After-Hours Tackle
Bob McNally 08.04.15
Simplicity is the order of the night, at least for fishing tackle used for catching bass, trout redfish, seatrout, and other species. Use gear you’re most familiar with and the best you own because you don’t need tackle problems at night, particularly with hard-fighting largemouths, striped bass, tarpon, snook, and others.
Most experienced after-hours anglers use medium-action spinning plug tackle. A 6 1/2 to 7 1/2 foot spinning rod with skirted-spool reel with line testing 10 to 20 pounds is good. Quality braided line like Power Pro is preferred by many anglers for abrasion resistance and low-stretch.
Bait-casters should use their best outfits, especially reels, because a backlash is a time-wasting disaster at night. Always have a back-up rod-reel (or two) quickly available should something go amiss with your primary tackle.
For terminal-end rigs, keep it simple. Just a line-to-leder connection, no hardware.
“Many different artificial lures score on p.m. fish,” says television fisherman Blair Wiggins of Florida. “Two of my favorites are the D.O.A. ‘Glow Shrimp’ and D.O.A. ‘TerrorEyz’ jig. I can cover the water column pretty well with these two lures, and they catch about anything that’s feeding around lights.”
Other standard night-light lures include the Bomber “Long A,” MirrOlure 52M series, soft plastic jerk-baits like the Shad Assassin, small surface plugs such as the Excalibur “Super Spook Jr.,” “Spin’n Image,” and “Swim’n Image.”
Many different style and color grub and bucktail jigs in 1/8- to 1/2-ounce sizes also are very effective.
