Day or night it does not matter to me. It all depends on the type of plug I am using.

Here is an article. However this is too long for one post so I put it up as several.

Doc's Perspective on Plug Fishing

The generic grouping of artificial baits called plugs is a diverse one. Indeed, years ago the term plugger was used to designate virtually any fisherman that used artificial baits. In general, plugs are lures that are designed to imitate small fish; and these types of lures fall into one of five basic categories: popping, surface, floating/diving, slow sinking, and deep-running. Excellent speckled trout baits are to be found in each of these categories as the following review will show: Popping Plugs

Popping plugs are specialized topwater baits that are characterized by having concave, scalloped faces. These baits are typically retrieved using a whip retrieve, so that the concave face of the plug is forced against the water, making a small splash, bubbles, and a popping sound. A sharper whip retrieve will produce a correspondingly bigger splash and make a louder popping sound. This sound is especially attractive to feeding spotted seatrout who mistake the sound for other feeding fish and so are attracted to join in the activity. Popping corks, used by jig and natural bait fishermen, work in much the same manner, ringing the dinner bell to nearby fish with their feeding sounds.

Popping plugs are most productive under calm water conditions when their surface commotion is used to best advantage. They should be fished very slowly under most conditions; and in shallow or clear water, the popping action should be subtle. As water clarity becomes poor and in deeper water, the popping action can be correspondingly increased to draw fish from afar.

Most successful popping plug fishermen in northern Gulf waters favor plugs like the Bagley B-3, the Heddon Lucky 13, and the Rebel Pop-R in silver shad and shoreminnow patterns. So-called pencil poppers are a good choice for big specks whenever small, fingerling needlefish are present. Particularly along the Florida coast, these needlefish are a significant component in the diets of adult spotted seatrout; and fishermen can use this fact to good advantage by fishing pencil poppers like Smithwick's Devil's Horse or the Boone Needlefish. These baits are exceptional night-time baits for catching spotted seatrout around offshore oil and gas flares, around lanterns that have been set along productive stretches of shoreline, or even under the lights of a front beach fishing pier.

I remember well one such trip to the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Park Pier. It was one of those windless November nights just following the passage of a front. A heavy fog hung thick in the air and muffled every sound. Not a hundred yards from the seawall, the sound of six o'clock traffic was reduced to a murmur. The glare of headlights was a mere flicker in the heavy fog. The waters of the sound were glass-slick; and I knew that this would be a good evening for topwater fishing.

Knowing that the trout would prefer to hold in the shadows where ambushing a passing baitfish would come easy, I gently lofted a silvery Devil's Horse into the darkness. Retrieving the lure in slow and deliberate jerks, I brought it parallel and close to the long, dark shadows of the light standard. Sloosh...sloosh...sloosh, the nose propellers of the stickbait beat a rhythm into the stillness of the night. Within seconds, things began to happen. Like a series of small explosions, the trout struck repeatedly at my bait, tossing it high into the air with every strike. I thought at first that they must be mighty small trout to be missing with such regularity. Perhaps they were frightened by the larger plug and I should be trying a smaller one, I thought. And then, as the plug came into view, I noticed two or three nice trout at its heels. The plug was attracting the fish alright, but they were just nipping at it, trying more to wound than to devour it. That night, I learned a special trick about fishing popping plugs.
I had often heard that fishing topwater baits with a trailing jig was more productive than fishing topwater alone; but I had never tried it. With nothing to lose, I tied on a small, yellow crappie jig, attaching it some eighteen inches or so behind the rear treble of the Devil's Horse. On the very next cast, and still using the familiar whip retrieve, I scarcely had a chance to turn the reel handle when my graphite rod nearly bent double as the line screamed out. For an instant the line went slack, and then the rod was almost jerked out of my hands by another powerful surge. When finally I managed to bring the unseen weight under the lights of the pier, much to my surprise I had bagged not one, but two nice fish. It seems that the smaller jig was just what was needed to stir the fish to activity. When the smaller jig was taken by one fish, the subsurface turmoil drew attention to the stick bait above; and nearby fish were quick to take advantage. That night, I managed a catch of nearly forty nice trout, mostly school fish in the two-pound class. Most of these fish were released unharmed, but three nice four-pounders were invited for dinner.
The Smithwick Devil's Horse in the 4-1/2 inch, half ounce size will catch trout in most situations requiring the use of a pencil-popper. It comes in a variety of colors, but its many silver variations, Tennessee shad, chrome black, black shiner, and silver shiner, will produce well with trout.
As conventional poppers go, the Heddon Lucky 13 has been an all-time favorite of speckled trout fishermen for over sixty-five years; and this plug still enjoys a great following among Chandeleur grass flats fishermen. The 5/8 ounce, 3-3/4 inch Lucky 13 is top choice among most experienced flats anglers; and both the white bodied, red-headed model and the yellow perch model are popular among these fishermen.

