Dark Secrets to Nighttime Bass Fishing with Nolan Shivers
Day 4: Nolen Shivers on Wading After Dark for Bass
Editor’s Note: Nolan Shivers of Birmingham, Alabama, a longtime, well-known fisherman for bass and crappie, has fished many tournaments through the years and particularly enjoys night fishing. His techniques will put bass in your boat when the summer sun is blazing. One summer, Shivers boated 15 bass weighing over 5-pounds each and one that weighed 9-1/4-pounds. In the article that follows, Shivers gives his secret tactics to bassing after dark.
 One of the biggest advantages to fishing at night is that often you don’t have to go far from home, you don’t necessarily have to stay up all night, and you don’t have to have a boat and motor to be successful. I have caught some awfully-good bass wade-fishing at night. I like a quality pair of lightweight waders.  Many people wade-fish in blue jeans and tennis shoes, but in the southern waters where I fish, there are leeches and other kinds of water critters that I’ll just as soon not have attached to my hide. I feel more comfortable inside the waders than I do outside of them. I usually wade out about knee-deep and cast-back to the bank.
My favorite lure for wade-fishing is still the worm. As I said earlier, I believe that under all conditions the 6-inch black worm consistently will catch more bass at night than any-other lure.  However, I am not foolish-enough to keep-on fishing the worm when it is not producing. My second choice for wade-fishing is the buzzbait, preferably the Lunker Lure. I believe that a medium running crankbait like a PRADCO Rebel Wee-R works extremely well for the shallow-water wader. On a full moon and a clear night, you can see the structure on the bank almost as well as you can in the daytime. You can cast to that structure and work your crankbait around it in the same way that you will in the daytime.
 I tie a rope stringer onto the suspenders of my waders on which to put my bass. I use a World War II gas mask holder (a canvas bag that the gas mask was put into) for my tackle box. You only need two or three lures when you fish at night, and so this type of tackle box works fine. Another good thing about wade-fishing at night is that you can fish closer to the structure on the bank without worrying about getting hung-up. If you do hang, you can walk over and retrieve your lure.
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