Just when I thought I had fly fished every way possible on my local river I wasintroduced to the next step in fly fishing bliss. We stepped into the river at 9:00pm as other fishermen were stepping out.Puzzled looks on their faces after a decent evening of dry fly fishing wascoming to a close. We were armed with 6 and 7 weight rods. My buddy had astripping basket which made the parting fly fishermen even more curious, as ifwe were fly fishing for stripers from the shore. We took our position at the topof the run and planned on working our way down river. Our eyes wereadjusting to the night sky. The moon was out in full which added a certainambience to the experience. Casting to the far shore and slowly strippingour deer hair mouse patterns you could almost hear your own heart beatwaiting for that strike. On my third cast, just off the shore my line wenttight. With a strip set, I was into a nice fish. With heavy leader it waseasy to get the fish in quick, snap a picture and let it go. What a rush. Ihave found a new favorite way to fly fish. I think I had more action then duringa day time outing.Night fly fishing brings the monsters out! The big fish that don’t move to muchduring the day come out in the open in the evenings. It was still amazing tosee that a 13 inch trout would come up and hit a mouse size 2 or 4 hook, but themajority of the fish were 16 plus with a good number of tout in the 18 to 22 inchrange. Being night time the fish will come out in the open and it ispossible to hit a fish 10 feet away. A 6-7wt rod helps with the large bulkyfly. A heavy leader is also important. You will certainly end up on the far bank or ina tree behind you because it is hard to see. The heavy leader will allow youto rip your fly out of the trees…being that spinning deer hair mousepatterns is time consuming.