First overnight session

[Worms]

Have a good meal of bran flakes, halibut liver oil and sweetcorn and take some method feeders and then you can.................on second thoughts, scrub that

[Rusty]

Have a good meal of bran flakes, halibut liver oil and sweetcorn and take some method feeders and then you can.................on second thoughts, scrub that

 

That's a horrible thought Worms and if you weren't proving to be a 'pin manufacturer extraordinaire I'd pick you up on it

 

As regards the night fishing I’d say that safety is of paramount importance, take whatever you need and organise yourself (during daylight hours) to prevent yourself ending up in the water, if that means lamps all over the place then do it. If the forecast is for rain then just don’t go until you get a better forecast, fishing in the rain can be miserable, in rain/darkness it’s purgatory even if you have a shelter.

 

Then just do whatever the conditions allow you to do. You’ll find that coping with staying up all night and watching something will be very difficult, tactics will take a back seat unless you’re relying on bite alarms to wake you up from a deep slumber (in which case you've probably lobbed out all your baits out during the day and are 'night waiting').

 

Good luck and make sure you sleep well the night before. I once float fished all night for Tench at a lake near Hastings, I caught lots and it was great fun but I was shattered the next morning.

[Janet]

Having done a few night sessions, I'd suggest the following....

 

Choose your companions wisely - the one who has Vincent Price's eerie laugh as a ringtone is to be avoided at all costs, especially on your first trip when you're already totally spooked! He's only alive to tell the tale as he was within thumping distance!

 

Seriously though, I found it never got totally dark, and once my eyes were accustomed to it then it was only necessary to switch on my head torch for unhooking, rebaiting etc. Don't get complacent though - always be aware of where you are in relation to your seat and the water! Organisation is also key - try to arrive before nightfall and make sure that you know where everything is before you start. Stay warm, with plenty of layers which you can add or remove as necessary...it really gets uncomfortable if you get too cold.

 

As for sleeping? Each to his own, but I'd say don't do it! The sights and sounds throughout the night are totally different to during the day and it seems a shame to miss it. From bats swooping down over the water, caught in the light of your headlamp to the sound of foxes hunting and kestrels calling, it really is (or can be) a magical experience.

 

Everything is so much more intense in the darkness, and I do think that going to sleep in a bivvy, relying on bite alarms is missing out on so much. Being alert and awake as the sun is coming up over the horizon, watching the mist slowly rise over the water and seeing those fizzing patches of feeding fish...you really can't beat it!

 

You wouldn't get me sleeping through a night session!

 

Janet

[Kappa]

Organisation is also key - try to arrive before nightfall and make sure that you know where everything is before you start. Stay warm, with plenty of layers which you can add or remove as necessary...it really gets uncomfortable if you get too cold.

 

My tip would be take several torches and spare batteries! Its very easy to break or lose a torch in the dark you'll be gutted if you can't do anything because you can't see! I have a head torch on my head, two torches in the bivvy, one by the rods and one on the unhooking mat. Overkill maybe but I've had to go to the aid of several anglers who haven't got a spare torch or batteries, including one that almost killed a 12lb barbel!

 

As everyone else has said take warm clothes it really can get very cold even in summer.

 

Think comfort and safety! A mobile phone, plenty of food, a bed chair or comfortable chair, a sleeping bag, etc etc

 

Rich

[fruitloopy]

Fantastic replies from all...many thanks.

 

I will probably catch a few Zzz's but as Janet said its a good opportunity to delve into the nightime world and see things you wouldnt normally see during the day.

Besides, I seem to have collected lots of nightlite things that I can attach to a float and never seem to get the opportunity to use them so I think I'll give that a go tonight. I'll be feeder fishing most of the time so I think I need to go buy something so I can attach one of these things to the quivertip.

 

The car is packed (I'm going straight after work so I packed last night) and I remembered the bog roll! I also packed a first aid kit, torch, spare torch and batteries and a head torch.

 

I know I'll forget something though...I always do!

[fruitloopy]

I thoroughly enjoyed my first overnight session, although I felt absolutely knackered when I got home!

 

I went straight to the lake on Friday after work and got setup, I probably started fishing at about 3:30pm. Oddly enough this is the same lake that I was a member of last season and never caught a single fish there in three attempts, not even a perch! I was a bit sceptical about going there but it is a very nice place set well away from any roads and with a locked gate preventing access to non-members. Its not an easy place to find anyway so you do feel very secure there.

 

After an hours fishing I didn’t get anything on the feeder, I think the splashing of the feeder was scaring them away so I swapped to a float rod and immediately got a nice perch of about half a pound on worm. I also cast my carp rod out into a weedy area with a floating pellet on it so it would pop up above the weed. After a couple of hours a 4lb Tench took hold of it but as the lake is quite weedy I had a struggle to get it out.

I tried live baiting for a larger perch but nothing took it so I went back to worm and fished with a starlite on the float until 11:30pm. It looked like it was going to rain so I reeled in, moved the carp rod up the bank so if I did have to run out of the tent to pick it up when the bite alarm went off I wouldn’t fall in the lake! After your advice here I knew I should get everything out of the "Gangway" between my bivvy opening and the rod to prevent accidents.

 

It was lovely laying there propped up on the camp bed just looking out and listening to the rain on the tent and the sound of distant thunder. I soon started to drift off to sleep but then there was a single blip on the bite alarm, I jumped up waiting for a run…adrenalin pumping through me…but nothing happened.

I settled back down and was just drifting off again when there came a couple of blips on the alarm…heart pounding, I sat up and waited…nothing. This carried on for another 2 hours until I decided to remove the tension in the line and fish it slack to avoid these little line bites. Because of the excessive weed I could not sink the line so even small fish could set it off.

At about 3am I had a run…Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppppppppppppp…I was up and out of bed and within seconds I had lifted the rod, wound the handle to tighten up to…nothing.

I just went back to sleep, I didn’t cast back out again.

 

At about 5am I woke up to a foggy, misty morning. I made some coffee and had a think about how I was going to fish today. Tony (who I went there with) said he tried corn the day before but didn’t get anything so I decided to try feeding the area with more hemp seed and also keep trickling in some corn every few minutes. The idea was to get them confidently feeding on sweetcorn without putting any on a hook.

My gamble paid off, after about three quarters of an hour of feeding them corn I put a large kernel on a size 12 and cast in. Just as the float had settled it sunk under and I had my first tench of the day. It was a hell of a job to steer them around the weed and lilly pads though and occasionally they would get stuck.

All told I had 6 tench that day until 1pm when we started packing up. I lost 2 on the carp rod which I had cast out as a sleeper rod, hoping for a large carp. Each run on this I hooked a tench and had almost got them to the bank when they came off in the weed.

 

6 Tench, 3 Rudd and several Perch. Needless to say I am now a member of this lake!