wrote:

bigbasstaz wrote:Is it legal in all lakes? I heard only catfish in one? Where does it say in the regs. ? I am from Oregon and you can't fish trout at night. I would like to do this!!!

I have seen some states where you could not fish at night, but most of them have changed. I did not know the Oregon still had that rule.

I know that Utah had that rule in the 60's, but they dropped it. I wonder, does anyone know of any other State where you cannot fish trout, or any other species, at night?

That rule applies to trout, steelhead, salmon, and sturgeon. Anything else that will feed at night (bass, crappie, walleye, catfish....) is fair game.

I usually paint the tip of my pole white for night fishing, any cheap white spray paint will work. I also sit the lantern behind me to the side so that my eyes can adjust and not be blinded by the lantern.