Three of us made it to Damon 7 Lakes about 6 PM. The plan was to fish, in the dark, until about 1 o’clock in the morning. This is what actually happened:

Scott was on the Flatstalker(R) at first.

Q was in the boat with a trolling motor. Scott later joined him.

Puck was in his kickboat, hoping that it wouldn’t leak, this time.

Scott fished another lake right after dinner with a one weight, fly rod and a yellow spider. He was successful as these pictures show.

After the darkness fell fishing got tough. Scott and Q hooked up, but didn’t land very many. Puck only landed four with the largest being 5 pounds

We decided to call it a night about 2300, as the fishing had slowed down, and the Texas Vampires had made their appearance.

Fishing in the dark is always a challenge as we typically try to reach for a flashlight. I’ve learned over the years that a flashlight is not your friend. When you turn one on, you loose whatever night vision you had, and any fish in the area have now vacated. If you actually want to catch fish, leave the flashlight off while you are in the the area you want to fish.

I pride myself on being able to thread the hook and tie my knot in the dark without the use of a flashlight. I pulled out fresh fly and was trying to tie it on after having my fly my break off. Only to find that I just did not have the skill needed to do so. After struggling for way more time than I should have, I made my way to the shoreline, turned on my flashlight, which I hate to do when I’m fishing, and went to tie my new fly on the end of my tippet. That’s when I found out that somehow I had glued the eyes shut. The second fly I went to tie on, with similar difficulties, turned out to be a chunk of old tippet still tied in place.

The fly for that worked for me was a size 2 diving frog by Umqua. I lost two of them from break offs.