It took some cool night moves to land a state record brown trout.

Just after midnight on Aug. 7, 1977, Joe Humphreys, one of Pennsylvania's foremost fly fishermen, landed a 34-inch, 15-pound 4-ounce beauty on Fishing Creek in Centre County. He was using a George Harvey night fly.

Harvey, now 93 and Penn State's most revered fisherman, caught his biggest trout at night, too, on Bald Eagle Creek in Centre County. It was 28 1/2 inches and weighed 8 1/2 pounds.

"Night time is when you catch your biggest fish," said Humphreys, who lives in Oak Hall near State College and has since seen his record catch surpassed. "The big ones are nocturnal -- the whole food chain's nocturnal -- but the big ones need more food, so they move with the food chain at night."

Humphreys has night fished for trout since he was a kid.

"Died in the wool fly fishers do it," he said. "It takes all kinds of moxie. It's a whole different ballgame."

Humphreys reveals his moves in a video -- his fourth on fly-fishing -- called "The Night Game," which won a bronze Telly Award last year. It took Humphreys and videographer Eric Porterfield, a former Murrysville resident who lives near State College, two years to produce because of the technical challenges.

"It was hilarious," said Porterfield of the Distance Learning Network and the producer of Humphreys' other videos about nymphing and dry fly tactics in light brush. "We had two large boats floating down the Madison [River] at night. It was wide and rocky. One boat had this huge generator and production lights on it. My shadow kept getting in the way and I kept inhaling moths because of the lights. Joe was on the other boat. You should have seen him, casting and landing flies in this very narrow range of space. His stamina and precision were unreal."

Porterfield didn't charge for his services but said the production would have cost more than $100,000. It took the two men through Tennessee, South Carolina, California, Montana and, of course, Pennsylvania, where taping took place on the Little Juniata, Fishing Creek, Spring Creek and Penn's Creek -- waters Humphreys calls home.

"Never go on a stream ... ever ... at night unless you know that water like the back of your hand," Humphreys said. "It can be very dangerous. You can step off a bluff into deep water and they'll never see you again.

"If you don't know the water, go with a guide who knows every inch of the water. When I was out West, I had excellent guides."

It just took the guides some time to get used to "lights, camera, action," Porterfield recalled with a laugh. "They were doubting Thomases the minute we put our boats in the water. And Joe was like Teddy Roosevelt in an election year."

Ordinarily, Humphreys fishes alone in areas where few people would venture. "When I'm on the prowl at night, I don't see anybody."

Now 75, he's still famous for getting into tight brush and shooting distance where there's little room to cast, drawing on the agility and grace of the wrestler, boxer and figure skater he was before coaching, during the 19 years he taught physical education and health at Penn State.

"I went out for salads in Montana one day and when I came back there's Joe, doing 50 push-ups," Porterfield said. Their third video is on brush fishing. The first two are on small streams and nymphing.

"I have an extremely short casting stroke, shorter than 98 percent of guys. It's the key to viable night nymphing techniques," said Humphreys, who also coached wrestling at Kittanning High School from 1959 until 1962, and remembers fishing the Allegheny River and Pine Creek.

Nymphing is not as difficult as dry fly fishing at night, but harder than throwing wet flies, he said.

"You can't have a lot of line in front of you because you don't have the visibility. You have to use line in a light color or a fluorescent, just to see the strike," he said. "I use a thin running line, thin as piano wire, which I can feel. It sends the message to my fingers."

He also uses stiff enough leader.

"If it's too light, it will twist to hell. Use the heavy stuff," he said. "When you hook a big fish, you don't want it breaking off."

The darkest summer nights are prime time for big fish.

"Trout have excellent vision in total dark. And they're less afraid. They know they're not as vulnerable, so they feel free to come out and go for it," he said. And in summer months, insect life peaks.

"The stoneflies are moving, there are different hatches moving, terrestrials are starting, frogs ... in June. It's a veritable banquet for trout. The water temperature has a lot to do with it. In a good stream, with good temperatures, they'll keep moving."

While the hatch will go on into the wee hours fish are funny, according to Humphreys. "A bright moon will turn them off. A heavy fog will turn them off. But if you're fishing in the moonlight and a front moves in and clouds cover the moon, the fish will turn on."

In making the video, Humphreys and Porterfield learned through trial and error that if they found water that was fast and deep, the heavy lights of the cameras didn't disturb the fish as much.

"In broken water, the light didn't get down to the subject," said Humphreys. Where riffles tail into a pool, the head of a pool and the backwater are as good at night as in the day, because bait gets pulled into those areas. Hatches start in the riffles.

"If you're new at night fishing, you should start out simply swinging wet flies downstream," he said. "Learn to drift your flies. Use big flies. You won't see them, but you'll know where they are from the cast. Just work down and across. It'll give you more line control and you can cover more water."

Novices should start at the edge of darkness, said Humphreys, who rigs up his rods at home, and uses four lights on the stream -- one on his hat, two on his fly box and a halogen flashlight to find his way.

Otherwise, you get used to the dark, he said. "You'll learn to tell the difference between a bat bumping your rod tip and having a trout on."

Humphreys has had a major influence on thousands of Penn State students and adults he has taught over the years, but said he still works on his stroke.

"Oh, yeah," he said, "like golfers, like Tiger [Woods] and those guys. They work so hard, they hit buckets and buckets and buckets of balls. They work hard to be good.

"The basics, refined to perfection, are your most advanced moves. I learned that from Bill Cole, whom I coached under at Penn State. He was a three-time national champ. I continue to work hard to refine the basics."

That doesn't preclude reveling in the wonders and mysteries of the trout stream at night.

"What beauty!" Humphreys said. "There is more to this game than catching trout."