Night Vision

[Sawyer]

I have a factory in Cheshire & we have been having a "nocturnal pest" problem of the long tailed furry kind, given we also have a lot of more pleasant wildlife around the area I am always adverse to using poison. The pest control who came out last week was telling me about a couple of his mates who used airguns at night to solve our kind of problems. Last night they came down for a very reasonable fee but what I was most impressed by was the night vision equipment they were using, mainly a pair of ex-army night vision goggles to spot & another device on the scope to do the dirty work. Long story short I had a try with them afterwards & was amazed at the clarity & perception they gave even in the darkest stores with no external light source, in the main factory bays it was akin to looking around on a very bright full moonlit night.
After all that, has anyone tried using them or a similar product for fishing at night for our elusive friends? I know it seems a bit like cheating but I can think of a couple of places on my river where they would be invaluable & would open up some of the stretches where due to the trees/vegetation it is not possible to fish at night.

[laffingravy]

I don't wish to poo poo your suggestion out of hand but the fact is that, at least for me scrambling around in the absolute pitch black is all part of the appeal of night time sea trout fishing. Night vision glasses would kind of kill it off for me and the sense of mystery would be lost. There is still that unknown element probably brought on by an element sensory depravation that makes the whole experience really very magical

[Sawyer]

I agree & to some extent it would take away a lot of the "unknown" in our sport but long stretches of the river I predominantly fish (Dwyfor) are so overgrown/wooded that it is dangerous to proceed even with an intimnate knowledge of the river. In particular at the end of the night I always have
half an hour running a worm around on my fly rod, the increased vision would enable me to hold the worm up as it passed through the lies (some of which are half the size of the aveage dinner table) & hopefully be slightly more successful!!