How late (after sunset) do bass continue to bite?

[Slyster]

With fall coming.. the sunset is getting earlier every day! To maximize my evenings... how long (after sunset) will bass bite?... and what do they hit on?

Are loud topwaters best?.. or something loud like a chatterbait? I would guess at twilight things like senkos are no good.. they wouldn't see them well in the darkening water?

[TurnUpTheFishing]

You can catch bass all night long. Some of the best times are early morning and dusk. At those low light periods I like to give topwaters a shot but you could probably still get them on senkos/plastics as long as thier is still some light (even if their isnt much light bass are good at finding thier prey). In pressured clear water sometimes the night bite can be really good.

[BassAkwards]

I think this is a good question. I usually go out during the week about 6-7pm. There seems to be a window at dusk where I will catch a bunch of fish on top waters for a 15-20 min window. then it stops and the fish are still hitting the surface but no bites. Then I cant catch much after that. I am usually out until 930-10 and really don't catch much at all then. I am also curious as to where to find feeding fish at that time?

[Fluker]

Night Fishing! Man do I sure miss it! As some of you already know, I moved from MO to MN 6 years ago. The clubs I fished in MO always had there summer tournaments at night. The last club I was in had "13 hour extravaganza's" in the summer. We'd start fishing at 7PM Sat night and we'd weigh in at 8AM Sun morning. Nights with a tough bite could get LOOOONG!

Night fishing, or low light fishing, is the BEST time to fish in my opinion. Not always, but a large majority of the time. And not ALWAYS in the warmer time of year. April night fishing in MO was always pretty good, even though a bit chilly.

Think of it this way, Bass are ambush predators most of the time. There are certain times of year where they group and feed like fall, but most of the time they are hiding out waiting to eat what comes by. They hide in places where they can ambush like in the shade of a tree, by a laydown, beside docks post, on drop offs, in weeds... you get the picture. In low light conditions, those "hide out" areas grow substantially. At night, they can basically sneak up and use the entire water column. In my opinion, there is less work in feeding at night because they don't have to work so hard to ambush.

I have not night fished more than a couple time in MN. I have always planned to do so, but just have not made the time. One thing to mention is the skeeters up here are like small birds, so that does factor in a bit. )

As far as baits go, I can only speak to what has worked in the resevoirs of MO for me. Big dark colored single blade (colorado) spinnerbaits, Cowbells (Double colorado blades that klang together, sounds like a cow bell when out of the water), 10" worms, Football jigs with double tail grubs, and salt craws. The old saying goes, "Light in the sky, put light in their eye". So the darker the night (less moon) the darker the bait. I usually used Silver blades, or Red Shad/Teguila Sunrise baits during full moon, and Gold/Copper blades and Black Neon/Black Blue baits on darker nights. The bigger profile baits help the fish find the bait better by pure size for sight, and by water displacement.

I'm a firm believer in solunar tables for prime feeding times. Too many times than not I've seen MUCH bigger fish / bags brought in during those time. The 2 days prior, the day of, and the 2 days after Full and New moons seem to be the best bite for better fish. However use extreme caution when you do not have moon light on the lake.

Water clarity does play a part as well. Darkness does affect clearer lakes more than darker lakes, but it does affect both in some manner.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Chuck

[Fishing_High]

Thats a lot of useful information seeing I just posted a topic with out reading this one about the same type of thing. This is real helpful thanks for the info it should help.