Night fishing alone ?(not anymore

How many of you prefer to night fish ?
I prefer night fishing always have I love the peace and quiet it offers , apart from the odd wildlife owls foxes etc you hear , I like to mimic the owls it brings them in really close , in my opinion the fishing is always better for the bigger fish too , so when my rods are cast everything is to hand , theres fish rolling in front of me and im sat in my chair with a cuppa and a roll up , this is the time I feel all is well in the world well my little world , the best time to properly switch off from the world and switch on to the fishing , everything is magnified in the still of the night even my senses are tingling you hear everything as your eyesight struggles to see I sit with one hand on my rod and feel every little tap or movement . Every now and again though do you ever get the feeling you are not alone , little unfamiliar noises that startle you that sound like theres someone moving about , so you stop breathing to listen harder , as your heart flutters away. I remember one time night fishing the Severn on a gravel beach it was a warm summers night no wind just the sound of water in the background and all of a sudden out of nowhere no noise or any sign , bear in mind im on a gravel beach there was a bloke stood stood to my left ,I spoke to him asked him if he was fishing and he replied " im fishing for eels" , strange I thought he was pretty scruffy looking and had no rod just a handline then he just walked off into the dark, cant even remember if there was any noise as he walked off , STRANGE made me wonder what the @@@@ was that all about it unnerved me a lot really couldnt get him out of my mind , I was at the highley stretch , there is an old mining pit there from years ago you can still view it now , that started playing tricks with my head. I have heard lots of stories before about fishing on a night but didnt let it put me off but this was a bit odd to say the least, you had to be there to experience it , I still shudder now as im writing , nowadays me bottles gone and so always go with company , well petrols gone up too so it works better for me
Apart from the odd experience I still prefer to night fish .
Cheers.

Fishing at night, brilliant, wouldnt let the eel fisherman put you off, many countrymen can walk on virtually anything without making a sound, he was probably checking you werent a bailiff.

The mind can play some funny tricks on people some of my friends have fished the same water as me for as many years as I have but I have spent more time on the fishery of a night than any of them . they say they have meet people that have walked though trees and on water stood in the swims where they were fishing but other than being visited by hoppeties mice wet and dry the odd fox ect. I have seen nothing nor meet or had persons stand in my swim. I must admit though that when a winter wind blows though the reed beds it can make the hair stand up on your neck if you let your mind go down that road.

Haha never thought of that one , but come to think of it I have fished this stretch for years , I do a week holiday there every year midsummer and fish day and night and have never seen a bailiff , and thinking again Ive only seen a bailiff three times in all my years I got quite excited one time actually getting my licence out to show a bailiff it makes me think it was worth the paying the money just to avoid the fine , if you get me , but there was one time years ago night fishing with a couple of mates we were a lot younger then , two of us fished regular so always had our licences but the other lad who came for a jolly didnt ,as luck would have it a bailiff turned up he checked ours and our friend said he didnt have one ,so he asked for his name and he replied "John Smith" the bailiff then said "whats your real name" he replied "John Smith"this was his real name but it carried on a while in the end John gave him a false name just to get rid of him and it worked ,,you had to be there we chuckled for ages. Good old days

I never have understood why people believe in ghosts, in my experience you have far more to fear from the living than the dead.

Too much Derek Acorah

Titus said:

I never have understood why people believe in ghosts, in my experience you have far more to fear from the living than the dead.

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Quite right.

I used to exercise my police dogs at Roche Abbey in the early hours when on night shifts. One night I was overcome by an eerie cold feeling and made my way back to the van as quick as possible. The dogs must have thought the same as me as they beat me back. I nearly lost my fillings driving up the cobbled drive. Never went back after dark.

Next set of nights I decided to let the dogs out for a run at the Earl of Scarborough's estate nearby. While walking across the field I noticed two red dots on my shirt Turned out I had blundered into the Royal Protection Squad. They were looking after someone who was using his uncle's pad as a shagging palace. Good job the wind was towards them otherwise they could have been suffering from two ingrowing Alsatians.

nicepix said:

Quite right.

