re: Night Fishing Memories

I was 16 and my brother was 15 the first time we went flounder gigging without my dad. I was holding the lantern and my brother had the gig. He kept getting exciting and trying to gig them when they were 5 or 6 ft away instead of right over them. He wouldn't listen or give me the gig. He got mad that I kept making fun of him for missing a limit of flounder. We got in a fight the next day because he'd had enough of me ribbing on him for it.

Still do a lot of crappie fishing at night under the lights. Use submersible LEDs now but fondly remember the hiss of a Coleman lantern and the cloud of insects nearly choking it out.

Used to fish Lake Lanier and Allatoona a lot at night and wore the bass out....

People do not fish at night as much as they used to....back in the 70s and 80s you could not cross a bridge on a COE lake from May to September and not see at least one Coleman lantern burning on the lake.....I seldom see a soul fishing Clarkes Hill past about 10 or 11 PM now....and the few you do see are usually bow fishing.

Nothing like being on the water at night, listening to the radio, eating a bunch of junk food and catching the occasional crappie....

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Night Fishing Memories

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Nothing better than being in the middle of the gulf of mexico at night, music blaring, beer flowing, and having a yellowfin tuna rip the line out of your hand while chunking blackfin that you just jigged up

When I visit my folks at Lake Martin, my dad and I and whoever else wants to join go night fishing. And I concur-its some of the best times with my dad in my adult life. Love it.

We used to go fire a big ole dooby up and catch em yellow cats baws!

When I was a lad pops would take me to Bussey Brake at night during the summers perch fishing. We would hang 2-3 Coleman lanterns up on stumps out in the stump field. You'd have to wait an hour or so for the bugs to get to sizzling and falling in the water commencing the underwater food chain to wake up. Once the minnow and subsequent white perches got there we would pull perch after perch out of the water. When one lantern would slow down we'd troll over to another one. Twas awesome.

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A new moon makes artificial light more attractive to the fish in my experience.

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I agree completely. Full moon is ok for bass fishing and working a shoreline but if its fishing under a light the moon is a competitor for scattering bait and fish that is hard to beat.

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I've heard that the full spectrum light from an old school coleman attracts the food chain better than LED's, but obviously LED's work too and are very popular and apparently catch fish.

Lake Allatoona, a COE lake as you mentioned, had a boat ramp right by I-75 bridge you could paddle to in a JB without even cranking your engine. But you'd still need your battery powered clamp-on nav lights because the wardens were out every night going from bridge to bridge checking everyone, you certainly needed to have your shite in order, and not slur your speech. This was 80s-90s.

People would get real protective of "their" spots too, some pilings had better reputations than others. Heard many a argument over the water with drunk rednecks mad about proximity, when all anyone was doing was dropping a minnow over the rail of their boat. The way I figure, more lights together in a concentrated space will bring more of the biomass to it and become the hot spot for the night, benefitting everyone.

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I have spent many a night under that very bridge and have experienced the exact same thing. And everyone caught fish. Never understood it but no doubt alcohol was involved more often that not. Fishing the bridges was crowded but had to be done because those pilings and the rip rap attract the crap out of bait and fish....especially if theyre are pullin water. I would usually opt for one of the fixed channel markers though....not the floating ones but the ones on poles on main lake points. They did not attract as many fish but you did not have the crowds.


One of my favorite such places was on Yellow Jacket Creek at West Point. Just down stream from Sunny Point Access....on the opposite side of the creek from the transom and lower unit claimin road bed LOL. There used to be a channel marker on the other side of that road bed that was one of the best night fishing spots in the SE. I have caught so many crappie off that pole it is almost criminal and, in all honesty, probably was at times. Back in the day you could fish this spot from the road bed and wear them out....they blocked the road but I bet people still do it. The cove just around the point on the same side had a massive brush pile every year and it was chock bock full of crappie also. Just adjacent to it there was a flat about 4 feet deep in a channel bend about 25 foot deep...BIG catfish roamed that flat at night....I have caught a pile of 15 and 20 pound channel cats off that flat....big for west point back then. Good memories.

The oilfield camp at lake Pelto in 1964 period was a great place to camp on their helicopter platform and catch trout 2 two at a time all night long, Circling around the low lights were hundreds of trout. Just wave the double trout rig back and forth 6 feet below the platform

Caught many Specs at night under the Seabrook Bridge.

Caught hundreds fishing the flares around Gossier and Curlieu Islands