Overlooked Nightfishing Tips

It’s no secret that I’m a nightfishing nut. Been doing it more than 20 nights a year since 1987. That’s a lot of moonburns! And while there are plenty of good articles about nightfishing out there, I want this article to be something different. So I’m going to cover the stuff that nobody ever tells you.

Big Lugs Like This 15.51 Pounder are a Good Reason to Nightfish

For example, you already know how difficult it is to get crankbaits out of your net, it’s twice as difficult at night! I know, they make those molded rubber nets that don’t get hooked, but those nets are too small and shallow for the big walleyes I’m after! And if made bigger and deeper they’d be too heavy for my “not-so-healthy” arms/shoulders. Plus, they drag like a drift sock when trying to sweep up a massive walleye. Sorry, a ten pound net that can’t be swept through the water with any dexterity is not an option for me! Full-on rubber mesh is for nursery school walleyes, not for me! Full apology if you have one of those shallow little nets and like it...just not the best call for solo nightfishing for trophies!

Dealing with hooks tangled in the net is a really big deal when the fishing is hot. When you have to deal with dozens of fish per night that adds up to as much as an hour a night of lost fishing time while dicking around getting hooks out of the net. My primary nightfishing partner once cussed me out about my rubber-coated nylon net, “if you still have this net in the boat next month, I’m not fishing with you.” And that was a nice legacy Beckman net with a rubber-coated traditional weave. (I re-dipped the nylon mesh in tool handle rubber from the hardware store which got me an extra two years but also got me a heavier net).

When I bought my awesome new blue Clam net with the lightweight rubber-coated knotless nylon mesh I fell in love with it immediately. I usually fish alone and the lighter weight of the Clam net made my crippled left-armed net jobs so much more effective. But that was during the winter and spring jig bite. As soon as I used it with crankbaits and treble hooks, I found that it wasn’t much better than anything else regarding hook tangles. Maybe worse if the hooks actually penetrate the rubber-coated mini-mesh. After a 5 minute plus untangle when a fish rolled in the net I’d had enough. I bought a replacement net—just the mesh--an old-school uncoated nylon net with big hoops in the mesh. A net that was guaranteed to catch crankbait hooks, but also guaranteed to release them EASILY. I removed the lovely modern rubber-coated net bag on the Clam and installed the old “big hole” plain nylon net. The big holes sweep through the water easier than any other net bag, they hook less hoops per crankbait than what happens with the tiny holes on modern nets. And there’s virtually no weight.

I adore my modified Clam net with old-school mesh! Best night crankbait net I’ve ever used! It catches hooks in the mesh every single time, and I’m able to clear the lure and get back to fishing in less than a minute every time! The net bag cost me about $8 from Jann’s Netcraft. Install took 2 minutes. (Yes, I understand that the knots make it illegal for use on salmonids in Washington and Oregon but walleyes have a hide that doesn't sluff scales and I use a different net for occassional salmon trips.)

Replacement Net With Big Mesh Is Easier To Remove Treble Hooks From than the Tightly Woven Mesh that Came on the Net

With the new big mesh in my net, walleyes under 15” just slip through… I haven’t mentioned it yet, but when nightfishing I try not to use the net and will usually “gunnel flip” everything 24” and smaller. No problem with 12 pound fluorocarbon line and healthy medium and medium heavy rods. Can’t tangle in the net if you don’t net it! (On light jigging line I typically only gunnel flip up to 20”). I fish so often that I'm not concerned with getting fillets for dinner, so if I lose a few trying to flip 'em into the boat--oh well! Biggest I ever gunnel flipped was a 7.5 pounder that I slipped over the low transom of a boat back in the early '90's. Actually removed the Wave Wacker from that side of the transom to facilitate "net free" landing. 

An often overlooked factor in night success is decluttering the boat. All the backup rods need to be stowed or pulled out of the boat. Extra boat seats, coolers, boat bags—either stow ‘em or dump ‘em into the pickup truck. You’ll find that tangling line and lures is easier in the dark than you’ve ever dreamed possible, so do what you can to minimize the extra baggage you may have had in the boat all day prior to dusk. And clear the aisles so you aren’t tripping and stumbling everytime things get wild in the night!

To keep track of the clutter that’s trying to tie your rods in knots, you’ll want a few headlamps. Yes, a few! One night last fall I was by myself in the boat when I drained the batteries in my favorite headlamp. No problem, until I checked two more headlamps that were weakly casting a dim light…ended up using headlamp number five before I got a strong beam. Good thing I was way overprepared (with neglected back-up headlamps). I now carry a box of batteries in the boat.

And since I nightfish so frequently, a few years ago I figured it was time to splurge for a super high-end headlamp. Dropped nearly a hundo for it and found out what a terrible mistake it was. Thing has several buttons for turning it on and changing functions—spot, wide angle, dimmer switch, strobe, red, green, spot with wide angle…so there I would be in the dark with a fish on and I’m reaching up to my head—maybe in gloves--and clicking wrong buttons and turning on red lights and flashing strobe and dimming the light at the wrong times etc. Those multiple-featured headlamps are for times when you can set up the desired lighting while it’s off your head! When you need to reach up and click once to light up your battle you need a headlamp with less features or even NO features.

An Easy-to-Use Headlamp is Essential for Hardcore Nightfishing. Read About My Favorite!

My current favorite headlamp is a cheapy LED Walmart light with only one large button. It toggles when clicked: on, dim, off, on, dim, off…By far the best $10 purchase I’ve ever made for night lighting!

Something nobody has ever written about night fishing is the importance of raingear, yes, raingear. Especially on clear nights in the fall, there’s something that you find on your lawn every morning—DEW. If you are out most of the night in a boat, that dew is going to soak you pretty good. If temps are such that a mist is rising off the water—happens a lot after midnight in the fall--then you have the moisture of dew PLUS the moisture rising off the water. You need raingear to stay comfortable hour after hour. You won’t need it every night, but on those hardcore “dewpoint” nights with added lake mist, you’ll like your raingear better than you ever expected. And late in the fall, the dew becomes frost so be ready!

And living where I do in a National Forest in rural Montana, I have about 10 miles of dirt road towing to get home. With the boat soaked in dew at 4 am, the dusty dirt road completely blankets the boat in a fairly thick coating of gritty Montana dust—inside and out. That’s why you seldom see pictures of my boat—I don’t want to shock people with the dirt coating looking like a tan layer of frosting on a cake! It’s more than “city folk” can handle even to look at! It’s just the nature of my life, so I consider my boat a “work boat” and let the dirt assemble where it may.

Another key to nightfishing is having your hardbaits ready to do battle. In my circle of friends we keep a separate set of boxes for night lures. Ideally, these will have already produced multiple fish on each lure—daytime or in the moonlight. That way we aren’t doing much experimenting in the dark. We trust each lure as a proven producer.

Whether or not you build a box full, tune your lures in daylight hours! Sure, we’ve all tuned lures in the dark, but it’s not ideal. If you aren’t already a big tuning advocate, I recommend you become one right away! If the lure doesn’t run straight and true: 1--Your catch rate is unlikely to be very good. 2--You won’t get the advertised running depth. And 3--You’ll have issues with lines tangling (which is already an issue with ANY lure in the dark).

Don't Spend the Night Tuning and Dialing in Lures...Build a Box During Daylight Hours

I’ll let you ask Mr. Google about tuning lures…the YouTube video library will walk you through how to do it (it’s really easy, especially with new lures. It’s really hard to retune a lure after it’s caught a bunch and has become your “honey” lure—just one of those little annoyances of life!) So whether a fish thrashing in your net knocks it out of tune, or whether a snag in the dark steals your best lure, it’s important that you can just snap-on a fresh lure and be fishing again in moments.  

So there you have it…tips you’ve probably seldom or never considered for nightfishing. Guaranteed paying attention to these things will make your nighfishing more pleasant and more productive.