Columnist Paula DelGiudice: Now is a good time to go night fishing

Paula DelGiudice

Wednesday, June 28, 2000 | 9:59 a.m.

Paula DelGiudice's outdoors notebook appears Wednesday. Reach her at PDelGiudice@compuserve.com.

While it may seem like the best activity during the summer is swilling iced drinks with the air conditioner whirring while you watch someone else catch fish on television, think again.

Night fishing, when temperatures moderate just a bit, can be a great time to catch fish. Not only is it cooler, but many fish actively feed at night. That is especially true of catfish.

Catfish will prowl the shallows during the dark hours. Lake Mead has many catfish ready for the taking.

Catfish find their food by smelling it, so that's why typical catfish baits are stinky. You can purchase prepared stink baits or you can use nightcrawlers, chicken livers or similar offerings.

These bewhiskered creatures are perfect for the beginning angler. They don't take a lot of finesse and you can cast your bait and wait for the fish to come to you. Make sure you weight your line a bit to keep the bait close to the bottom where the catfish are scrounging.

Anglers have been doing quite well recently fishing at night for catfish in the Overton Arm. According to NDOW reports, Las Vegas angler Jay Pennington and two other anglers caught approximately 100 catfish while fishing the Overton Arm. One of the anglers, Wes Davis, caught a catfish that weighed more than 20 pounds.

David Pfiffner, supervising game warden for the Nevada Division of Wildlife, said officers checked 197 boats, which included 129 from California, 36 from Nevada and 32 registered in Arizona.

"One telling statistic is that 46 boat operators admitted that they had consumed alcohol," Pfiffner said. "This is 23 percent of the boaters who were contacted."

While it is not unlawful in Nevada for boaters to consume alcohol or to have an open container on a vessel, it is illegal for them to be intoxicated. Pfiffner said that boaters who are found to be above the legal alcohol limit of .10 are arrested with bail set at $2,000.

The checkpoint was a cooperative effort of the National Park Service, Arizona Game and Fish Department and the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

Applications must be received by 5 p.m. on Monday to be eligible for the drawing. Those who apply for tags will be notified of the results by July 21.

Resident tags available in the second drawing include nearly 2,600 junior either sex deer tags, 2,100 antlerless (doe) deer tags, 1,300 muzzleloader buck deer tags, 69 cow elk archery tags and nine archery buck antelope tags.

Applications may be obtained at most stores that sell hunting licenses as well as the NDOW offices at 4747 West Vegas Drive in Las Vegas and 744 South Racetrack Road in Henderson.

This effort will kick off immediately with the distribution of one million booklets that focus on key hunting issues, including safety and good sportsmanship.

Firearms retailers and gun club officers should write or e-mail Colleen Swain at NSSF to order the Budweiser booklets. The address is NSSF, 11 Mile Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470; e-mail: cswain@nssf.org.

A recent national survey found that most fishing, hunting, and boating enthusiasts don't know much about the 60-plus year-old manufacturer's excise tax that funds state fish and wildlife agencies. However, they strongly support and defend it once they are made aware of the benefits it brings to wildlife conservation and preservation efforts.