Bass in the morning, stripers in the afternoon, catfish after catfish at night
Descending gloriously, with an orange brilliance over the Natchez Trace, the sun may have been setting but not on our day of fishing on Barnett Reservoir.
Not hardly.
It was just shifting into another, higher gear that night not too long ago. The few largemouth bass we couldn’t release alive that morning and the two huge striped bass that had provided the afternoon’s delight were about to get a lot of company in the ice chest.
Catfish.
The darker it got, the better they bit, and it got really dark for the first hour after the sun’s final rays faded.
“Like somebody turned off the lights in a darkroom, except for all those stars,” I told my fishing partner, a fellow sports writer. “Suits the catfish, though, doesn’t it.”
In the time it took to check our anchor light (required after sunset) another catfish found my shrimp and treble hook and made a run. The action was just that quick, and it didn’t slow down when the moon, reflecting the very same orange hues cast by the sun just an hour earlier, rose above Fannin.
It was the day after the full moon, and the orb was again huge as it climbed on the horizon.
“Now that’s pretty, right there,” said Dustin Frucci, sounding more like a southerner and less like a Michigan native. “Sure enough pretty.”
It lit up the night, with enough light for us to see our lines, hooks and baits again. Welcome to night fishing on Ross Barnett Reservoir.
Full day leads to prime time
“Hard to believe there’s this many boats on the lake this late,” Frucci said.
A sailboat passed us several times on the Trace side. Several other bobbing anchor lights could be seen in the distance, along with the occasional red and green navigation lights of boats on the move. Looks like more and more fishermen are enjoying the hot fishing and cooler atmosphere of night fishing.
Our day lasted more than 12 hours on the water, starting in the torrid heat on a windless morning at 10 a.m. and ending close to midnight. We fished in 98-degree heat that felt like 108. We fished in a strong wind that felt like air conditioning. And we fished through a brilliant sunset and a beautiful moonrise.
It was a full day of it, that’s for sure, and it ended with a full box of fish. Heck, the 7- and 9-pound stripers almost filled it.
Breaking free of its grasp
But it was the nighttime that stood out, so nice, cool and peaceful. That is, except for the 10 minutes of buzzing right at sunset.
“What is that buzzing? Is something on in the boat?” Frucci said between catfish.
“No, it’s bugs,” I said. “They won’t bite and it won’t last long (they didn’t and it didn’t).”
We kept fishing and I kept watching over the Rankin County shore for the moonrise. When it finally appeared, sometime around 9:45, it proved worth the wait.
It’s reflection across the lake, from Fannin all the way to our boat, gave us a point of reference for casting. We kept trying to throw our shrimps right down the orange path, and it always seemed to lead to a catfish. But, then, so did a cast in any direction.
“Just how many catfish do you think live in this lake?” Frucci said laughing. “Seriously. This is unbelievable. They’re everywhere.”
I explained that positioning of the boat was key. We were located on the edge of a shallow flat, which rose up out of 30 feet on one side and 20 feet on the other to top out at about 11 feet deep. It is that kind of natural structure that attracts all fish, including the channel cats we were targeting at night and the stripers we had caught that afternoon.
At 11, with hunger setting in fast, we left the catfish still biting on every cast. The moon was well above the horizon by then, and its hold on the night, and us, was strong.
“Kind of tough to break free from its grasp,” I told Frucci, hesitating one last minute before cranking the motor. “I could stay out here all night.”
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