Sandbass at Night!

[JeffB]

Sand bass fishing at night, nothing beats it. I've been land locked pretty much all year, only been on the water a handful of times. So I took advantage of my wife being off of work for the night and the good current conditions and hit the water around 8pm. The game plan was through big baits all night and leave the smaller stuff at home. I went out geared with heavy rods paired up with a couple Calcutta D's ( if you don't have one, I defiantly recommend spending the money for one of these bad boys, they're like mini conventionals), a saltist 20 level wind and an EJ. I rigged each rod up with 1 1/2oz- 2oz jig heads with 6/0 and 7/0 hooks. I had two 6" swim baits tied on with a 6" grub and 5" swim bait. Right off the bat the bite was hot. It stayed that way off and on through out the night. The fish were really aggressive and ate the 6" swim bait almost all night long. I did switch things up a little during the slack tide. I put on a 1oz jig head paired with some 4" baits. It seemed to do the trick in a little bit shallower water ( 35'-40'), most of my fish came in 47'-50' of water, a few in 53'-55'. I caught my fair share of shorts, but caught some nice fish as well. Over all I had about a 2 1/2lb average for the night with the sand bass and a 11" average with the Calico's. I had a coupl fish in the 4lb range and a decent number in the 3lb range. I did not catch any monsters, but did have 3 big hits. First big hit double my rod and ripped my 6" swim bait right off the jig, brand new bait. The second one pulled the hooked about 30 secs into it, and the third one did a repeat of the first one. Over all I would have called it an average to above average night for me. Caught probably in total 7-8 short calico, 10 or so short sand bass, and a solid 30x 16"-17"+ sandbass with a couple 20"+. I was fishing alone, so don't really have any pix, plus my phone died in the first 30min of being out there. I fished till about 6:30am hoping for an early morning halibut bite. The tide was completely slack and not working in my favor. I would highly recommend getting out there and putting some time in at night if you have a chance while the bite is still going. I found that the summer bite usually slows down pretty good.