About

The Night Before Fishing is an exploitable meme format based on an image macro of actors Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly from the comedy movie Step Brothers lying awake in side-by-side beds, captioned, "THE NIGHT BEFORE FISHING." The meme was posted online as early as 2019 to the /r/fishingmemes subreddit and garnered viral spread throughout the 2020s. The meme is often used to express excitement over something coming out or happening the next day by recaptioning the original using the phrasal template The Night Before X.

Origin

On April 10th, 2019, Redditor u/Forkliftboi420 posted an image macro to the /r/FishingMemes^[1] subreddit using an image from a scene in Step Brothers in which the protagonists lie awake in bed and talk with one another,^[2] captioned, "The night before fishing." The meme is meant to express the feeling of excitement the night before going fishing. The post gained roughly 35 upvotes in six years. It is unconfirmed if this is the true origin of the meme, but it's the earliest known example.

Spread

The meme garnered viral spread throughout the 2020s as a way of expressing excitement for something, typically edited into the lower right corner over "Fishing."

For example, on July 8th, 2024, X^[3] user @sabooschin posted a version of the meme hyping up the release of the movie Gladiator 2, garnering over 860 likes in a year.

On March 26th, 2025, X^[4] user @radialasymmetry posted a version expressing excitement over the belief that the next chapter of Deltarune would release the next day, garnering over 1,200 likes in just over two months.

On March 27th, the same X^[5] user quoted their own post with a new meme that references the Nothing Ever Happens meme, garnering over 33,000 likes in roughly two months.

On April 7th, 2025, Instagram^[6] user non_haeretici_coalition posted a version of the meme sharing excitement about A Minecraft Movie, garnering over 2,400 likes in two months.

On April 23rd, Instagram^[7] user _kingorangeyt posted a version of the meme reading "the night before lethal injection," garnering over 4,000 likes in roughly a month.

On June 2nd, 2025, X^[8] user @sep_173_gg posted another version of the meme about the release of Deltarune Chapters 1-4 that references the Deltarune Tomorrow meme, garnering over 25,000 likes and 4,300 reposts in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References