I love Bass fishing at night. No doubt about it, my biggest fish have mostly been caught at night. Spinnerbait is #1 tool for me at night. Conventional wisdom is to fish clear water at night and stained water only in daylight. I have to say that I have been unable to disprove this. With all those big bass that live in the upperend of my lake(which is stained) I can't seem to get them to bite at night so it's back down to the lowerend when darkness falls. My lake has one mudflat in particular that is probably 10 acres in size. It has isolated laydowns on it from flooding. Depth is 1-4ft, visibility is 1ft. During the day I have fished these laydowns and caught bass from 1-6lbs. I've pulled as many as 25 bass from one isolated laydown during one outing. Problem is that when it gets dark...nothing! Is it the stained water/darkness combination? Is it possible that the bass move out of the cover and prowl the flat(shad still flippin around everywhere after dark sometimes). Any of you guys catching them in stained water at night? Other tecniques? Don't get me wrong, Spinnerbait is #1 for me but I also use t-rigged worms, pig and jig and jitterbug. I would LOVE to add the upperend to my list of night fishing spots since I know firsthand about the big bass potential in my lake. What do Ya'll think?

Have you tried a buzzbait?  A black one after dark works pretty good on my home pond.  It's the same concept as the spinner bait...lots of noise.  From what I've read, the black works best because it makes the best silhouette against the night sky from below.  sounds counter intuitive, but in my experience it works.  

Any noisy topwater in a black color should work. You could also try casting a giant crankbait for those trophy bass.

Yeah...noisy topwater/big cranks!

Dont rule out poppers at nite either i have had great success with them in all types of water at nite as well as buzz baits. I have also used spook type baits especially if your hearing shat jumping at nite.

I have found that big flats at night can be great but you really gotta campout on it.

We fish the edges of the flat, corners in particular at night and find few fish but always quality.  They seem to roam up there for an hour or 2 and then they are gone but if you are there when they show up,you're inn for a good night.  

This is the plan tonight.  Heading out to meet member nboucher for the first time.  I plan on fishing some deep grass lines and dop offs in particular.  We will start with the small flats off the tongues of the islands and as the sky gets brighter, we'll move deeper.

In short, if you're fishing a flat that produces well during the day,...sit tight and let them come to you but don't sit up in the middle of it,...Hug an edge, preffereably the one near the deeper water.

My guess is the bass scatter at dusk, leaving the safety and familiarity of cover to roam all night feeding in the clear waters they usually prefer to avoid by day. The time to fish muddy water is in full daylight for me. That's flippin' time.

Jim

Try a chatterbait. I fished with one for the first time today and I'm a believer. Apparently the 2 lber that I caught was also a believer. Those things really put out some vibration. I couldn't believe it when I first casted.

Most people don't realize this, but certain areas at night suffer from oxygen depletion. In turn this will make the fish leave that area at night. This is common in shallow grass beds when it's hot as well as clay bottoms, but at times I caught them using a Texas rig. Good luck

Our club fishes 2 night tourneys a year. In the past 8 years I've caught the most fish on plastics, like 10" red shad power worms. Last weekend I slayed em on 4" finess worms at night. My biggest bass in a night tourney was 5lber caught on a Bandit 200 gray/ black. Also black spinnerbaits. Clear water is always better than the muddy water at night IMO. I prefer stained to muddy water normally though in the day. we use blacklights to help see our line and always fish around the full moon so we can see better.

Sounds like you have them patterned out. Why change? If you know that at night they are catchable in a certain place then stay on them till that pattern ends. Ever heard the saying strike while the iron is hot?