Showing posts with label bats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bats. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Fly fishing and things that go "Whoosh" in the Night

Hopefully this will be one of a series of posts about nighttime interactions.

A couple of years ago, I was fishing off my brother in law's dock.

As I was doing fan casts around the dock this early September evening, trying to attract
anything to take, I literally almost was scared into the water as a 'whoosh' went by my
head and a dark figure dove past toward the water surface:






I really never knew these buggahs hunted at night...until then.

Cool birds.

However, last night, I was trying to entice a freshwater bass to hit my bass bug and came across an old friend:



I always encounter these rodents at night when fishing eastern waters. Especially flyfishing.

They love scaring the c**p out of you as they dive for your fly, and swoop by your hear chasing said fly before it hits the water.

I was surprised that there was not more info out on the net (when doing a quick search) but did find this from across the pond but here it is unfiltered....


Bats and fly fishing
  • Ireland has nine species of bat, all species are protected.
  • Bat favour rivers and streams.
  • Despite recent advances people are frightened of bats, especially at night, in the dark on a river
  • Of 100 fly fishers in Ireland interviewed 62 had hit or hooked bats
  • With an estimated 73 K fly fishing in those years 48 K such accidents
  • Ireland has roughly 500,000 bats (approximately) of which 400,000 are Pipistrelles


kind of interesting stats... I do know of anglers who had to unhook bats. I've had several "hits" from bats but no hookups (thankfully).