I used to exercise my police dogs at Roche Abbey in the early hours when on night shifts. One night I was overcome by an eerie cold feeling and made my way back to the van as quick as possible. The dogs must have thought the same as me as they beat me back. I nearly lost my fillings driving up the cobbled drive. Never went back after dark.

Next set of nights I decided to let the dogs out for a run at the Earl of Scarborough's estate nearby. While walking across the field I noticed two red dots on my shirt Turned out I had blundered into the Royal Protection Squad. They were looking after someone who was using his uncle's pad as a shagging palace. Good job the wind was towards them otherwise they could have been suffering from two ingrowing Alsatians.

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Yep thats the feeling its hard to explain but something inside you tells you it aint right .Maybe a vivid imagination , but I believe we have hidden senses that come into play when these occasions arrive .Who knows maybe there is something more to it but it will never be proven either way?:wh

When my kids were growing up I would take my tackle away on family holidays one year we went to Poole and I hired a 12 foot fisherman with a seagull outboard . We would do all the usual things during the day sand castles rockpools ect and in the evening a meal and entertainment . Then at about 11pm when they had gone to bed I would be off for the night fishing in Poole harbour. One night in the early hours of the morning I was sitting in the boat unhooking a nice plaice when the hairs on the back of my neck started to rise there was not a sound just the water swirling around the dingy I looked up to see two kayaks slipping past me with marines in not a sound was made by the paddles as they past not six foot either side of me it was about 2 am .

Firstly, I think that the original post on this is really good. Hopefully it will elicit many more personal experiences.

As for myself, I've had many a 'scarey' experiecne when night fishing here in England as well as both in Europe and Scandivavia too.
I rhink that there is a period of time deep into the dark hours when our minds do intensify things that we hear or even see.

Fishing in the darkest hours tests all of our 5 senses and maybe even that 6th sense ta times too.
I think that there is nothing better than when all is silent and you are concentrating on your fishing and you see or hear somethig that you cannot quite explain and that's when those neck hairs reallty do stand up to be counted.

I hope I have many more years of night fishing left, but it is becoming more and more difficlut with all the necessary kit needed to be warm, well-fed and comfortable.

nicepix said:

I used to exercise my police dogs at Roche Abbey in the early hours when on night shifts.

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Sorry Nicepix but you've just ressurected a long forgotton incident n I've just got to ask this-- Some years ago I was night fishing a lake not to far from the water you mention, tench were my target and, just as the sun was beginning to come up over the horizon a police officer approched. It was around four thirty in the morning and there was no one else around.
In a very stern voice he asked me what I was doing !
I replied "tea or coffee" and he just said "tea-- one sugar please".IT wasnt you by any chance??
Had to smile when I saw your post.

I can't say i've had any strange experiences whilst night fishing but I do love the solitude of being alone beside the lake and just letting my mind drain off.

flightliner said:

Sorry Nicepix but you've just ressurected a long forgotton incident n I've just got to ask this-- Some years ago I was night fishing a lake not to far from the water you mention, tench were my target and, just as the sun was beginning to come up over the horizon a police officer approched. It was around four thirty in the morning and there was no one else around.
In a very stern voice he asked me what I was doing !
I replied "tea or coffee" and he just said "tea-- one sugar please".IT wasnt you by any chance??
Had to smile when I saw your post.

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Couldn't have been me. I don't take sugar

Here's a police / fishing story that is totally true and happened around 1998-9;

One night I was on the track of a burglar at Grimethorpe near Barnsley. The dog was tracking well when all of a sudden he went absolutely berserk and I was just about to let him off to deal with Billy Burglar when out of the dark came a dancing green fairy. Fortunately for the angler night fishing the Dell with an illuminated float and just about to cast in, I hadn't released the land shark.

meat63 said:

Yep thats the feeling its hard to explain but something inside you tells you it aint right .Maybe a vivid imagination , but I believe we have hidden senses that come into play when these occasions arrive .Who knows maybe there is something more to it but it will never be proven either way?:wh

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I'll tell you what;- That night I was night fishing Newton Kyme on the Wharfe I didn't need extra sensory perception to know that I wasn't alone. Not with a great herd of bullocks all wanting to drink in the nice sandy place I had chosen as my swim. Did you know that a 32" landing net could be used for bull fighting?

