FOREST AND STREAM 
;>.) 
Night Fishing 
A Bass Fishing Story of Westchester County 
By W. F. Smith. 
“Those bass ought to bite like mad as soon as 
this storm passes,’’ said Ed., as we sat just in¬ 
side the door of the camp watching the rain 
swirling and roaring through the woods, to the 
accompaniment of crackling branches and sway¬ 
ing tree tops and incessant crashes of thunder 
and flashes of lightning. 
“They certainly should,” I replied. “I fished 
steadily from six o’clock last night until ten 
o’clock this morning and not one strike did I 
get in all that time, and I don’t believe any fish 
have been caught during the day either. I’ll bet 
the fish felt this storm coming and simply re¬ 
fused to feed with all the electricity in the air. 
You know they are effected by changes like that, 
such as the rising of the moon, changes of wind 
and all that. What do you say if we stay up 
to-night and have a try at them?” 
It was a Sunday afternoon in late September, 
and we were spending the week end at our camp 
on Peach Lake in Westchester County. We had 
planned starting home that afternoon but had been 
interrupted by the thunderstorm, and were then 
waiting in the camp for it to blow over. 
“I’m willing,” said Ed., answering my query. 
“But it will be hard to start off early enough in 
the morning to make that long journey and get 
to business in 'the city on time.” 
“Oh, what does being sleepy one day amount 
to when we can get a good string of fish. We 
can sleep the clock around to-morrow night if 
we want to, and make up for lost time.” 
So we settled it, and forthwith changed back to 
our fishing clothes and got our tackle in readi¬ 
ness to start as soon as the storm let up. 
This did not happen until quite late, nearly six 
o’clock, but then it blew over toward the east 
leaving the western horizon a clear blue in which 
the sun set in a blaze of glory, giving promise of 
a beautiful night. 
We sallied forth through the wet underbrush 
to the shore', and then almost gave up in disgust. 
Our boats were filled to the gunwales with rain 
water, and even after they should be bailed out, 
would still be too wet to be comfortable, for the 
sun had set and there was no wind to dry them. 
And wet seats in a bot mean, as every fisher¬ 
man knows, “the seven years itch” as Ed. called it. 
However, we set to work, and after a hard 
half hour’s work, had them as dry as it was 
possible to get them, and set off across the lake. 
The storm had not entirely disappeared from 
the sky as yet, as we could see from our open 
position in the middle of the lake. Far over in 
the East, over Long Island Sound we thought, 
the black clouds continued to hover, flashes of 
lightning flitting from end to end, and very faint 
rolls of thunder coming to our ears. The air too 
seemed charged with electricity, and neither of 
us felt good; it seemed to have a depressing effect 
on us both, what with being tired out from fish¬ 
ing all the night before, and the realization that 
we were the only people for miles around, and 
black night coming on. It may be a strange 
feeling for two grown men to confess, but let 
any one on such a night place themselves on a 
big lonesome lake such as we were on and I 
think they will feel pretty much as we did. 
On the north shore of the lake we ran up into 
a sort of small river and looked for frogs. I 
intended to depend on pork rind, but wanted a 
few frogs for emergency. 
It was dusk by now and the frogs hard to see, 
but after a protracted search I managed to catch 
five on my side of .the river and put them in a 
wooden minnow box I had in my boat. 
We then separated, Ed. going east and 1 west, 
heading for a huge cliff about a mile down the 
shore, where in the deep water, I felt sure I 
would strike something at that hour. 
When I arrived, as I thought, opposite the 
cliff I rowed toward shore intending to get with¬ 
in casting distance. Of the shore line I could 
see nothing whatsoever. The cliff being black 
and the night black I could see no division be¬ 
tween the water and the shore, and could only 
tell where it was by the faint lapping of the water 
on the cliff base. 
Within thirty yards I picked up my rod and 
cast high and hard to cover the distance. But 
strange to say there was no sound of the bait 
striking the water when I stopped the reel, and 
I reeled in feeling no weight on the end of the 
line. I knew something was amiss, but just what 
I could not guess. I shook the rod, and what was 
my amazement to hear the hooks rattle directly 
over my head not three feet away. I was right 
in against the face of the cliff and the hooks had 
caught on a branch straight up in the air. 
“Now starts my hard luck” I thought, as I 
backed out after untangling the gear. “Confound 
this darkness anyway, I never could fish nights 
unless the moon was up.” 
I -cast past the cliff without a strike and got 
into shallower water, and here, at the second cast 
I was hung up on the bushes on shore. I shook 
the rod, i-t held fast, so I pushed in again, to 
find that the line was caught ten feet up on 
shore, so I stepped out, dropping an oar over¬ 
board as the boat began to drift away and I 
scrambled wildly into it again and recovered the 
oar. Once more I pushed ashore and hauled the 
boat well up, only to find that the bait was caught 
on the bushes out in the water and twenty feet 
further along. 
I loosened the half hitch from around the twig 
and pushed off again. This time the boat acted 
like a live thing and started for the middle of the 
lake at race horse speed, and I dropped my rod 
and hustled back to the rowing seat, starting it 
once more in the desired direction, and at last 
located the bait by the whiteness of the pork rind 
and recovered it. 
“Enough of the darkness,” I resolved. “I’ll go 
ashore and sit there until the moon comes up.” 
I figured that the moon would rise in another 
hour, after which the fishing would very likely 
improve. So to the shore I went, seating myself 
on a big flat rock under the cliff. 
I sat there smoking my' pipe and soliliquizing, 
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