After settling into a beer at hotel bar, my thoughts were turning to food when Jeff Yates of the Mianus Chapter came up to me and said "It's time!"

It took a second, by recognition hit my face: "Let's do it." We had planned since the beginning of the NE Regional Meeting to get in a bit of night fishing. Continuous rainfall and flood warnings had kept us cooped inside the hotel, but after checking the flow reports, the tailwater Swift River was a running in direct contrast to its name -- rather slowly and not affected by the rainfall at all.

So we gathered a few other intrepid folks ranging in ages from twenty to seventy and piled ourselves into two cars and headed to the river, about a forty minute drive away. Like school kids on a field trip, we were giddy with excitement. And it only got worse as we saw the evening hatch of sulfurs rise out of the darkness in our headlights... and then it nearly exploded as we saw frogs hopping across the glistening road. The fish should be hungry!

The Swift is a perfect river for night fishing. There is an easy place to gear up in the dim lights of the car.

Then it is an easy hike to the Y pool which is relatively shallow where you can wade in and cast easily to the deeper sections. Laughing the whole way and nearly running the trail we were so amped up, we crashed into the water, pulled our lines out and then...

"Fish on! Fish on! Fish on! Fish on! Holy crap, do we all have fish?"

Literally the instant our dry flys hit the water, eighteen to twenty inch trout bent our rods, and all we could do was scream with joy, laugh, and reel those bad boys in.

You have to remember that the Swift is an incredibly tough fishery. With gin clear water and hundreds of fish as far as the eye can see.. the fish are smart and during the day can skunk the best of us... tease us as they now we are watching when the swim to your fly give it a little sniff, or kiss, and immediately reject it.

So it came as a huge surprise to both see the Swift Completely empty of anglers at night and even more so to have the fishe immediately and voraciously eat our dry flys. Of course, they caught on and after about half an hour we had to resort to streamers and other big stuff which kept us all occupied for the next several hours... until about 1AM.

We even took a little jaunt to the dam release point. Pretty ominous stuff... the hairs on the back of your neck slowly rising as the water seemed to quicken and you awaited the soft orange light at the gates to flash in alarm and a horn to announce the release of an onrush of water... but we made it through safely, didn't land any fish there and hiked back to the Y pool for the last action of the night.

This was an amazing experience which all admitted might have topped some of their all-time fishing adventures... and of course the story only got better as we told folks about it the next morning bright and early at breakfast.