Inshore Fishing at Night (The Complete Guide)
Night time inshore fishing often leads anglers to their personal best fishing catches. Those huge fish that ignore your baits and lures all day will often bite aggressively at night. They have a harder time discerning your artificial lures from real prey items at night so you will catch more fish.
This is especially true during the ultra hot months in the deep south of the United States. The water temperatures are just too hot for most fish species in the summer months.
They will hang out in deep water until the water temperatures get to the levels that they are comfortable. This means that early mornings, late afternoon and night will be the best times to target fish when it is hot out.
All that you have to do is find lights that shine into the water at night to find all sorts of different fish species to catch.
I am an INSHORE FISHING GUIDE on the Treasure Coast of Florida. I have been fishing the docks, beaches, mangroves and grass flats all over Florida for more than 40 years.
In the article below, we will talk about the best baits, lures, tackle, tips, tricks and the pros and cons of inshore fishing at night.
Let's get started.
Watch the video below to learn more about fishing flair hawk snook jigs at night.
Night time inshore fishing often leads anglers to their personal best fishing catches. Those huge fish that ignore your baits and lures all day will often bite aggressively at night. They have a harder time discerning your artificial lures from real prey items at night so you will catch more fish.
This is especially true during the ultra hot months in the deep south of the United States. The water temperatures are just too hot for most fish species in the summer months.
They will hang out in deep water until the water temperatures get to the levels that they are comfortable. This means that early mornings, late afternoon and night will be the best times to target fish when it is hot out.
All that you have to do is find lights that shine into the water at night to find all sorts of different fish species to catch.
I am an INSHORE FISHING GUIDE on the Treasure Coast of Florida. I have been fishing the docks, beaches, mangroves and grass flats all over Florida for more than 40 years.
In the article below, we will talk about the best baits, lures, tackle, tips, tricks and the pros and cons of inshore fishing at night.
Let's get started.
Watch the video below to learn more about fishing flair hawk snook jigs at night.
How do you fish inshore at night?
The best places to fish inshore at night involve lights. Lights around bridges, docks, inlets, sea walls or anywhere else where lights shine into the water will attract bait fish and the predators that eat them.
Your best bet for catching fish successfully at night is to find structures with lights on them to fish around.
Bridge Fishing at Night-- Bridges are a great place to fishing for snook, tarpon, redfish, speckled trout, sharks, grouper, snapper, sheepshead and many other species of fish at night.
The lights around the bridges will attract shrimp and small fish that the predators will eagerly devour if they get a chance. Your job is to find safe and suitable bridges to fish off of.
Some bridges do not allow fishing so you need to figure out if the ones around your area will let you fish.
SNOOK
Snook love to hang out around bridge lights. A flair hawk snook jig is the undisputed champion snook lure for night time snook around lights. If you can master this lure, then you can catch snook anywhere at night.
There are some MONSTER snook that will hang out around bridges so you will need to beef up your tackle to catch them. You need larger and stronger rods, reels, line and leaders because they will be in deeper water; very close to structure; typically in strong tides.
I use a 7 foot medium/heavy rod with a 5500 series reel filled with at least 30 pound braided line and a 50 pound leaders to fish for big snook around bridges.
You need to cast up current and work your jig back to you within a foot of the bottom at roughly the same speed as the current is moving for best results.
I wrote another article on this website all about how to catch a snook in Florida. It covers the best baits, lures, tips, tackle and techniques for catching snook. You can read it by clicking right here.
TARPON
Tarpon love to hang around bridge lights at night too. You can catch them with a flair hawk jig too if you swim it higher in the water column but they prefer other lures.
Tarpon will be in the upper parts of the water column when they are hunting the lights around bridges. A large paddle tail with a jig head is a great way to catch these tarpon.
You will want to use a paddle tail that is 4 to 8 inches long with a jig head from a 1/2 ounce up to 2 ounces depending upon the conditions. Dark lures work great at night because they allow a lot of contrast for the fish to see them better.
Work your paddle tails just outside of the light shine so that you can work the lure from the dark water into the light. The bigger predators like to lurk in the shadows until a suitable prey item swims through the light.
You will need similar tackle for the tarpon that frequent bridges at night. Tarpon grow much larger than snook do you a 6500 or 7500 series reel with a stout medium/heavy 7 foot rod will be a good choice for you.
