Sea Trout on the Fly at Night.( Part 1 ).

 

          
Here are some nice sea trout that i caught while fly fishing during a full moon, most anglers seem to think that the  sea trout turn off or are hard to catch during such events but i find that some of the larger fish will travel on these big tides and using the right flies and tactics can be caught. Even though the moon brightens up the river there is plenty of tree cover around and using dark bodied flies rather than the normal bright patterns you present the perfect silhouette for the trout to see the fly. Even this tactic of waiting for the bats to show or until its very, very dark never mattered to me as i have caught them just as the light is going up till dawn and even into daybreak. Certain pools will fish when its dark but there are plenty of areas that will fish well just as light is going and are better at this time because just as the darkness comes these trout move up or down river so the pool you were fishing in low light might not have any trout in it in the dark. I have fished down many pools with the fly after other anglers that were using either fly or bait had moved on and caught trout from the off so people saying that starting early ruins the pool or puts the trout down has never mattered to me. I think that you need to experiment with a river to get to know what works, how it works and when it works so just leaving it till a certain time because some people say so is a waste of good fishing time. Having fished for large trout i was told that they didn't exist to monster proportions but after studying many rivers in different heights and light levels i found that they could be caught and were there in good numbers and in some cases in very large sizes. You have to experiment for yourself, when fishing for sea trout a pool can have good numbers of fish in it in daylight but as soon as the light changes to darkness these trout will move out and in the same instance these trout will move back just as its getting brighter because they feel comfortable or protected there. I feel that sea trout are confined and restricted in their movements during the daytime and even though you will see the odd flash or body scraping activity ( rubbing their sides off the river bed to shed parasites i.e. sea lice )going on during the daytime they are normally subdued, but at night time they come out to play. Even when fishing many rivers i have noticed that when the small trout stop jumping and pitching it goes quiet for a while and then the big boys come into their own and you will have one start down river and then another and the jumping will work its way up every pool and i think the big trout are communicating to each other because its so well orchestrated and confined to just the bigger fish. This lets me know where they are and then i can target them, every pool will have one or maybe two large trout in residence and the moment you hit the smaller fish these guys shut down and you will find it hard to catch them, not impossible but hard. Again another theory about using sinking lines later on in the night when things go quiet, i have fished with many anglers that changed over to sinking lines and competed against them using only my floating line and still took more fish than they did while i was using the same tactics but changing to flies tied on heavier trout hooks and flurocarbon leader rather than my normal copolymer leader. If the pool is not deeper than eight feet the floating line will work every time, the biggest issue i find with anglers that night fish is simple.... its turn over. They can't cast their flies properly, you have to make sure that the point fly is the furthest away from you at all times and not in a ball, behind the fly line or knotted up but when night fishing i see this happen all too often. Secondly retrieve, they are stripping line so fast its amazing that they are meeting any trout at all, slow down only a figure of eight retrieve works and sometimes no retrieve at all just a natural drift and then a figure of eight retrieve at the end of the drift just to bring enough line in for a recast. Again flies are the one thing that separates the catchers from the anglers, stick to the normal patterns but make sure that you are using the bigger hook size on the point and the smaller size for the dropper, this will definitely give good turn over and also fish at different water levels where the heavier point fly will fish deeper in the water column and the smaller dropper will be higher up the level giving two point of attack..... some nights smaller flies work better and sometimes the larger patterns will pull fish so using both sizes on a cast improves your chances of a hook up. The way things are going its probably time for me to write the up dated sea trout book because i have so much more information that i can't fit it into this blog, try and experiment next time your going out night fishing for sea trout with starting earlier, using different retrieves and fly sizes and see if your catch rate improves but remember releasing them will give someone else a chance to enjoy the sport in the future.