Night Fishing for Beginners: Fish, Baits, Gear and Safety Tips

The water looks different at night. Deeper. Darker. Fishing is always a mysterious pursuit, but when night falls and the water becomes an inky expanse of blackness, you really never know what lurks beneath the surface or when the next bite might come. 

For anglers who do most of their fishing under the light of the moon, that sense of suspense and mystery is part of the fun. Night fishing can make you feel like you’re in on a secret that most people don’t know about. Fish don’t disappear when the sun goes down, and they don’t all go to sleep. In many cases, night fishing can be just as good as—or better than—fishing during the day. 

But night fishing does require adjusting your approach a bit, and it definitely calls for preparation and a few safety precautions. For anyone new to night fishing, it helps to go out with somebody more experienced. Hopefully, this guide will take care of the rest. 

• What Fish Can You Catch at Night?
• How to Find Fish After Dark
• Timing the Night Bite
• Understanding How Fish Find Food at Night
• Night Fishing Baits and Lures
• Night Fishing Gear & Tackle

What Fish Can You Catch at Night?

The short answer is, just about anything. If it bites during the day, chances are, it also bites at night. Bass, trout, pike and most other freshwater gamefish are active under the moon, and plenty of saltwater species are too, like redfish, speckled trout, snapper and grouper. 

That being said, certain kinds of fish are especially active at night. Walleye, with their reflective, moon-like eyes, have incredible night vision. And catfish are often most active at night, using their keen senses of smell and taste to track down their next meal in dark, muddy waters. Some of my favorite fishing memories involve drifting cut bait for catfish at night on a slow-moving river, or casting stickbaits from a sandbar for nighttime walleye. 

For saltwater anglers, flounder are among the most well-known nighttime targets. Tarpon are also notorious for striking after dark, and certain types of shark fishing are also best when the sun goes down. 

How to Find Fish After Dark

One of the first and most surprising things I learned when I first started fishing at night was that fish usually don’t stray too far from their daytime haunts. If they do move at night, they’re most likely to head towards shallower water, or closer to the surface where there’s more light. That makes nighttime a great time for bank fishing. 

Some kinds of fish, like catfish, leave deeper holes and patrol shallow flats in search of an easy meal. Walleye commonly slide up river channels and long, sloping points toward shallow feeding grounds, and bass typically patrol nearshore weed lines, laydowns and other bank-adjacent structure. The best nighttime fishing spots are shallow areas with drop-offs to deeper habitat nearby.

Light, where available, can be a major attractor. Lighted docks and bridge pilings can be especially productive because the light attracts baitfish, which attract predatory fish like bass and crappies. Even moonlight, on a clear night, can be enough to draw fish toward shallow areas. 

Timing the Night Bite

When to fish is just as important as where. More often than not, I’ve had the best success rate from about an hour after sunset until midnight. On nights with a full or nearly full moon, fish activity often peaks as the moon approaches its highest point. Where tides are a factor, try to be on the water during a moving tide—roughly two hours before or after high or low tide. A solunar and tidal chart can be extremely helpful to forecast the best times to find active fish at night. 

Understanding How Fish Find Food at Night

In dark conditions, fish rely more on senses other than vision to find their next meal. Taste and scent become even more important. Sound and vibration—fish detect the latter through their lateral lines—are also a big part of the equation. 

That’s not to say fish don’t hunt by sight at night. In fact, creating a high-visibility silhouette can be a great way to trigger a bite on a moonlit night. But night fishing with consistent success requires thinking beyond how your bait or lure looks visually. A lure that creates noise and vibration can catch fish’s attention from a significant distance, and an offering that smells and tastes natural can get them to commit to biting. 

Night Fishing Baits and Lures

Topwaters

Topwater lures are some of the all-around best options for night fishing. They create sound and vibration on the surface that makes them equally effective for freshwater predators like bass and muskies and for saltwater hunters like snook, redfish and tarpon. Fish often look up toward the surface when they're looking for a nighttime meal, and several different types of lures within the topwater category can be effective:

• Floating frogs are arguably the top choice for largemouth bass fishing after dark. They create a realistic surface profile and subtle vibration, and they work best around shallow weed beds and lily pads. 
• Walking lures like the Moonwalker and the Zara Spook have a seductive side-to-side motion that creates a distinctive wake on the surface and can entice a wide range of fish. 
• Poppers make an aggressive pop-and-gurgle action on the surface if you fish one with a series of hard pulls and pauses. Try one of the classic options like the Rapala Skitter Pop and Rebel Pop-R on a warm summer night.

