Hey, Keith here.

I’ll bet the first thing that comes to mind when I say “night fishing” is a green light?

I know. That’s what I thought for years.

But there’s another way to fish at night, and it's a lot closer to how you already fish during the day. 

I learned this from a guy I interviewed last year for a magazine article. He'd caught a 10-pound bass at a Georgia state park on an old Creme Spinner Worm.

His advice helped me catch a five-pounder on a camping trip at a Louisiana state park.

Today I’m going to share some info Will gave me and also talk about that trip. 

As a writer, I'm always learning from the anglers I interview. The whole night-fishing idea came when I interviewed Will Henry for an article on how to catch bass in August.

During the interview, Will told me that while most anglers are watching the radar for the first cool weather of the year, he's in the middle of some of his best fishing of the year.

He just waits for the sun to go down to do it.

Will learned to night fish from his uncle as a teenager, and he's lost count of the big bass he's pulled out of the dark since then. Five- and six-pounders, several over eight, and one of the three double-digit bass of his life.

"The larger bass like to feed at night, and it's not as hot," he told me.

Because running big water in the dark gets tricky, Will does most of his late-summer fishing on smaller water, community lakes, and subdivision ponds.

"Next time you and your family go camping in our state parks, don't just fish in the day," he told me. "Stay up and fish nine p.m. to midnight."

I didn't think about that quote again until I was standing at a campfire a few months later.

We were camping as a family at Bogue Chitto State Park in southeast Louisiana.

I'd already fished the park's pond that morning and caught three bass, all before nine a.m., before the heat ran me back to camp for a cold shower.

That night we were sitting around the fire, and the moon was close to full and throwing a lot of light. I said something like, "I wonder how lit up that lake is right now."

My buddy Jeff stood up. "Let's find out."

We walked the five minutes down to the pond, and once our eyes adjusted, we could see the whole thing.

The shoreline, the water, even a covered dock across the lake. That was enough. We ran back for our rods.

I started down the bank throwing a StutterStep by Bill Lewis, walking it the same way I would in daylight, just casting a little farther off the bank to stay clear of the trees I could barely make out along the shoreline.

About 10 minutes in, I heard a slap on the surface, way out past where I could see the lure. Nothing came of it, but I kept walking the bait left to right the same as always.

Farther down the bank it happened again, only this time it wasn't a miss. I heard an aggressive blowup and felt the line come tight.

I hauled back to about the one o'clock position and the fight was on.

I had no idea what I had. It could've been a gar or a pickerel for all I knew, until it jumped. I heard the hooks rattle on the way up and felt that headshake only a big bass makes.

I lowered the rod to keep it from jumping again and worked it to the bank, where the moon lit it up clean enough to lip it myself.

I let out a whoop loud enough for Jeff to hear across the pond, held it in the water until he got there for a photo, then let the five-pounder go.

That fish taught me the same thing Will already knew. You don't need a green light hanging in the water to catch bass at night.

You need the same instincts you use in the daytime, adjusted for the dark.

At night, bass aren't picking out color; they're picking out silhouettes against whatever light is left in the sky or bouncing off the water's surface.

A solid black or dark bait throws a sharper, more defined outline than a light-colored one does, especially fished on top where the bass is looking up at your lure against the surface.

Pair that dark profile with something loud or heavy vibrating and you're giving the bass two ways to find it instead of one.

Here are a few dark, big-profile lures worth tying on for a night trip: