Potter County: Birthplace of Night Fishing

by Tom Dewey

    Even with the fore knowledge of having grown up here in what many believe to be the birthplace of night fishing, I have occasionally been surprised to discover, when they paused to light up or uttered an oath on a missed strike, a local fly fisherman who had never revealed his predilection for pursuing trout at night.
     Legends have sprung up around the sport. Not surprising when you consider the ingredients that are necessary to make it happen. First you must have big trout to fish for...why venture out in the wee small hours for tiddlies? Second, by its very nature it is a solitary act...the way we fish at night simply does not lend itself to ordinary social skills. Third, the demands placed on the serious night angler do not leave much room for normal work-a-day routines...either at home or on the job. For these and other reasons, it is not a wildly popular pastime.
      Thus it was that having figured I would have the Costa Hole all to myself on a fine moonless June night a few years ago, I was rudely reminded halfway through the evening that I was not the only night fisherman hereabouts. I hadn't seen or heard anyone approach, partly because of my own absorption, but also because it is the nature of the night fisherman to move quietly and without fanfare. Four of us worked the hole; the four of us never spoke to each other. My hoped for strike of the night, a rod grabbing, arm wrenching giant that raised a tidal swirl before viciously throwing the hook brought but a muttered "nice fish" from one of the shapes. No introductions were tendered, none expected. I have no idea who these men were. But we all knew we were night fishing...and that was enough.
     But for those whose curiosity is healthy and those who want to experience a different fly fishing format, night fishing fills the bill. Essentially, it sharpens another set of senses and forces the fisherman into another mode. I strongly suspect that it turns our personal evolutionary clock back some, perhaps to the time on this planet when we were solitary night time creatures of no great significance.
    The literature on night fishing is sparse. Probably the best source is the late Jim Bashline's Night Fishing for Trout and I will quote extensively from it, as it is the most thorough treatment available. Joe Humphreys' Trout Tactics also includes a section on night fishing, as does George Harvey's The Techniques of TROUT FISHING and FLY TYING. There may be other sources with which I'm not familiar, but overall little serious attention has been given to this corner of the sport. I have searched in vain on the Web for anything substantial.

Let's Start With The Trout

"You may also be a marked man if your first serious night-fishing adventure includes a solid strike and the surge of a respectable trout. If the mystery of why the trout seized your fly continues to fascinate you, and you return to the river again to seek the answer, you may well have gone over the brink."[Bashline, Jim, Night Fishing for Trout (Rev. Ed.), Wautoma, Willow Creek Press, 1987, page 121]

   
       Night fishing evolves out of daytime excursions. In other words, while one might set out to learn night fishing at night, in practice what happens is that we find ourselves, usually at dusk, just getting ready to call it a day, when an extraordinary rise or swirl rivets our attention. It's obvious that this fish isn't in the same class as the others over which we've fished all evening. The impulse is, of course, to sling everything we have at the big one, hoping to connect. But it rarely happens. Normally, his feeding behavior is different and, if we can curb our natural impulses, it pays to sit down and observe. Often these trout have very definite feeding routines and it becomes apparent that they didn't get to be this size by wasting time and energy on minutia, i.e., little mayfly imitations.

      While sitting and watching, study the water. You'll need to come back, of course, and when you do you'll be fishing the drift, the swing and the backwaters. With a wet fly rig designed strictly for night fishing (more on this later). On the way out, figure a good route...there may be nights you'll need to come in after dark. Sure, you can use a flashlight but then you will have wasted at least 20 minutes upon arrival at the hole so that your eyes can make the adjustment to night-light. Night-light? Yes, even the darkest, moonless night contains some ambient light. It's surprising, actually, how well our eyes make the adjustment. Certain nights, on certain streams that I've fished often in the daylight, I have actually waded the stream without mishap.

      Another situation begs for our close investigation. You've come upon a magnificent trout hole and have visions of landing all sorts of nice fish. Alas, nary a brookie rises, despite an almost perfect layout. The hole has depth, cover, sufficient size, and plenty of insect life. This is a hole to return to at dusk. Quite often the absence of small fish indicates the home of a lunker. The details can vary, but if conditions are right for a big brown in an otherwise well populated stream, then he's probably there. He'll not feed much, if at all, in daylight.
    Do big trout eat little ones? You bet your best rod they do. And "little" may be a respectable foot-long brook or brown caught unawares. As a boy it was my job to burn the papers in the burn barrel on the riverbank. One evening, just as I'd set the stuff ablaze, I heard a terrific commotion down on the gravel bar just a few yards away. I arrived in time to see a wake, a big wake, leaving the bar, and a stranded 15" brown flopping on the gravel. The "wake" retired to the Belnap Hole, a dark, deep undercut lair beneath huge willows. Big brown.
    On occasion you will inadvertently stumble upon a lunker while working the stream in daylight. I recall one such instance on the Oswayo. I had turned to go upstream from the hole I had just finished with, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a large, very large, dark shape move out from under an undercut bank in the hole above. Sure enough, a strong brown, at least 2 feet in length, maybe more. I had promised Bob Scherer, retired entomologist from Loch Haven University, some night fishing during the course of his study of the Upper Allegheny. Here was the trout!
    A few nights later found us at the hole. Bob is an accomplished night fisherman and it didn't take him long to size up the situation. On his second cast the brown struck with such force that the rod was nearly ripped from Bob's hands. The ensuing struggle was brief, with the brown the victor. Bob was stunned and shaken. The trout had snapped a 6-pound tippet like it was sewing thread.
    Listen to the bait fishermen. Especially in early season. Loose talk of "near misses" for large trout should be noted. Youngsters, for some reason, seem to have all the luck. The careful angler doesn't put their stories down to exaggeration. Don't we see their pictures in the newspaper?

The late Bob Chamberlain as a youth proudly displays a nice Allegheny brown, probably caught in his own backyard. [photo courtesy of my son, Phillip, who found it in my mother's collection, and identified by my bother Robert.  Bob was an angling/hunting buddy of Tom Leete and an outdoorsmen's mentor to many of the kids on Allegheny Avenue]

    It should be apparent by now that in this respect, i.e., locating the trout, night fishing differs significantly from daylight outings. Because it is dark, because we can't see well, we need to know before hand where we'll be on a given night. A certain amount of self-discipline might be required on public waters. A popular hole might have to be "waited out," that is, you might have to tarry well into the evening until the other anglers have gone home in order to have the hole to yourself.

    Need there be more of a reason for fishing at night? While the taking of big fish might be justification enough, I'm not so sure there isn't a more basic appeal. The sport requires planning, preparation and motivation beyond the ordinary. And there is a haunting resonance that keeps pulling the night fisherman back to the stream. Perhaps it's the night sounds, perhaps an awakening awareness that yes, life in the stream goes on, even at night. Perhaps it's slightly romantic and appeals to the sense of doing the unusual, even the outlandish. Maybe even slightly aberrant, as in, masochistic...after all, didn't you give up a nice warm bed to be here in the stream? Perhaps it's simply easier to dream of big fish while standing in the dark, waiting. Whatever it is, nearly all night fishermen have it.


     The best night fishing holes have several characteristics in common.  Ideally the hole is fed by a narrow pitched "run" which imparts enough velocity to the water so that it can create a deeper, sometimes much deeper, mid section.  Chances are this deep water will lie up against a bank.  The pool then tails out into an extensive "flat" of modest depth, say, no more than a foot deep.  This, in turn, chokes off into another steep run.  The very best holes will include any manner of sunken tree trunks, boulders, etc. which become the daylight homes of large browns. A slack water area opposite the far bank will undoubtedly deposit mud and silt, perfect habitat for certain larvae and small trash fish.


      The day time dry fly fisherman, of course, works the hole by casting upstream into the "V" where the run enters the deeper water.  All day time trout will normally concentrate on this conveyor belt for the aquatic insects caught by the current.  But at night larger trout, genetically tuned to not expending more energy than they can recoup from ingesting floating food, will lie in the shallower water of the flat where all they need do is to "tip up" a scant inch or two to scoop morsels from the surface.  And they may not be inclined to venture far from their liars next to logs and other obstructions.  Better yet to simply intercept a wounded minnow, drowned large mayfly, or what have you.  These trout became large because they have "learned" to let the stream bring the food to them.
       By casting across stream the fly can be presented in profile so that the trout gets a good "look" as it drifts and tumbles toward the slower water of the flat.  It is not unusual for the trout to slip back with the fly before it takes. It is when the fly swings and straightens  that you'll most often get  the strike.  More than likely it will be a vicious take; be prepared to set the hook smartly, then allow some slack line before proceeding to play the fish.  Without a strike on the drift, the fly can be hand-retrieved to simulate a wounded minnow or struggling insect.  It is not unusual to receive a resounding strike just as you lift the line for the next cast.  Be prepared.
        How to make sure you don't get hung up in the sunken logs, and other obstructions that invariably accumulate in these holes?  Perhaps the best way is to practice when there is still enough light to judge casting distances and the best casting positions.  Show up in the early evening a few times and pay close attention to the details. Perhaps take a break for food and drink, then return later after dark.
     And before we leave the subject of holes, let's not forget the keepers of these places.  Were it not for landowners who tolerate the antics of us fish-crazed nightfishermen, then this part of the fly fishing sport we love would be lost.  I recall one especially, who clearly went beyond the call of duty.  I had been a regular visitor for weeks to one of his off -the-beaten-track holes and could return safely to the car without a light quite late at night.  One pitch black night about 2:00 a.m. as I slipped the key into the trunk to stow my gear I was startled out of my wits when the voice of the landowner spoke up:  "Got a little worried about ya...thought I'd come out and see if you were OK."  70 years old and giving up a nice warm bed just to check on me!  [After an absence from his stream of ten years, on a day time visit, this same gentleman's first words in greeting were: "Well, have you caught the big one yet!"].

The Night Fishing Outfit

      Your night fishing rod may be the same one you use in daytime, but probably not. In practice you'll want to develop a "rig" that is always ready and available and that pretty well precludes it from doing double duty. I tried, on one occasion, to develop a day/night system, using an interchangeable tip. It proved to be less than satisfactory.

      An 8-foot rod, slightly soft and sensitive in the tip, with plenty of butt will suffice for nearly all situations. My Orvis 8'-3" All 'rounder, while maybe just a bit too stiff in the tip, nevertheless performs well and can easily handle the heavy flies used at night. (By swapping out the spool with another loaded with a bug taper it makes an excellent daytime bass popping rig also.) The ideal night fishing rod allows the angler to feel every nuance of the underwater experience.
    On this rod, designed as a 7 weight, I'll use either a 7 weight double taper or an old weight forward. The old line has lost some of its "floatability" and becomes, in effect, somewhat of a sink tip, which helps in getting the fly down. Lines are separately spooled (with backing) on an inexpensive Orvis 3-1/2" Madison.
    The critical issue in this night fishing rig is your terminal set up. Don't even consider walking into a fly shop to buy a night leader - they don't exist. You must tie your own. First, the overall length: It must not be longer than tip top to keeper (or the top of the cork, if you have no keeper, and transport your rod by keeping the fly on the stripping guide a la Lefty Kreh). Next, the taper: A basic leader for the All 'rounder would be 22" of .020, 22" of .017, 13" of .015, 13" of .013, and 22" of .012 for a total of 92". The general rule is that the butt should closely match the fly line diameter, and taper down rapidly to anywhere from 10 to 6 pound test, depending on circumstances. Connection to the line is either with a nail knot or loop to loop. Don't use slip on loop connectors; instead, strip off the fly line coating and create the line loop with the braided line core.
    You don't need a big, powerful flashlight. If you've scouted your destination in advance in daylight, and are familiar with the water, an ordinary drugstore flat-sided mini light loaded with two AA batteries will be enough to get you to the stream and to illuminate fly changing. These units are small enough to be held between the teeth while changing flies. Their small size and weight means they can be conveniently carried in a small vest pocket. And fly changing is the only time they should be used, while your back is turned to the stream. In time you will discover that because of the heavy tippet and the big flies with big eyes that you'll be using, you can change flies without any light at all.
      A sweater, a good pair of nippers attached in some manner to your vest, your night flies organized in a floating fly box, suitable wading gear, perhaps a sandwich or snack tucked into a spare pocket, spare tippet material and you're all set. The usual net carried by the well-dressed fly fisherman designed for landing 12 inch trout is totally useless after dark. Leave it home. One final item - a hook hone. Unlike ordinary small drys or wets, which really aren't worth trying to resharpen, the night fly will benefit from an occasional touch up. While best done at the bench, honing may be necessary on the stream. Fished underneath under nighttime conditions, these flies can take a beating from stones, sunken logs and the errant back cast. We're all set now, except for the flies!

The Night Flies

"I am convinced that night fishing for trout was brought to its highest degree of perfection in the headwaters region of the Allegheny River. Potter County was the mother lode of this specialized sport. Where else in the world is any wet fly larger than a size 10 always referred to as 'a night fly'?" [Bashline, page 45]

     
    Perhaps it’s the selection and dressing of night flies that makes the night fishing experience so enjoyable. Gone is the slavish attempt to match-the-hatch, to mimic every little bit of life in the stream. Night flies are big, their tying is a lot less stressful than tiny BWO's or midges. And one is not so reticent about experimenting a bit, to try the outlandish creation that would surely scare the hell out of a daytime trout. 

"Generally, the materials used for night flies should be soft in texture but positive of color. The reds should be real reds and the Silver Doctor blue should be a very vibrant shade, but no material should be of dry fly stiffness. Soft materials should be used because a trout may occasionally pick up the fly on a slack line and hold it for an instant before the angler realizes the fish is there. If the hackle, wing and tail are extremely stiff, the night-taken fly may be ejected before the angler has a chance to strike." [Bashline, page 52]

    Any of the standard wet fly patterns can be easily modified for night work. Probably the most important modification is to build a rather robust underbody of wool or chenille before adding the usual elements. Heavy gauge silver, copper and gold wire as found in craft shops can be substituted for more expensive and lighter fly tying tinsel. I use ordinary nail polish for head lacquer, different colors denoting different weighting systems.

    One of my favorite patterns is the Marabou Muddler tied in the conventional manner (on larger, size 4 streamer hooks) but with a body of Christmas tree tinsel (Mylar) wrapped over an underbody of ordinary heavy, black sewing thread. The inherent property of the Mylar produces a metallic greenish reflection when wrapped over a black background. A gold or silver rib can be laid over the whole.

Here are a few of my night flies, ranging from a #4 wet to #2 limerick.  Note comparison to a quarter.  Upper left is a mouse, below it George Harvey's 'Pusher Fly'.

 

      Size 4 wet fly hooks are the mainstay of my wet fly patterns. Over time I have pretty well weeded out the 6s and 8s. Woolybuggers and other "water moving" patterns can be tied up to 1/0 and 2/0 on black limericks with turned up eye (essentially, salmon hooks). Greg Hoover, no stranger to night fishing, introduced me to this hook with a killer olive chenille wooly bugger pattern.

"The salmon Bombers, big Muddlers, huge deer hair bass bugs and frogs have all taken trout at night, and more would be taken if anglers would remember that night-feeding fish are always on the lookout for a substantial meal." [Bashline, page 55]

 
      So what are some of the preferred patterns? Certainly the traditional Black Dose, Lord Baltimore, Lead Wing Coachman, Montreal, Grizzly King, Royal Coachman, Blue Charm, Silver Doctor, Thunder and Lightning, Black Gnat Silver, the Hare's Ears, Governor, and other wet flies. The Muddler in its various forms, Clouser's Minnows, Wooly Buggers, the Whitlock Sculpin and other streamer patterns with some flash can be extremely killing.

"The student of fly-patterns will note that in nearly all of my suggested night flies, one or more of three materials will be found. These are peacock herl, gold or silver tinsel, and a bit of red. The red may take the form of feather, wool, or floss. In fact, most of the truly outstanding night fly patterns have two of these materials included in their make-up. The effectiveness of red is easily explained by the trout's predatory instinct. The usefulness of tinsel might be explained by its suggestion of the flash of a small baitfish. The use of Mylar piping material appears to have become accepted in modern patterns. Peacock herl has historically been a favored body material for trout flies. It possesses an iridescent quality and a buggy appearance that trout find very fetching. Always look for herl that favors the green; it is usually fluffier and has a far more lifelike quality than the feathers referred to as "bronze." It may be difficult to find." [Bashline, page 51]

    

     And, of course, the George Harvey "Pusher Fly." Pusher Fly? George Harvey? And here I'll let Bashline tell the story in full:

"For nearly 40 years, George Harvey was the fly fishing instructor at Penn State University. During that period he sheparded 35,000 students through the mysteries of fly tying and fly fishing via his special course, which was a bona fide part of the curriculum at Penn State.

"As good as Harvey is with a dry fly, and he is very good, his fame as a nighttime angler was legendary four decades ago. In 1973, when "Night Fishing For Trout" was first printed, George bought a copy and soon after sent me a couple samples of the strangest-looking flies I'd seen up to that time. With the package of flies was a note: "I discovered while reading your book that you don't think too highly of dry flies for use at night. For many years I wasn't too keen on them either, so I set about designing some that I thought would do better. They have. Here are a few for you to try. Good fishing after dark."

"To make a long story short, I tried the flies, they didn't impress me, and some two years later I had an opportunity to tell George of my less-than-stellar performance with his flies. He suggested I give them another go...and gave me another assortment, in different colors and sizes, some as large as a 1 or 2.

"On a less-than-perfect night shortly afterwards I began to work the tail of a well-proven pool on Sinnemahoning Creek. In a short while I was into a very good fish that had engulfed one of George's size 2 pushers. And what a strike! The way the water caved in around the fly, and the solid run upstream into the deep water, spelled big fish. After a few minutes of deep tugging, a bull-headed male brown of about 21 inches lay at my feet. Not bad for my first fish on a George Harvey pusher.

"The pusher fly has still another advantage. Here I suspect George of being just a bit devious. We've talked about this fly being a floater, which it is if dressed well with floatant, but the truth is it works just as well - and maybe better - as a wet fly. Fished across and downstream, and not worrying if it floats or sinks, it can perform wonders. When queried on this George, with what sounded like a muffled chuckle, confessed that "well, the pusher does take trout on the surface, all right, but actually, I've taken about 90 percent of my night-caught trout on this fly while it was being slowly retrieved underwater. The trick is to allow it to reach its maximum swing in the current and then bring it through the water very slowly by stripping in line or with the hand-twitch retrieve. Those pusher wings flex and unflex as the fly is worked, and that action, along with the fat fuzzy body, seems to be very attractive to big trout."

"It is also of no small importance that the largest fly-caught brown trout ever taken in Pennsylvania was caught on a George Harvey pusher. The big fish weighed 15 lbs. 5 oz. and was caught by, of all people, Joe Humphreys, Harvey's replacement and long-time acolyte at Penn State." [pages 63 - 72, edited. Note: George Harvey's book, Techniques of Trout Fishing and Fly Tying contains detailed instructions on tying the Pusher Fly.]

Postscript

    I wrote the above history of night fishing in 1997.  Alas, since then, for various reasons, I haven't ventured much on stream at night.  But on a perfectly still warm summer evening I can still feel the pull of the stream and my mind clicks back to nights on the Oswayo and Allegheny Rivers.  Rarely do I talk much about those excursions - even some of the older daytime fly fishers with whom I'm acquainted have hinted that I must be peddling outlandish "fish stories."
    "Mr. Trout," however, can be confirmed.  "Mr. Trout," as my then fishing partner Chris Snyder and I called him, turned out to be a very large brown in the upper Allegheny in the early nineties.  Week after week through a summer of low water we conspired to take him.  The owner and clerks of Halloran's Hardware probably grew weary of hearing about our abortive attempts.  "Yeah, yeah, Tom...really big trout, right?"
    I figured the ideal night would be in the wee small hours after an early evening thunder bumper when the water would be cooler, slightly off-color and rising.  Big trout would come out to prowl.
    The ideal storm arrived, but I had previously committed myself to help out in the Crittendon Hotel kichen for a fund raiser.  The next morning Chris regaled me with a detailed account of his one-half hour struggle to land Mr. Trout.  I've forgotten his weight, but he stretched out to a mind-boggling 28 inches!
    Curiously, it was the 100-year-old Crittenden Hotel's night clerk, Bob Pinney, who pioneered night fishing in the years between World Wars I and II.  It was Pinney who taught Bashline, and it was Bashline who taught me.  Perhaps, Bob, on behalf of all who have followed in your boot steps, you'll excuse my rather lame excuse - a GOOD night fisherman would have hired a substitute!
    I have no way to prove it, but it occurs to me that night fishing was dealt a severe setback at  just about the time I began to get serious about fly fishing.  As a kid, I can remember the night fly fishing fraternity gathering at evening at the old Goodsell Hole, at the confluence of Mill Creek and the Allegheny River in mid-town.  Pinney, Bashline, "Boney" Shaw, Stub Metzger, et al, and, of course, Paul Caulfield, who didn't come to fish, but always had plenty of free advice for the others as he stood on the bank.  Pretty exciting stuff for a 12-year-old.
    But not to last.  In 1954 Bashline had been posted to the Aleutians to serve his time in the Korean War and the "Deep Hole" (as we kids called it) was doomed to be obliterated in the building of the flood control channel,  an Army Corps of Engineers solution to a persistent flooding problem which probably could have been dealt with in other ways.  Jobs, money, convenience, low maintenance, etc. - all of the usual "quick fix" arguments overruled the concerns of the few sportsmen and other residents who savored the willow-hung alley of the Allegheny as it meandered through town.  The expression, "quality of life" quite simply, hadn't yet entered the lexicon of the electorate.
    I lived but a few yards from the hole and watched that evening in 1954 as a frantic last minute assemblage of die-hard fishermen tried to net the many big trout as the bull dozers churned the hole into oblivion, to plant them further upstream. But their efforts were too little, too late.  And ironically, my first payroll job was to work for that same construction firm to complete the channel below the Chestnut Street bridge.

The end of the "Deep Hole" with the construction of the flood control channel, probably late 1953.  Note the former Lewis property in background.

   
    I wonder what might have happened had the Goodsell "institution" not been destroyed; would famous fly fishers have made their way to Coudersport during the boom years of fly fishing in the nineties?  Would ABC's "Wide World of Sports" sent in a team to film the gang at the Deep Hole?  Would the tourism agencies actually have billed the Goodsell Hole as a "must see?"  Who knows.
    Not to beat a dead horse: most of the participants in this narrative are long gone, the infamous "channel" has proven to be able to handle the worst Mother Nature could throw at it (1972, 1996), and most important, the nature of streams does not endure, unchanged.  Like life itself, all moving water is destined to change, there can never be an absolute.  Be it man-made or through the mechanics of nature, all streams are destined to re-configure themselves, tirelessly and endlessly.  There will always be other Goodsell Holes; it is the unique role of the night fisher to find them.

Commemorative stone honoring Jim Bashline placed  on the channel right-of-way, at the approximate  location of the Goodsell Hole, June 1 1996.

Photographs and Graphical Images

My son Phillip, Ann Arbor, MI, for the snapshot of Bob Chamberlain; Sylvia Bashline for the photo of her late husband, Jim, landing a nightfishing trout.  All other photographs and images are the authors.