You want to know if something different is going to work? Gotta get out there and do it to gain that confidence (night creatures)

Go back and have a quick read of this paragraph here from the other day, when a mate messaged me to ask me if these creature baits work at night. I am completely confident with these types of lures during the day now, and I know of a few friends who are very good anglers and who have caught a lot of bass on them in the dark. But I haven’t done so yet, or up until the other night I had not tried for a bass at night on a creature bait. I know they work because friends have caught on them, but knowing just isn’t quite doing - and the actual doing is surely the key to fishing. Unless there is a shortcut I have not come across yet, there is no other way I know of to gain that vital confidence than to get out there and do it yourself………….

So as per my most recent blog post, this mate of mine went out and caught his first bass on a creature bait (all 65cms of it!!), and it happened to be at night. He then went out the next night and caught a few more. So now he’s got that confidence you so badly need when you are trying a different technique or lure or location and so on. He now trusts that he really can catch bass with a happy lobster on the end of his leader, and he also knows that what I believe are crab imitation lures also work well at night. I myself am very confident that these lures work in the right (daytime) situations, but I hadn’t yet tried one at night, indeed my night fishing efforts since my heart attack have been very minimal for various reasons I won’t bore you with.

So over last weekend we arranged to meet up and give it a crack in the dark. I wandered down to stand slightly back from the water’s edge because even though there was no light, it was very calm and still and any bass did not need me splashing around in the shallows. I clipped on one of those Nikko Craw 3.2inch creature baits rigged on a 2/0 Seadra T120 Weedless worm hook with a 7g Berkley Fusion cheb weight (not all cheb weights are born equal, more to come), and I said to myself that this setup was not coming off until I caught a bass. It’s great to see other people doing it, but you need to do it yourself to truly, truly believe and not go changing lures after a few minutes.

Check this blog post here for how I am rigging my creature baits at the moment

So when I heard a bass or two come pretty quickly to a couple of the lads, I was obviously heartened to know there were fish around. But I still hadn’t done it myself. Then the mind starts playing tricks. There are obviously fish around, but I haven’t caught one yet. Is it because I am not using the right lure or technique? Do I change to something like the white Savage Gear Gravity Stick Pulsetail because I have had loads of bass on these lures at night and therefore I feel supremely confident using it? It would be so easy to change what I had set out to do because I didn’t have that vital shot of confidence yet, but I had promised myself my creature bait setup wasn’t coming off until I caught. Stay with it Henry!

And then I did. Catch that is. I got that tap, tap, give it a second and kinda go with it slightly, tap, bang, strike, bass on! One bass comes to hand and it is all I need to instantly trust that these lures work at night. One bass on my rod on a type of lure I hadn’t fished with in the dark, and it works. I did end up landing a few more bass, indeed at one point I released a chunky fish of about 4lbs, cast back out, and literally got hit on the drop by what felt like a better fish which then threw the hook. A good few years ago I badly needed to get the confidence that lure fishing for bass worked in the dark, and here I was in the middle of a late summer night, chasing that all important jolt of confidence once again. I was in bed by about 2am but my brain was bouncing away and it took me ages to get to sleep. Those few bass in the dark on the happy lobsters have got me thinking about so much more that I can do………….

Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.