Nighttime is right time for late-summer fishing
The first swarms of juvenile menhaden showed up about 10 pm, joining a handful of silversides and bay anchovies randomly finning into and out of the patch of water illuminated by a bank of lights on the floating cabin.
The first assault came a couple of minutes later. A silvery bolt blurred through green water at the edge of the light, scattering a clump of “pogies” that shattered the surface in a glittering welter of silvery shards.
The bite was on.
Over the next couple of hours on this August night, as the incoming tide welled and current pulsed in the channel off Espiritu Santo Bay, the water beneath the lights swirled with life-inthe-food-chain electricity. And the three of us anglers were busy, too, casting plugs the size and shape of “shad” or small jigs imitating shrimp into and around the illuminated water off the back of the floating cabin and regularly connecting with a menagerie of inshore fish. Speckled trout, mostly — all chrome and lavender with those black-spotted flanks and yellow mouths. But their spotless sand-trout cousins, too. And black drum, sheepshead, a redfish or two, ladyfish that would go absolutely bonkers when hooked and, yes, the occasional aggravating hardhead catfish.
The fishing was hot. We were not. Which was the point. Instead of enduring the brutal, unrelenting, almost suffocating heat and humidity along with the eye-burning sunlight that mark most of the daylight hours in Texas during late summer, we fished in conditions almost downright balmy with a bit of a cooling breeze off the Gulf.
Comfort, or at least not abject discomfort, is one of the reasons many Texas anglers find fishing at night so attractive when August rolls around. And that applies to many inland anglers as much as it does those fishing coastal waters. Air temperature on a late-summer night can be as much as 20-25 degrees cooler than during the heat of a heart-of-summer Texas day. Add the lack of blinding, skin-cooking sunlight, and fishing after dark looks even better.
Just as appealing — maybe even more so for some anglers — is that fishing for several species Texas anglers target, including some favorites such as speckled trout and largemouth bass, often can be better at night during latesummer than during the day. Much of that is tied to biology and behavior associated with this sizzling season.
Fish, like fishers, can suffer negative physical effects from summer’s most intensely hot time. And for much the same reasons. The same August heat that sears anglers effects fish, too. Most fish aren’t so much affected by the high temperatures of water as the effect that those high temperatures have on the chemistry of that water.
The warmer the water, the less dissolved oxygen it can hold. And dissolved oxygen in water is as crucial to fish as free oxygen in the atmosphere is to anglers.
If dissolved oxygen levels get too low, respiration becomes difficult or even impossible. In worstcase instances, fish trapped in waters where dissolved oxygen levels get low literally suffocate; this is regularly seen in canals and bayous and other restricted waterways that lack tidal movement or where wind can’t rough the surface and mix oxygen into the water. The result can be major dieoffs, usually of forage species such as menhaden along the coast and threadfin shad on inland waters but occasionally claiming larger fish, too.
Even if the intense heat of a late summer doesn’t drop dissolved oxygen to potentially deadly levels, it certainly can and does drop enough to make fish physically uncomfortable, forcing them to relocate.
Shallow water is most often affected by low dissolved oxygen. The combination of low dissolved oxygen and the intense, direct overhead sunlight seen from midmorning to early evening on late-summer days, force fish to seek deeper, darker, cooler and, in most cases, more oxygen-rich water.
The exception can be shallows holding extensive submerged aquatic vegetation — sea grasses on the coast, hydrilla and coontail and other submerged aquatics in reservoirs and other freshwater — and areas that see considerable current or wave action that helps cool and aerate water.
No fun in the sun
But for the most part, from midmorning until at least near dusk most fish on the coast and inland retreat to deeper water where they can be harder for anglers to find and catch. And even if anglers can find fish, the direct and reflected heat and glare of a sweltering August midday on open water can make for a miserable experience.
Those conditions and fish behavior change for the better once the sun goes down. Low light and cooling water can trigger movement and increased activity.
Many anglers targeting largemouth bass fishing the night shift once August arrives. The most common tactic is to hit the water at hour or more before sunrise, giving them two or three hours of fishing under the coolest (and “cool” is relative, here) part of the day and when they are most likely to find bass actively feeding in and around littoral habitat most anglers are best at fishing. But heading out at dusk and fishing into the night, especially on evenings when a full or nearfull moon ads welcomed natural illumination, is also popular.
Topwater lures — chuggers, frogs, stickbaits, propbaits, even buzzbaits — are the most enjoyable to use when night fishing for bass and can be very effective when worked over and around cover such as submerged vegetation. Casting a topwater into the darkness, working the bait strictly by feel and sound focuses senses. Strikes are most often heard, not seen. And the singular experience of hearing an unseen bass crashing an unseen surface plug is one that sticks with an angler.
Nocturnal bass fishing isn’t all topwaters, though. Some of the best success can come on soft-plastic baits — worms, soft-plastic stickbaits, jig/crawfish combinations. On some East Texas reservoirs, big plastic worms — 10-inchers or bigger — are a traditional go-to bait for nighttime fishing. The theory is that the big baits move more water, producing more vibrations that allow a hungry bass to home in on the lure in the dark. It’s also why some bass anglers like to use big-bladed spinnerbaits at night.
No matter whether they hit the water a couple of hours before dawn or start at dusk and fish deep into the night, bass anglers who fish between sunset and sunrise need to be particularly careful when boating in the dark. Slow and easy is the way to travel, and a spotlight is almost mandatory when travelling in waters with standing timber or other obstructions.
Also, Texas boating law requires boaters have their vessel’s “running lights red and green bow lights, white light on the stern — operational and visible when underway after dark and mandates that the vessel have a white light visible for 360 degrees when the boat is on the water but not underway.
Who needs a boat?
The same nighttime lighting rules apply on coastal waters. And boats can put coastal anglers on some very enjoyable, productive and memorable nighttime fishing during late summer — anchoring along jetties and fishing for bull redfish or in Pass Cavallo and drifting mullet or menhaden for the ponderous tarpon that slip into the pass on summer nights with the right tide and the right moon.
But most nocturnal fishing on the coast is done without the aid of a boat. It’s done by folks who fish from the bank at places such as Rollover Pass or the Texas City Dike, hike out on the jetties or fish from one of the handful of fishing piers poking over the Gulf. Those spots are the classic nighttime coastal fishing centers, and with good reason. They offer anglers relatively easy, inexpensive access to what can be wonderfully productive nighttime fishing late-summer fishing.
Hit any of those public bank fishing spots or lighted beachfront piers on the right late-summer night and it’s possible to enjoy some great fishing for a variety of species, including speckled trout, redfish, sheepshead, drum, croaker, shark and just about anything that swims. It is worth noting that several current and past staterecord coastal fish, including record tarpon, speckled trout, redfish and several species of shark, were caught at night, most often from beachfront piers.
Fishing at night will never be as popular as fishing during the day. It doesn’t jibe with most people’s schedules, and it presents challenges and demands considerations some folks aren’t willing to abide.
But during August and most of September and sometimes even into October (especially when the fall “bull red” run cranks up on the coast or the surf turns “green to the beach” and schools of speckled trout swarm in the water under pier lights), fishing when the sun is down can be the ticket to a very enjoyable and productive experience.
For certain during these most blistering days of a Texas summer, it’s the avenue to a much more comfortable one.