Cermele: Light It Up

That’s me in the photo below fighting a seatrout with a five-weight fly rod on the dock of Getaway Adventure Lodge here in Port Mansfield, Texas. It happens to be my home away from home this week. Photographer Bill Honza snapped the (awesome) shot last night in the eerie green glow cast by the bait-attracting dock lights.

Though there are all kinds of species to chase here in all kinds of situations, I’d be lying if I didn’t say spending a few hours on this dock every night isn’t just as exciting to me as getting out into the bay or Gulf. Fishing under lights, be it for crappies or tuna, is one of my favorite things in the world, because you never know what you’ll see come into the glow. Like the other night, we watched the usual little trout feeding and rolling, then out of nowhere, a tarpon shoots through and scatters the bait.

Growing up, I fished a lighted Texaco fuel dock almost every night of every weekend, and on every one of those nights, security guards would come kick me off like clockwork. They eventually got so sick of kicking me and a few others off, they just ripped the lights out, thus ending five years of weakfish action I’ve yet to match anywhere.

Have you ever had the pleasure of fishing under lights at night? If not, I’d highly recommend it.

JC