Fill the spool with 50 to 80 pound braided line and a 60 to 100 pound leader might also be necessary to catch MONSTER tarpon around bridge lights.
WANT TO CATCH SNOOK,REDFISH, TROUT AND TARPON? BOOK YOUR FISHING CHARTER TODAY!
SPECKLED TROUT
Speckled trout also love to hunt around bridge lights at night. Speckled trout will mostly stay in the upper parts of the water column and dart into and out of the light shine to grab a prey item.
The best lures for fishing bridge lights at night for trout are paddle tails. A 3 or 4 inch paddle tail is a good choice with a 1/8 or 1/4 ounce jig head. Once again you will be casting up current and working it back to you slowly.
You will want to keep your lures in the upper parts of the water column for best results around bridge lights.
I wrote another article on this website all about how to catch a speckled trout in Florida. It covers in detail the best tips and tricks to catch trout in the day or night hours. You can read it by clicking right here.
You can get away with a 2500 or 3500 series reel and a medium action 7 foot rod for speckled trout fishing around bridge lights. Fill the spool with 10 or 15 pound braided line and use a 15 or 20 pound leader.
Watch the video below to learn more about catching speckled trout with soft plastics.
Dock Fishing at Night--
Docks are another great place for inshore fishing at night. Docks have multiple pilings that are each a place for prey items to hide around. The lights that most dock owners have will attract all sorts of small fish, crabs, shrimp, marine worms and other yummy prey items for fish to feed upon.
Dock lights tend to shine into shallower water than the lights on bridges so you can often downsize your tackle and use different baits. In my experience, you will be fishing docks from a boat or a kayak in water that is 6 feet or less in depth.
REDFISH
Redfish love to hunt around well lit docks at night. The best lures for redfish around docks are those that are presented within 18 inches of the bottom. Redfish like to stay close to the bottom as they hunt for food.
You need to get your bait or lure presented to them where they are hunting or you won't catch them. A scented bait works very well for redfish because they rely upon their amazing sense of smell to find food.
The best redfish baits that I have ever used are Berkeley GULPs. The shrimp and swimming mullet are the ones that I use the most but I am sure the other ones work too. Fish a gulp shrimp with a 1/8 ounce or 1/4 ounce if there is a strong current for best results.
Pitch your jig right under the dock and work it from the dark water into the light for best results.
Your best bet for a rod and reel combo will be a 3500 series reel (unless you are targeting redfish over 30 inches) and a medium/heavy rod filled with 15 pound braided line and 20 pound leader.
You will want to upgrade to a 4500 series reel and fill it with 20 or 30 pound braid for those big redfish around docks.
SPECKLED TROUT
Speckled trout love to hunt around dock lights at night. As the grass flats around Florida are destroyed by toxic freshwater run off trout are living around docks more. There are less of them around but you can still find a few around docks both day and night.
It is very hard to beat a paddle tail coupled with a jig head. You can use a 3 inch paddle tail and a 1/8 ounce jig head for best results. A scented bait like a Berkeley Shrimp or swimming mullet are my first choice but a normal soft plastic will work just fine too.
You will want to use a 2500 series reel and a medium action rod as your trout combo. Fill your spool with 10 pound braided line and a 15 pound leader will do the trick for some good sized trout.
You will want to work your lures in the middle and upper parts of the water column just outside of the light shine. As you work it into the light is when you will often get your hits so be ready.
Top water lures and suspending twitch baits are another great choice for targeting speckled trout around dock lights. I like to use a walk the dog type of lure. Here are a few of the names of my favorites:
- MirrOlure Top Dog
- Zara Super Spook
- Bomber Badonk-a-Donk
- Rapala Skitter Walk
These lures are all meant to be worked in a zig zag pattern on top of the water from the darkness into the light around the docks. Speckled trout, redfish, and snook love to eat these lures. They are all very similar and they all cast well and give you great action. You will have to decide which ones you like the best.
Watch the video below to see top water dock fishing for redfish action.
Dock Fishing at Night--
SNOOK
Snook love to hunt around dock lights at night. They will sit around a productive light all night if there is food there for them. Your job is to keep fishing all of the dock lights until you find the ones with fish on them.
Your best bet for fishing dock lights at night is the 3 to 5 inch paddle tail with a jig head. I probably sound like a broken record by this point but paddle tails are a great lure to catch most inshore species of fish at night or day.