Jig and natural bait anglers will also use topwater poppers in place of conventional popping corks, removing the lure's back treble and replacing it with thirty-pound test line and a trailing plastic jig or a number 6 or 4 treble hook and a live shrimp. Either way, the fisherman is now covering two bases by simultaneously offering the fish a topwater and a medium-running bait. This effective searching pattern over shallow seagrass flats and oyster bottoms will oftentimes result in doubles as many fishermen can attest.

Surface Plugs
These topwater baits, as the name implies, float on the surface. Unlike poppers though, they can be fished in a variety of different ways to create a surface disturbance unlike that of the popper. Some, like the 5-M-series Mirrolures are equipped with nose and tail spinners that provide the desired surface noise. Others, like the Jitterbug have a wide metal lip that provides a side to side action and accompanying gurgling sound. Yet others, like the Zara Spook have a torpedo shape that darts, dives, bobs, and weaves on retrieve to provide the necessary action. Another group of topwater baits of which the Original Rapala is a prime example, seeks to function not merely as an attractor, but to simulate the appearance of a natural bait fish as much as possible.

Whatever the particular design of the topwater plug may be, it is fundamentally geared to attract fish to the surface and to fool them into striking. And in order for the fisherman to successfully and consistently fool a wary spotted seatrout, he'll need a complete selection of surface baits.
Seasonally, the best time for fishing topwater baits for speckled trout is when water temperatures are in the range of from sixty to about seventy degrees. This will usually occur only during the spring and early summer months and throughout the fall. This does not go to say that trout cannot be caught on topwater at other times of the year; but since surface baits are most effective in shallow water, it is not unreasonable to expect to have the best success with them when the fish are active and feeding in the shallows.

Over the years I have met a number of fishermen who specialize in catching speckled trout on topwater baits; and none is more adept at this technique than Dennis Fleming of Long Beach. For the most part, Dennis sight fishes topwater Mirrolures, casting to the fish as he sees them swirl and move in the shallows. The TT-19 is among his favorite baits; and for good reason. This topwater plug is made to resemble the young-of-the-year spotted seatrout that abound in coastal shallows and grass flats during the late spring and early summer. Since an adult yellowmouth trout is not the least bit reluctant to strike at others of her kind, Dennis usually has plenty to show for his efforts.

Plugs like the 5-M Mirrolure are versatile and can be fished in a variety of ways. They can be barely twitched so that they produce only a hint of a ripple in the water. They can be steadily retrieved and chugged across the water, or they can be skipped across the surface as fast as the fisherman can crank the reel handle. Most successful topwater anglers develop a personal pattern of their own - one that produces fish time and again.

Topwater Mirrolures and similar propellered surface baits are best fished with an erratic retrieve. I prefer an easy whip retrieve that moves the plug a foot or so at a time, followed by a few seconds in which the lure is allowed to remain still. In quiet or shallow waters, this approach seems to work best for me. Often, the wake of an interested trout can be seen from afar as it begins its approach on a collision course with the plug. At the last instant, speeding the action up somewhat may help to ensure a strike. At all costs, the fisherman should not allow the fish to merely swim up and investigate the strange moving object. More often than not, a wary speck will detect that something is amiss and beat a hasty retreat. Other times though, the fish may follow the plug for some distance before finally deciding to strike. Varying the retrieve often until the right presentation is found is the best advice for fishermen here.

Successful topwater trout fishing also calls for careful observation on the part of the fisherman. Whenever the water is relatively calm, topwater feeding activity is apparent by the sprays of baitfish here and there and the occasional slurping sound of a trout picking off stragglers near the water's surface. With a fairly stiff wind, the topwater activity becomes considerably less obvious though feeding near the surface might still be quite active. Even a slight breeze is often enough to reorient schools of baitfish near the surface. In shallow waters, wind-driven currents can easily overpower even tidal or longshore currents; and when this is the case, the fisherman must be prepared to adjust his technique accordingly if a natural bait presentation is to be made. I remember well one September several years ago the effects that wind-driven currents can have on trout fishing. Sherman Muths and I were drift fishing the shallow grass flats off Monkey Bayou in the Chandeleur Chain. All morning long, we had been catching trout with regularity on topwater Mirrolures. The hot-pink plug in particular had acquitted itself well during the wee hours. With virtually no wind with which to contend, we'd drift along with the longshore current paralleling the shoreline and casting towards the edge of the marsh where thick schools of pinfish and finger mullet were concentrated.