Catfish do not become different animals at night, they just stop being careful. The same fish that sat in twenty feet of water all afternoon will be up on a flat in four feet an hour after sunset, and it will be a lot less fussy.
Why the dark helps
Catfish hunt on smell and on the lateral line, so losing the light costs them almost nothing and costs their prey a great deal. Add the fact that boat traffic and swimmers are gone by nine and the shallow water becomes usable again.
In a Texas summer there is a second reason. Surface temperatures in the high eighties push everything deep during the day. The first few hours after dark are when the shallows cool enough to be worth being in.
Where they will be
Work the edge between shallow and deep rather than either one. A flat that drops into a creek channel, the end of a point, the outside of a weed line, the shade line under a lit dock. Blue cats will run the channel edges, channel cats will be up on the flat, and flatheads will be in the timber and not moving far from it.
Structure matters more than depth. Standing timber, laydowns, rip rap and bridge pilings all hold fish after dark, and on the cypress lakes the trunks themselves are the structure.
Timing it
The first two hours after full dark and the last hour before first light are the two windows. Moving water helps, which on a reservoir means wind pushing into a bank or generation pulling current through the main lake.
Summer is the easy season for numbers. Spring after the spawn and the first cool nights in autumn are when the better fish move shallow.
Packing for the dark
Everything takes longer at night, so everything wants a home. Headlamp with a red mode so you keep your night vision, a second light you have actually tested, and a landing net you can find without one.
It stays humid long after it stops being hot, so a light long sleeve beats a t-shirt for mosquitoes as much as for temperature. And you will still be out at sunrise, which is when the shirt earns its rating.
The short version
- Set the boat or the bank up in daylight if you can.
- Red headlamp first, white light only when you have to.
- Fish the edge between the flat and the channel.
- Pack the long sleeve for the bugs and for sunrise.
Gear for it. Have a look at the Texas coast, the hooded performance shirt or what to wear fishing.