Choosing lure colors for night fishing can seem counterintuitive. In most situations, black and other very dark colors work best because they create a strong silhouette against the moonlit surface of the water when seen from below. 

Rattling Crankbaits & Jerkbaits

Crankbaits and jerkbaits are versatile hard-bodied lures that can tempt a very wide variety of fish. A rattling jerkbait like the Bomber Long A is one of my all-time favorites for walleye fishing on big rivers at night, and it’s equally effective on lakes with long sloping points. Crankbaits usually dive a bit deeper and are good for fishing the drop-offs between shallow and deep habitats. Models that contain a rattle provide extra attraction at night, and I usually fish them with a fairly steady retrieve, sometimes with the occasional twitch and pause. 

Soft Plastics

Soft plastics are a broad category, but the main options I tend to reach for at night are paddletail swimbaits and curlytail grubs. Both produce a pulsing vibration that calls out to fish in the dark. Tube jigs can also be surprisingly effective, and I recommend trying one on a weightless Texas rig and fishing it like a jerkbait, as opposed to the traditional method of bottom-fishing on a jighead. 

When it comes to color, there are a couple of ways you can go. Dark colors like black and purple create high contrast against the surface when there’s a good amount of moonlight. Another option worth considering is glow-in-the-dark plastics. These are great for darker nights and fishing deeper water for species like walleye that stay closer to the bottom. Glow jigs are also great for ice fishing at night.

Spinnerbaits & Buzzbaits

Spinnerbaits are among the best nighttime lures for largemouth and smallmouth bass because they create a big, dark silhouette and create a lot of vibration. Choose spinnerbaits with dark black or purple skirts and oversized Colorado-style blades for maximum “thump.” Buzzbaits are similarly effective, with blades that produce intense surface vibration. They’re great for shallow bass at night, and are known to tempt pike as well. 

Flies & Streamers

Fly fishing for trout at night is its own kind of challenge, and the best approach tends to be selecting larger flies that move water and have a strong, dark silhouette. Mouse patterns—big, buoyant dry flies that mimic a swimming rodent—are popular for tempting big brown trout at night. Big, dark-colored streamers like Woolly Buggers and Double Dungeon flies are also effective.

Live & Natural Baits

Sometimes you just can’t beat the real thing. Minnows, nightcrawlers, cut bait, chicken livers and a host of other natural baits take advantage of fish’s keen senses of taste and smell, making them outstanding choices for night fishing. Live baitfish also produce the unmistakable vibrations of a genuine prey fish in distress. 

Natural baits are especially essential for catfish, which are most active at night and rely on taste and smell even more than most other fish species. Drifting worms, cut bait and chicken livers is a classic approach on rivers where catfish emerge at nightfall from deep holes and head upstream to prowl nearby flats, sand bars, log jams and undercut banks. 

Night Fishing Gear & Tackle

In many cases, night fishing does not require specialized rods, reels and tackle. When casting for species like bass, walleye, trout and panfish after dark, choose a medium or medium-light combo with smooth casting, reliable drag and a sensitive rod tip for detecting night bites. The Piscifun Torrent Lite Twin-tip Spinning Rod and Reel Combo or the corresponding Torrent Lite Twin-tip Baitcasting Rod and Reel Combo fit the bill perfectly. 

In certain situations, like drifting natural baits for big catfish, something more specialized can be extremely helpful. A Piscifun Chaos Pro CNC baitcasting reel paired with an LED LumiCat II casting rod is ideal for this situation, offering a bait clicker system for audible bite detection and a UV fluorescent rod coating that allows you to see rod tip movements in the dark. 

Additional gear for night fishing includes:

• Illumination: Good lighting equipment is essential whether fishing from the bank or a boat. I always have a headlamp with me because it allows for hands-free lighting while fishing, but backup flashlights and/or lanterns are equally essential. 
• Bite detection: Lighted floats are popular for visually detecting bites at night, and many night anglers attach glow sticks to their line or use rod tip lights or bells to signal a bite.
• Safety equipment: When fishing at night from a boat, it becomes even more important that your safety gear is present and in good condition. Inspect your personal flotation devices, navigation and anchor lights, communication equipment and distress signals, including horns and flares, before you go. 
• Warm clothing: Even when the days are warm, temperatures can drop significantly at night. Dress in layers, including a water-resistant outer layer, to adapt to changing conditions. Warm socks, hand warmers, and gloves are also advisable in chilly weather. 
• Portable power stations: If you’ve ever watched your phone battery dwindle while you’re miles from home on a riverbank at night, you know just how valuable a power bank can be. A portable power station will allow you to keep phones, fish finders, GPS devices and other electronics charged overnight.