Under the full-moon light, Palestine Lake was alive. The air was cooled by a sunset thunderstorm, and now a chorus of frogs was singing full blast, and a dozen or more owls chimed in from the shadows. Percussion was handled by bream and bass, snapping and popping among the cypress knees lining the shore. Every critter on the lake joined in on what sounded like a joyous celebration. It all seemed surreal under the lunar light that was on again, off again as clouds passed across the night sky.

"Looks like the moon's 'bout full as a tick on a dog. It's gonna be good and bright tonight," said Danny Jordan, a longtime friend and a seasoned veteran with 25 years of law enforcement with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. We had been planning to do a little nighttime full-moon bream fishing for more than a year but something always came up.

As the moon cleared the cypress trees we launched his canoe-johnboat hybrid and slowly worked our way along the grassy shoreline. Danny and I have spent many nights jiggerpole-fishing the lake for bass, and we would hear big bream feeding at the surface on insects and other surface critters. On those trips we found ourselves wishing we had brought along fly rods and a few popping bugs to give them a shot.

Due to the extended drought afflicting much of Florida, Palestine Lake was lower than normal. Subsequently many of the shoreline cypress trees had exposed root systems. With this in mind, Danny figured the cypress trees would probably be a good place for panfish to be hanging out while waiting for insects to fall into the water. He maneuvered the boat just off the narrow grassline and we started casting our poppers into the darkest shadows beneath the trees. We were using Glo-Bugs, poppers painted with phosphorescent paint. To "charge" a bug up, you simply cup it in the palm of your hand and hold a flashlight beam to it for a few seconds. A glowing bug is much easier to track at night.

We used the electric motor sparingly, shutting it off to allow the boat to glide in silently, close enough for us to cast the bugs to the bases of the trees. As it turned out Danny's fish location prediction was right. On my third or fourth cast I gently twitched the tip of my fly rod and the Glo-Bug vanished with a thunderous splash. The hand-sized bluegill put a deep bend in my light fly rod, and dug deep in tight, concentric circles all the way to the net. As soon as I tossed it in the box, Danny headed for the next cypress tree as quietly as possible because bream and bass spook easily at night and will leave the area altogether if you're careless.