Catfish
Catfish are traditional night feeders. I grew up fishing beside a fire on the banks of Clark's Hill with a rod or two out for catfish. We also ran bank hooks, trotlines and jugs for them after dark. We got some bites from catfish but a lot more from bugs. Being out in open water is better to help keep the bug bites down.
Crappie
Crappie are a lot of fun to catch at night. Tie your boat up under a bridge, hang a lantern or 12 volt light over the side, drop a minnow down and relax. Some nights bridges look like little cities under them with all the lights from boats fishing.
Fishing Under Lights
You can catch hybrids, catfish and bass as well as crappie under the lights, and if you use crickets or worms bream will hit. Many people tie up just before dark and stay all night, carrying along food and drinks so they can enjoy the fishing. You can even take a nap in a boat when the fishing is slow.
Bass
Bass fishing at night can be great, too. I love to throw a topwater bait in shallow water around cover from sundown to dark. Then when it gets totally dark plastic worms work well. I will never understand how a bass can find a black plastic worm crawling along the bottom in the pitch black dark, but they can. I guess that is how they make their living. Either find food or go hungry.
I especially like fishing around rocks at night. Crayfish come out at night and they like to live on rocky bottoms, and bass love crayfish. I have had good luck on riprap banks and other rocky areas with worms crawled along the bottom, trying to imitate a crayfish looking for food.
If there is some light from the moon or shoreline lights spinnerbaits and crankbaits will catch bass in the dark, too. I have heard bass can see five times as good as we can in the dark, and their lateral line works to pick up vibrations in the water and helps them hone in on food, somewhat like radar.
