I left at a reasonable time so I wouldn't be late. Traffic was at a minimum so all went well. I didn't want to be fishing until around 10:00 pm. This gives the fish plenty of time to jump into the lights. Many like to hit the lights right at dark. By waiting until later, you give all the bigger fish a chance to establish themselves into the lights so that you can take a shot at a bigger fish. Many people though get out there and start to fish right at dark. You really miss out on a lot of good chances at catching bigger fish by jumping onto the lights too early. Brian and I were the only ones that were out there with the exception of one other (more on that later).
Brian and I were rigged up and ready to hit the water around 9:30 pm. By the time we made it to the lights to fish, it was close to 10:00 pm. Everything was going as planned. There was no rain in the forecast that night, air temps were in the low 70's, barometric pressure looked good, and currents were moving the water pretty good. The night was looking like a great night for fishing!!
Brian and I started fishing the north side of Tiki Island first. When we hit the first few alleys, nothing productive came from them. Usually this is the case on these alleys so I wasn't worried. Then we came to an outside light early on. I am in a Hobie and Brian is in a paddle yak. He paddled into a strategic position and casted with a soft plastic into the overhead light. Brian pulled a small spec trout out. I casted and pulled a sand trout from it. Next cast Brian laded a 16.5" spec trout and he was on the board. Neither of us was going to suffer a skunk as we caught fish already. It can only go uphill from here, not that it was bad at any point.
The bite was slow but Brian caught a few more fish. The smaller fish were coming out to play. I'm not sure where the bigger boys are at this point. About 3/4 of the way through the north side of Tiki Island I saw a guy riding in a PA 14. He was about to leave. He got on right at dark and made his way all the way around the island with no fish to show for it. This is the reason I say to wait a bit before jumping on the lights. If you hit them too early, especially this time of year, the results are not very good. Brian and I continued on until we got to the west side of the island. The west side can be great, especially if you know which lights are usually guaranteed lights to catch fish in. We approached a particular light which I knew should have fish in it. This light as we approached had quite a few fish in it. I let Brian take that light. A few casts into this light and Brian was one more fish on the stringer. Brian was doing great on a paddle yak considering the current that was moving through due to tides. I could tell he was experienced when it came to paddle kayak fishing. His casts were spot on so that was another give away that he knew what he was doing. Usually, when you are new to night fishing, the night can mess with a person's cast making them not cast well at first. This was not the case with Brian. He was nailing his casts.
I didn't start catching any keeper fish until I arrived on the south side of Tiki Island. In one of the early canals I managed to catch a pretty good sized red fish. I saw a group of fish in a light swimming so I had to time my cast just right so not to spook the group. After casting and retrieving in the water, I managed a fish on! This fish went crazy, changing directions every few seconds. It was like this fish couldn't make up his mind as to where he wanted to go. Finally I was able to land this fish and get him into my fish bag.
A few lights down I saw another light that had fish in it. This light had big and small keeper fish. I was hoping for one of the bigger ones.
I casted and once again, it was fish on! After a short feisty fight, I had another fish on the yak. The problem is that this fish was going to have to go back into the water and live to fight another day. It was a 19" rat red. 
Brian is catching fish but we were both having problems with catching fish of size. Every keeper we caught, we had to work for it. As the night kept on going on, while we were on the south side of Tiki Island, we saw a huge fire happening on the opposite side of West Bay near Offatts Bayou. This fire was HUGE!! If anyone happened to have read up on the news to know what that was about, post on this thread and let us know.
We kept on fishing and before you know it, we were done. Brian and I hooked the final corner and made our way under the Tiki bridge. Before you know it, we were at the launch spot and the time was around 4:30 am. Brian ended up with two reds and two trout and I had two reds.
I made it back to Houston and to my boat storage around a little after 6:00 am. After putting everything into storage and keeping the fish on ice, I made my way back to my place. I took a shower and headed to bed. I fell asleep close to 7:00 am. I woke up around 11:00 am and went outside to cut up my two red fish.
I was trading my fish fillets for some home made masks my wife's friend made. She made us a few masks for the family. The masks were of good quality. In addition to those two reds, I gave her some speckled trout I caught a week ago that I had already cut up and in my deep freezer.
All in all a great night of fishing. I am not sure why the bite was so tough but Brian and I had a great time!!
