Friday night 12 bridge fishing

[Vinsott]

Took my new, used pontoon to the 12 bridge with the wife to try my first attempt at night fishing under lights now that I'm settled in from our move to the area. We tied on in about 115ft of water at sunset and hung out a green tube and a white floating light.  Had some small minnows around the lights but really never saw any shad show up.  Was hoping to catch some whites for fun and food but nada. Caught 2 crappie. One about 8" and the other close to 14".  We used store bought minnows and tried with jigs and hooks with different weight set ups.  Not much activity at all except for some boats. A couple of others were fishing the bridge also and didn't seem to be doing any better.  We gave up about 1am.  I just don't think they were there.  The boat came with a cheap lowrance that I tried to tweak, but all saw was surface down to about 10' returns and nothing else all the way to the bottom. The 2 crappie were caught at about 15-20ft.  Any suggestions would be great.

Earlier before dark my wife caught her first walleye on a ned rig, drifting the flats near the bridge.  It was only 16" but she was thrilled. I've gone out a total of three times so far. The other two during the day and have not got skunked yet, but not anything of any size  or any numbers of fish, but that is the fun of learning a new lake.  I have ordered a hds7 gen 2 from Cabela's but have not even received a confirmation Email??????  Credit card shows pending? Hopefully when I get this unit on the toon I can see a bit better under the water.

[fisherofmen11]

Thanks for the report.  I have not done much light fishing or maybe I should say I have never had much success. I know you have to bring I the shad to be successful. 

 

As as to crappie you will want to find brush piles and even then you need to find them usually in relation to the channel someway. 

Good luck. 

[npierceuark]

Vinsott, I do a fair share of night fishing during the summer and have fished the 12 bridge a few times. it is hit or miss some nights, still not really sure of the rhyme or rhythm but it sure beats getting toasted in the sun. I have a decent fishfinder and mine will do the same. After some discussion and experimenting I have concluded that the fishfinder is bottoming out on bait fish below the light. A fun trick that worked for me was to turn off my submerged light and watch the bottom magically reappear as the baitfish dispersed. It gave me fits for the longest time but I am almost positive that is what gives me a false reading. Now your situation may be different but it sounds real similar to what I went through. Good luck and keep at it, as the water cools try moving into the mouths of coves around pole timber and see if your luck improves.

[J-Doc]

^^

What he said sounds right to me.

[Vinsott]

Thanks for the info.