Night bite on the James River is on FIRE!

With the daytime bite being somewhat finicky, I decided to give the night bite a try. Being a teacher on spring break I had the opportunity to fish Sunday evening into Monday morning, and I took full advantage

I hit the water and grabbed some bait, then went up river to fish for some hickory shad before the sun went down. I had enough bait to last the entire night and got rods rigged up, ready to go. On the first anchor, I caught a small fish, but it was proving to be too windy to keep the boat settled so I moved to a new location.

At the new location, I anchored up as the sun was setting and got ready for a long night of fishing. I started to pick up a number of small fish mixed in with some medium sized catfish. One trophy blue came in this mix around 35 pounds.

The bite was steady and quality, but there was a little downtime between bites. I took the opportunity to lay down on the comfortable pontoon bench seats, and catch a nap for 20 minutes at a time waking up to check on the rods. Around 1:30 in the morning, a rod started screaming as I was watching it. The fish started pulling drag and I thought it was a huge catfish. I battled the fish for two minutes, and it was still pulling drag, which is when I realized it was not a big catfish but likely a striper. This fish fought with all its might, pulling drag for nearly 5 minutes, when I finally got it to the boat and was able to net it. This turned out to be my personal best stripper at 32 pounds and 41 1/2 inches, a fight. I’ll never forget.

The James River truly is a special place this time of year and I was quickly reminded of that fact about 40 minutes later when another rod doubled over. A totally different fight, this fish dug for about 30 seconds and then shook its big old head all the way to the boat for the next minute. Once I netted the fish, I realized how big it was and struggled to pull it over the tall railings on the boat. Making our third trophy fish of the night this 46 1/2 inch blue cat weighing 55 pounds was a welcome site..

That bit of action put me close to 3 o’clock in the morning and I knew I had to catch a little bit of sleep before it was time to fish for Hickory shad again. Around 4:30 in the morning I had another rod hook up, but the fish swam the weight into a snag in the river. I gave the fish some slack hoping he would swim it out, but he never did. I had to pull the boat off anchor and go chase the fish down, pulling the snag out of the rocks. It was sure worth the effort as another trophy fish came in the boat. This was a 38 inch blue cat weigh 35 pounds.

The fish were nice to me and calmed down for a little bit, allowing me to catch about an hour of sleep. I woke up to the sun starting to peek above the horizon.

As the sun came up, the surface was stirring with fish activity, and I started to fish for some Hickory shad. I caught a couple and use them for catfish bait through about 10 in the morning. No more trophy fish surprised us in the morning but catching four was a heck of a good time. We did catch a few other small fish before we put the boat on the trailer and headed home.

If you have your sights set on trophy fishing, an overnight trip is a great way to do it. The James river was really showing off that night and it was a good reminder of how special places is.