How to catch the surfacing fish at hamilton?

[fishfight]

How to catch these surfacing fish?...............Aside from using Dynamite!

I was at Hamilton fishing around 9:30pm yesterday, and explored few spot. I Witness small Fish surfacing everywhere at night. Some people were using worms on bobber to try to catch them, but no luck . I tried with small spoon lures , and no luck as well. I also saw carp just swimming 2-3 ft below water surface. My regular spot at Dejardine canal was sealed off , so I do not know where to fish for carp over there.  5 years ago, I landed couple of sheepheads using spoon. I tried every year at least once and never got one again.

At one spot, The locals told me the fish were perch surfacing, when I went to another spot, other locals told me they were silver bass surfacing. Some of the fish were larger then a lb creating big splash. One guy said he landed a sheephead days ago, while another buy said he landed a channel cat while carp fishing two weeks ago,

There were hardly any wind, nice calm waters, bright sky and stars visible everywhere, with 3/4 full moon. Temp was roughly around 15 degrees, and mosquitoes or bugs starting to be a nuisance.

Water level was at least 4-5 feet higher than in the past, but fishable. I am estimating the water depth where I was fishing would be around 15- 25 feet deep. 
 

[steve-hamilton]

for the most part, the vast majority of the surfacing fish in the harbour at dusk are bullhead catfish.