Night Fishing or Bloop Bloop

Night Fishing – it’s scary.

First the opaque patches form in the deep woods, but you are comforted by the remaining open whispers of light. As night progresses out come the bats. They swoop and swirl around just enough to get the primitive side you going. There comes a point where the light dims so that even if you are out in the open you must be tied on tight to a good fly or else you will need to use a light which will spoil everything. Fishing (even for trout) can be more course, more haphazard, more viscerally alive in the wild night.

I was upstate on a branch of a good river which was too high to fish but not so high that I was going to turn around and go home. I wandered to an easy shoulder to slip into the shelving edge. I waded in about 4 or 5  feet and cast about, when all of sudden i heard a great Ker-Bloop, Bloop which echoed in the small valley. At fist i thought it was large rocks being hurled into the water from a high a distance. The sound got closer and i started to wonder if i had encroached on private water or if I was the victim of kids (anti fishing kids). The hour was after 10 pm and as i looked around i could see no sign to help ease my mind. I thought about getting out when a huge ker-bloop came with in 10 or 12 feet. I felt fear and the water splash hard. In the gaining moonlight i found the culprit which was not only dropping into the water but ascending up from the water, it looked like an otter out for a night on the town.

This brought both comfort and even greater fear to me. Now at least I knew what was out there, but how do otters feel about man (I had never seen one outside a zoo). It was then I realized we were after the same thing – trout –. & like when confronted with a heron during the day I was locked in competition not with the boys in a blue pickup truck but a true master who sought food (although he did seem like he was having a blast).

In the end we could not compare scores, I had only one fish for the night (a small one at that) and he would not sit still long enough to reveal his count but I would guess he hit his limit.

So go night fishing it is fun and scary but go even if just to enjoy your bed that much more the next night.