Fishing At Night With Crappie Lights?

[kyled]

I have been playing around with this recently and have had some mixed results. I would love to get some feed back on what I might be doing wrong or maybe some pointers on what works better. I have been using the green submersible lights and a floater white light or two. I have been mixing it up with two greens and one white floater. Two white floaters and no greens. Not sure which I like better. I have been anchoring up in about 20-30 ft of water where I know there is brush close. I would love to catch whites and crappie and if I got an eye that would just be bonus. I have been using minnows with split shot and nose hooked with jigheads. My questions are:

How many lights do I use?

Do I drop it all the way to the bottom?

Is there a better bait than minnows?

Do I fish in the light or off to the side?

If you don't catch any for an hour or two do you move or just wait it out????

Any help on this would be much appreciated! Thanks!

[zarraspook]

I am by NO WAY a crappie expert, but here is what has worked for me...

Where to fish?

Fish where you have caught fish within the last couple of weeks.

Lights?

I only use one light and it is the old style ( white ) that hangs down in the water about 10 feet.

Drop to the bottom?

"Sometimes"...

Better bait than minnows?

Not unless GOD has made a new critter that I don't know about...

In the light or side of the light?

Contrary to popular opinion - fish do not slash thru the middle of a school of minnows. The fish lay back and look for a wounded ( easy to catch ) bait fish.. I will try to fish below and to the sides of the main patch of light.. Most of the biggest crappie I have caught were on the opposite side of the boat from the light... But, the opposite side only would have one bite compared to ten bites right next to the light..

Move?

Unless you are TOTALLY familiar with the lake (at night ) and were you want to go "NO".....

If I don't have a good swarm of bait within an hour - I will try to move a little deeper or closer to structure close by.....

This will give you a starting point and within a few trips you will have it "fine tuned" to where you have more good night trips than *#^%&# night trips...

Good luck and let us know how it goes.........

[kyled]

Thanks a ton. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out. I will be sure to report back how I do next time.

[justin scobee]

Hey, all i use is a green light. (1) light. I just drop it over. Mine will not sink all the way down. I will just stay under the water about 6in. i run minnows and swiming minnows or jig. I drop shot till i find them and thats where i will drop it till they move deeper or move up. the last time i was out I was in 35fow. Ill just stay put. if there under ya they will bite some time. good luck

[sandbc]

I agree with everything Zarraspook said. This is what worked for me. I fished at night 3 weeks in a row ( one night each week) . I used one submersable green light about 5 foot deep and one white floater at the same time. It took about 2 hours each time to attract a large number of bait fish. The fish started biting slow but got busier as the night went on. Almost all the crappie were caught under the white light and most of the white bass were caught around the green light. Something like 28 crappie and 20 whites. That was the first week.. The next week worked the same way except we caught many more whites than crappie. The third week was a bust. Think we had 7 crappie and that was it. Each night was over the same brush pile. My opinion is not to move if you know it is generally a good spot because it takes to long to gather the bait fish to the lights again. Bare in mind that this was also in the late spring before it started getting hot. Hope this helps. Good luck. Stacey

[looking4crappie]

Haven't night fished for years. But, the way we used to do it, when the limit was 30. We would put in at Rock Road about midnight, troll down the lake on the west side, hang a gas latern in a submerged tree that is sticking out of the water. Go back to shore, have a sandwich, a drink and tell fish stories for about an hour. Head back out to the latern, drop your jig head with a minnow on it, start bringing in the crappie. If you run out of minnows, take your bare hook, jerk it through the ball of shad that has gathered under the light to eat the bugs that are flying around the light. Then, once you snag a shad, drop your hook back down, catch a crappie, retrieve and start all over again. Then the three of us, now with 90 keepers in the boat would head back home to start the 2 hour process of cleaning them. Lots of fun!

[Slowtroller]

I fish one light. The fish tend to be on the edge of the glow. if you have multiple lights you may be fishing in the light to much. I fish split shot and about 16" to the hook. hook through the eyes. I know that I catch more fish if I hold the rod and slowly move it around up and down, use a 9' pole, it helps reach the perimeter of the light. Maybe its because they hit light and I fell the hit better but it will out fish a still pole.

[kyled]

Sounds like you guys vertical fish with slit shot and minnows. I will try that, I have been using 1/16 oz jig head with minnow hooked through nose because I was getting twisted up with split shot.