Did I mention you can night fish for rainbows?

Got the late summer fishing blues? Dodging personal watercraft? Cursing sunburn? Stumped by lethargic fish in warm water? Well, I’ve got a deal for you — go night fishing.

One night last week, I met my buddy Jim at 8:30 p.m. at the boat ramp at Foy Lake, just south of Kalispell. (Yes, that’s the correct name.) No water skiers, no jet skis, no swimmers. We had the lake all to ourselves.      

I held the bow rope while Jim launched the boat. (Did I mention Jim sprinting, quite uncharacteristically, down the hill from the parking area?)

After motoring slowly to Jim’s hot spot, we positioned the boat between two widely-spaced anchors, then lowered two underwater lights. The lights are intended to attract fish at night.

(Did I mention the reason Jim sprinted was because he suddenly remembered he hadn’t replaced the boat’s drain plug from fishing the previous night? The bilge pump pumped water back into the lake for about 20 minutes.)

We lowered traditional kokanee jigging rigs — RatFinkee or Glo-Hook tied on fluoroline below a Swedish Pimple — two cranks above the bottom in 35 feet of water. The hooks were sweetened with maggots or kernels of white shoepeg corn.

Fishing was slow the first half hour, then picked up steadily. Jim was crushing me until I realized my old Finkee wasn’t glowing. (Ever happen to you?) I switched to a brand new Glo-Hook, and when I supercharged it with a camera flash, it glowed and matched Jim fish-for-fish.

While Jim had caught kokes up to 17 inches on previous trips, we caught only rainbows, up to 16 inches. Pretty darned good lake fishing for the third week of August.

We’d planned to fish until 11 p.m. (Did I mention the starter battery was dead when we tried to start the outboard motor?) We shut down one of the lights, hoping the battery might recharge a bit by itself. Fishing slowed noticeably and the bites seemed more subtle.

(Did I mention we used jumper cables to connect both batteries, hoping for enough juice to power the electric trolling motor back to the dock?)

We fished another half hour, caught a few more trout, then faced the inevitable. (Did I mention the trolling motored pooped out within 50 yards and we paddled back to the dock at midnight?)