Saugmania

I'm not normally much of a saugfisherman. Yeah I'll catch a few nice ones every year but it's usually the biproduct of fishing for striped fish or smallmouth. But the last few nights I've stumbled into a nice pattern for catching saugthings in the river at night. I'm a big believer in the best time to go fishing is when you can. And well the only time I've had to fish is at night so that's when I've been going. And I've been finding some fish pretty regularly the last couple nights. The place is where the river turns then goes over a fairly strong riffle. The main force of the current hits and has dug a small cliff about head high. This cliff goes for about the length of a cast then the river turns and pours over the river. Right where it turns the fish are glued to the bank, maybe a foot at most off the cliff and right in the fastest slot of water. The only place to stand is upstream. You cast a paddletail swimbait or a big curly shad on a 3/8 ounce jig head down the bank and just crawl it back up to you. Taking a minute or two for each cast as the bait hangs there swimming like crazy in the swift current. I thought a minnow plug like a rogue would be great but the water is just too swift if that helps give you an idea of just how fast the water is moving here. I'm fishing from about three am till daylight when the fish quit, they are definitely on the night shift at this spot. Once you do it enough to get comfortable with it fishing at night has a set of rewards all it's own. The river is a different place at 3 am. You hear the wind more. You hear owls calling. An unseen deer blows, a beaver slaps it's tail. Eventually you realize there's even more going on at night than during the light, it's just that our senses are poorly equipped to let us join in. Obviously you need a piece of river you know very well, it would be easy to get a mess of trouble otherwise. A good sensitive rod like my rod from Little Miami rod company helps. You can get away with heavier braid at night which helps with the feel as well. Then a tiny box with some jig heads and swimbaits, maybe a minnow plug or two and a topwater and a decent headlamp and you're all set. Try it you will never look at your river again quite the same after you have gotten to know it at night.