Great way to spend an evening!

Nice report. A friend and I went out one night for the evening hatch on the Davidson in Pisgah NF, NC. I caught tree limbs & rocks. He caught a bat.

Fly fishing at night has it's challenges. If gators and snakes are active in the area, I don't feel comfortable at night; not a problem in cooler months and gators are scarce in the
area I live and fish in now.

When we had our North Texas UL fly fishing get together this summer, Linecaster offered a suggestion that's been very useful for night fly fishing: modify a fly line to form a shooting
head and use short back casts. Implementing Linecaster's suggestion has been extremely helpful for night fly fishing. Loading the rod with the short backcast so that no false casting
is needed keeps me out of trees and bushes. I haven't hung many flies in trees since implementing the short back cast.....helps with the fishing budget too.

Wanted to post the catch tonight. Photos are lousy so I'll post one, caught 3. Fly casting can get confusing at night when your not getting the results you expect. I've decided to fish the 3 forks 3 wt with several home-made shooting heads for night fishing this winter. Sticking with this set up will eliminate some confusion. The shooting head I used tonight was a 13 ft, level 8wt; this was attached to the backend of a 5wt WF (5wt running line). The fly I was using was a 1/0 purple Joe pawn. A normal cast with this fly, rod and fly line set up is 47 ft (measured this afternoon in a trial run). Only the head and a foot of the running line are used in the backcast and there is no false cast.

Glad to hear the heads are working Jim. Nice bass there too.

Last night was the coldest we have had so far. 35 by the weather report; I had to clear ice from my guides so maybe colder

W
Was fishing my 3 forks 3 wt, 13 ft shooting head and #1 purple joe pawn.



First bass caught in 1 foot of water next to the concrete retaining wall. He was the smallest at 12 inches or so (guessing). The second must have been close to 2 lbs caught in a couple feet of water about 10 feet from a bridge.



The third had to be between 2 and 3 lbs in 3 feet of water, about 8 feet from the wall.

This last one I caught on the way home from work this afternoon on a #8 chartuese cone head, rubber legged wolly. He hit in a foot of water but there was a
hole close by.



It should be colder tonight and if it is and I catch anything I'll post it. Come on cold weather!

Eric, yes and if they had not been feeding I don't think they would have been so shallow. Caught nothing last night but the area I caught them in the night before had alot of surface debris and difficult to fish; still I tried other areas and no hits.
Tonight the wind has shifted from the south blowing the debris elsewhere and of course it's warmed up. I'll give it a go, it's a good way to end the day.

Keep the candle burning Jim, thanks for the reports, nice winter fish. Nice Blue Gill. The only reason why you are catching is because you are fishing.

Thanks for the comments Eric, Joe.
Interesting comment Eric, catching because fishing.
Alot of us, and I know I do, try to reason the factors that contribute to our catches but the conclusions
are speculative. If we consider catching a fish an experiment and try to repeat the experiment
to prove the conclusion, repeating the experiment is impossible on several accounts.
The only conclusion we can be sure of is, as you stated, "catching is because you are fishing".

Tuesday night I caught 3 bass and lost 1. Last night just 1. Tuesday I was fishing with my 7ft 3wt, native custom. Catching the
fish on the native custom was great fun but casting the #1 joe pawn stressed the shoulders more that fishing the 3 forks. Last
night I experimented with a 5 wt, 7.5ft but the #8, 13ft shooting head didn't load it well.

Don't have time to post pictures tonight but will still try to slip out of the house and get in 45 min of fly casting before bed time.

Thanks for the update Jim those are some nice bass.