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When to Fish: Part 2 Light

© Louis Bignami

Light levels effect fishing results. Granted species like rainbow trout are more likely to be in a sunny spot than brown trout. Still, as a rule you need to pay close attention to light levels, underwater shadows, and the direction of light as it effects most species in freshwater and saltwater.

Watch a crowd of baitfish swirl under the lights of a fishing pier at night. Check the action when a predator swirls in out of the dark. You know that from the dark you can see into the light better than visa versa. That's why so many ambush species lure in shadows. Perhaps the most famous species for this is bass in clear water -- in the murky waters of the south where light is muted by algae and such this is less important, but clear water species that ambush pray love shadows.

Musky and pike hide under weed bed edges. So do bass. In saltwater you never let a patch of weed, a floating box or any other shade producer go by either. Ther reasons simple, all of these spots create an edge between light and shadow where a predator can lurk and dash out a minimum distance for food.

That's really the key, predators have to spend less energy seeking and killing prey than they spend. Otherwise, it's called a diet. and that only works for the Spandex-set, and usually not long.

Depth counts too. In open water some phototropic life rises and falls with the light levels. Squid, to cite one example, come to the surface at night. Grunnion run into shallow waters and big predators like rainbow and brown trout rise up out of the thermocline where temperatures are idea to chase bait in the shallows that, while too hot, hold the noctural baitfish.

Light also effects your lure choice. As any diver knows, colors change with depth. You lose your yellows and reds as colors fade to green and blue and eventually to black.

Lures need to make themself known. That's why bright colors or, in some cases flashing lights, glow in the dark or other light producting methods work.

Light works in another way too. If you fish and night and can light the water you collect baitfish and create that shadow edge for predators. Folks commonly do this in the South for bass, brim, crappie and other species, but where it's legal, you can set a lantern on a breakwater rock so it shines down on the water and cast a streamer fly into the shadows. Sooner than most expect you'll get a mess of rockfish, and even the odd salmon, striped bass or steelhead.

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