Night Fishing Question?

[muskie_man]

I havent done much night fishing and i am now wanting to fish some night tournaments and i have a question. How can you see the stuff on the bank where you are casting to? I know black lights light up your line and stuff(dont matter cause i use fluoro line) but how do you see to your targets? I was thinkin maybe setting up a couple battery powered laterns or something in the boat. Thanks for any info!

[MASBASS]

I have really good night vision so I am lucky, well lets say I use to getting older has made it a little harder to see with minimal or no light. I have a friend that fishes with me and does not see well at all at night. When we fish together I use my Stan Sloans light with one white bulb on top and black or blue light on bottom. The white really lights up the bank so he can see, but i think it spooks the fish some. You may try that.

[kent]

Masbass is right about the blacklight. Gives you just enough light to see the bank. Most places I've ever fished have some sort of light close enough to see the features of the bank. This could create a huge discussion, but I would avoid the lantern or any other fairly intense light. I feel it spooks the fishmore often than not. If you get out on the water at night and get around an area with light, like a ramp or marina, you'll notice shaded and lit areas, just like if the sun was out. Fish will set up to ambush prey on those light edges. If you run up on them with a lantern or other bright light, you will likely spook feeding(i.e. catchable) fish. Just my opinion.

[Bass_King2007]

I have fished night tournaments since i was 3 and have had no prob seeing the bank!! me and my dad use the stan slone blacklights with the double bulb, and after many years i have figured out that the fish dont pay not attention to the lights even when they are shallow! We fished a tuesday night bass tourney last night on cumberland and all of our fish came out of inches of water so the light didnt spook them!!!

[BigPoppy]

Normally there are some kind of lights reflecting on the water from one angle or another, but if there are none available already when we fished lakes in Louisiana where there were no electric lights and blacklights were still not an every day thing(dating myself here) we would take our coleman latern and hang it in a tree down the bank line we were going to fish we would back off for a few minutes and use the reflected light to guide our cast and as a plus by the time we made it down the bank there was normally at least one or two good fish cirling the light from the latern. Good luck