Wise men say that is when the first peal takes.

By Charles Bingham

Night sea trout fishing is not for those making a start at fly fishing. If you cannot cast, tie your knots and handle the tackle by day, learn to do so by fishing for trout before you slide forward rod in hand, into the dark river half an hour before the bats start to fly.

I start to think about sea- trout fishing in November at the stationers when I am buying the following year's calendar. This must show the phases of the moon. Full and new moons bring spring tides, and with these high-water influxes into the estuary come the sea trout which press forward up the river. Three days later they reach my beat, five miles above the sea.

There are anglers who shun the moonlight, saying the darkest hours are best. But if you are night fishing for the first time, go for the moonlit nights; you will stumble less. Take care not to silhouette yourself against the moon; fish with its beams in your face. And be stealthy: imagine you are a burglar stealing fish from the river.

Though there is little to be seen before mid June, I start to climb riverside trees at the end of May. Then looking down into the tail of the most productive pool on the river, nerve tingling sights are revealed through polarised spectacles I take care to creep towards the water, using the tree for cover, and climb koala fashion, pressed against the back of the trunk. By the third week they are always there, still grey shadows close to the riverbed, comatose not feeding, biding their time.

If there are three or four slim fish in a group they are school peal, a West Country name for little sea trout about 22 oz on their first return to the river from the sea. Farther out where the water is waist deep, in front of the wretched central boulder on which they snag my line, are the heart-stoppers, the 3-4 pounders. There are not many of those. Having seen what there is to see, I climb down and I go away, crossing Dartmoor to my home to make some preparations. Out comes a 9ft 6in trout rod, a white floating line, which will be visible in the dark, and an 8lb tapered leader. Only in the fly does the choice differ from a trout fisher's equipment, and perhaps in the net - you ought to carry a large one, for a grandfather fish may come your way.

Trout men carry many flies, to the extent that the boxes filled with offerings sometimes confuse them and they waste time making up their minds. Not so the fishers of the night who do not have to match the hatch. Half a dozen patterns cover their needs. If I had to make a choice, I would be happy to fish the season through with just one: a Silver Stoats Tail tube. But if a change brings hope when all is quiet, try something black: a no 8 Black Lure, or perhaps a shiny fly, a Teal and Silver Blue on which the moonbeams glitter. Just to show that I also suffer such doubts, let me mention a fourth, my own creation, the Burglar. Now there's a fly to relieve the agonies of choice.

The other day I found a flattened stoat on the road, not far from Dartmoor Prison, without a breath in him. Off came his tail, amputated with my pocketknife on a fence post. Two tufts of those fine black hairs, or a contribution from a black Labrador, one on each side of a silver tinselled tube, have relieved many a peal of freedom.

There is a torch in my pocket, midge cream on my face, and the sun has dipped below the hills when I reach the river. With care noiseless and shadow like I creep along the bank to sit beside my tree to wait for the light to go. Robber crows sneak to roost in ivy-entwined trees, and the first of the bats flit by. In the West of Ireland, in County Kerry on the Laune, where Willie is the doyen of fisher of the river, they wait until they see three bats before they think it is dark enough to start. Not being Irish, I cannot tell one bat from another, so they system is no good to me-the third bat to pass might be the first one coming back a second time.

The peal are there for one or two have leapt-straight up, glistening and shimmering-and then the splash and widening waves spread across the pool. The time has come.

Picking up my rod and the fly and leader, which have been soaking in a little pool, I cast. Out shoots the line and falls, the fly making a plop in the path of moonlight brightness on the dark, sliding water. As the fly swims across the river my fingers feel the line for information: a pluck, a pull, some sign. Nothing. Drawing another yard from my reel, I make a second cast still nothing.

Now for the boulders where the great ones lie. A pluck a mutter of disappointment. The fourth throw is different. The line checks. He leaps and goes for the deep water. We fight it out in the dim light, the rod bent in a fighting arc, which curves to a desperate fish. He surges down the far bank, seeking a snag, a tree root or the middle boulder, which was his lie. I am full of fear. The pressure tells in time. He gives way and drifts on a bar of light on the mystery of the dark water. Later as he lies on the grass, thick and strong, scales glistening, I am in two minds: triumph is tinged with sadness.

Extracted from "Sea Trout: How to catch them", published by Swan Hill. Published 198 by Swan Hill, £19.95