You just have to keep the lure within 18 inches or so of the bottom for best results. Snook like to hang out near the bottom and attack from below. You have to keep your lure in the snook's strike zone for best results.
You will want to work this lure from up current in the shadows into the light for best results. Snook are usually facing into the current waiting for some unsuspecting prey item to come their way.
You will need to have a 3500 or 4500 series reel depending on the size of the snook that you are targeting. Get a medium/heavy action 7 foot rod and fill the reel with 20 pound braid and a 30 pound leader when you are fishing the docks.
FLOUNDER
Flounder are the stealth predators of the docks at night. They will come in and find the perfect ambush spot and wait for prey to come right to them. They don't usually want to chase a fish, shrimp or crab too far so you have to get your lures right to them.
The flounders' strike zone is 12 inches from the bottom maybe 18 inches if they are really hungry. They also like an extremely slow presentation. You can practically drag your lure through the sand and catch flounder. There is no such thing as a presentation that is too slow for a flounder.
I wrote another article on this website all about how to catch a flounder in Florida. It covers best baits, lures, tackle, tips and tricks for catching flounder. You can read it by clicking right here.
The best bait for flounder is a Berkeley GULP swimming mullet or shrimp. You only need to buy white ones. The other colors will catch flounder but white is the undisputed champion when it comes to flounder lure colors.
You will want to get yourself a 3500 series reel and a medium action 7 foot rod for flounder fishing the docks. Fill your spool with 10 pound braided line and 15 or 20 pound leader for best results.
The key to catching flounder at night is to bounce your jig on the bottom with a slow retrieve from the shadows into the light. Flounder have a very subtle strike so you have to be paying attention or you will miss it.
Watch the video below to learn the best lures and techniques for flounder fishing.
Inlet Fishing at Night--
SNOOK
Snook love to hunt well lit inlets at night. You can catch some absolutely HUGE snook in the inlets around Florida at night. However, inlets are hard to fish.
Inlets are lined with large granite boulders usually so you will have trouble getting the fish out of the water once you catch them. You will also get cut off on those boulders often.
Inlets are also deep. Most are at least 30 feet deep and snook like to hug the bottom. This means that you will need a heavy lure to get down to where they are.
Inlets funnel huge volumes of water so the tides are stronger in the inlets than other inshore places. This means that you will need beefy tackle, rods and reels to fish inlets effectively.
BUT you can catch some monsters once you master inlet fishing.
Once again the best lure for inlet fishing at night is the flair hawk snook jig. These lures work so very well for snook that some snook specialists only fish with this one type of lure.
You will need a 5500 series reel filled with 30 to 50 pound braided line and a 50 pound leader to fish for big snook in the inlets at night. You will want to couple this reel with a medium/heavy 7 foot rod.
The technique is simple. You will cast your jig as far up current as you can and work it from the darkness into the light at roughly the same speed as the current is moving.
TARPON
Tarpon love to hunt the inlets at night. These are usually the gigantic ones that weigh 100 plus pounds so you will need to bring your A game and your best fishing gear if you want to land one.
The best lures for night time inlet tarpon are large paddle tail lures. A dark colored 8 inch paddle tail will do the trick in most scenarios. You will want to cast this lure up current and work it back with a steady retrieve and repeat until you find the hungry tarpon.
I wrote another article on this website all about how to catch a tarpon in Florida. It covers in great detail how to achieve this bucket list fishing goal. You can read that article by clicking right here.
You will need at least a 6000 series reel but it would be better to have a 7500 or 8000 series reel filled with 80 or 100 pound braided line and a 100 pound leader. A very stout medium/heavy action rod will work or you might want to step up to a heavy action rod for the HUGE ones.
Tarpon are the apex of a fighting inshore fish species so be ready for a battle if you hook into a big one.
Conclusion:
Night time is the right time to catch your personal best fish inshore. The large fish that will usually ignore your baits and lures during the day will often greedily devour the same baits and lures at night.
The key to your success when you are fishing saltwater at night is to target places with lights that shine into the water. Those lights will attract all sorts of delicious prey items for hungry inshore fish species like flounder, snook, tarpon, speckled trout, redfish, sharks and many more to eat.
You will have to match your rods, reels, line, leaders and lures to match your target species of fish but hopefully this article will help you do that better now that you have read it.
Do you like how to fishing articles like this one? If you answered yes, then get on our email list because we will send you a new one every week. Sign up now and get your first one today.