Then after I'd beaten them all off one by one and they had drank a little way downstream they all came back the same route. I've never smoked in my life but if someone had offered me a cig that night I would have smoked the whole packet.

I have no doubt that we have extra sensory perception, it's only a few thousand years since we were all tribal hunter gatherers and the difference between life and death was that pre perception of danger which we know as the hair on the back of our neck standing up.
These days we all live cosy lives but in the dead of night we do revert a bit to our primitive selves and our senses sharpen.
This has ****** all to do with spirits though, other than the ones which are 40% proof.

That's right Titus. I've done quite a bit of hunting at night and also used to help a mate out around Christmas times guarding a pheasant shoot at night. When you are out there alone and not concentrating on a float or indicator (or dare I say it; asleep in your bivvy :wh ) you develop an awareness that you don't have or is suppressed at other times. I could walk a woodland path in total darkness and never stumble once yet walking the same path in daylight showed how uneven and littered with obstacles it was. There is certainly still something there lurking about our psyche.

How many times have you been fishing at night cosy in your chair and drifting in that twilight world between awake and asleep when suddenly for no reason you are jolted into full conciousness, all senses tingling, for no apparent reason; only to have the tip of your rod slam round a few seconds later?
Under this thin veneer of sophistication and civilisation we are nothing more than primitive hunters.

flightliner said:

Sorry Nicepix but you've just ressurected a long forgotton incident n I've just got to ask this-- Some years ago I was night fishing a lake not to far from the water you mention, tench were my target and, just as the sun was beginning to come up over the horizon a police officer approched. It was around four thirty in the morning and there was no one else around.
In a very stern voice he asked me what I was doing !
I replied "tea or coffee" and he just said "tea-- one sugar please".IT wasnt you by any chance??
Had to smile when I saw your post.

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Reminds me of when I was a young van lad working for my uncle on mothers pride. We used to set off from home about 2 am because we had to deliver bread over a large area in the peak district, one morning we where not far from the bakery in Chesterfield when we were pulled over by a foot bobby, where are you going, he asked when he could plainly see our pure white mothers pride overalls with the big red badge...bobbies hey, thick as the proverbial poo

Not a fishing tale but I was on holiday with the family in the Algarve one year, me and the Missus and two young kids, together with the in-laws. My lad Harry could have only been about 4, my daughter Lydia was about 18 months old or so and was taken poorly while we were there. We were renting a villa, up in the hills, miles from anywhere.
For some reason, (I think my wife had Lydia in bed with her because she wasn't feeling well), I slept down in the living room on the settee.
I don't know what time it was, I guess it must have been about 2 in the morning and pitch dark... I stirred from my sleep, and had this feeling that somebody was in the room, standing next to the settee. I had my head down on the settee, with a duvet over me, and I was that bloody scared I couldn't look up. I was terrified. The hairs on the back of my neck were stood up, I was sweating, and I could hear my heart beating. I have never felt like that before, or after.
I must have laid there for a good 10 minutes, too frightened to do anything. Eventually I dropped off back to sleep again.
When the family all got up in the morning I was recounting my story over breakfast and my Mother in Law said she woke up in the night and also had the feeling the somebody was in the house.
I asked the villa owner at the end of the holiday whether anybody else had reported anything in the past, but she said no.
But I never want to feel like that again. I would swear that there was somebody standing right beside me.

I have never been scared of the dark being bought up with rabbiting from an early age, but I changed my mind about ghosts a few months ago! I was in a place called Botany bay, an old mill at the side of the M6 that is used as a type of market hall. Botany bay has allways been known for being haunted, I was waiting for my other half to pay for something at the till when I just felt very strange and to be honest quite ill and I nearly past out! It wasn't till I moved away from the bottom of the stairs where I was stood that I felt ok again!
When I fish on the L&L Canal behind the mill now I allways feel that someone is watching me...very weird

mark brailsford 2 said:

I was waiting for my other half to pay for something at the till when I just felt very strange and to be honest quite ill and I nearly past out!

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C'mon Mark, had you just noticed she was using your credit card and you quickly translated the amount into the tackle you could have brought with it?