Night fishing

[Tenntodd]

With a few of you mentioning night fishing, what is your procedure? I have never fished at night for crappie. I have night fished for bass many times so I am comfortable with that.
I guess I need a light to put on the surface and probably using minnows is the best option. Help me out here.
I spent the afternoon cleaning the boat. I pulled it out of the garage and washed and waxed it. Got the buffer out to make her shine and vacuumed it out. She really needed it.

[The Shootist]

I dont know much about night fishin for crappie but I will let you wax my boat....LOL We used lantern and marabou jigs back in the 70s.....dont know the best way now.....

[GoneCrappieFishing]

When it comes to smallmouth fishing, a good moon lit night seems to be the time to go, but when it comes to crappie fishing, a bright moon lit night just never yeilded me a great night of fishing. As far as alot of experience with it, Goody and Kenneth have night fished for many many years for crappie, and they jig fish, and minnow fish both. Ive heard Goody say before he dont like crappie fishing when its a big moon out.
Last year in July and august, we caught some pretty good fish up Normandy in those months but never alot of them. Was during nights while there was no big bright moon though. Most fish are caught not so near the light, but just outside it a bit. We may have to have one wild cat night tourney before July's night tournament so we all can get some practice at it again. Maybe friday night July 6th or something. The 4th is smack in the middle of the week this year.

[c1bigocarp]

A floating sealed beam will work but I prefer the the submersible green led green lights because you will have less bugs to irritate you. Fish just outside the beam of the light and you will do well. Minnows and jigs work well and the depth is the key. Some people prefer to anchor and others do not. I fished without anchoring last year and did well and it was my first time at that. You will get lots of light bites as the fish will come up to get your bait so hold on to the rod to feel them.

["G"]

The submersable green LED lights are the best......suspend the light 4 to 5 ft. below the surface and fish just outside the light ring. Click the link in my signature and check out the Reel-Lites. I prefer the 612 and 714 LED size.

[rubicon3680]

I've caught a lot of fish (stripe,hybrids,rockfish, and walleyes) under a light. The only problem is I've only gotten on the crappie once or twice. The setup I use is a halogen submersible light suspended on an old rod to get the light out away from the boat. The light is about 2ft down in the water. The stripe got to costing me to much money for minnows especially with thousands circling the light. So I started using a 3/4 oz. casting sinker with two treble hooks tied above it to snag the bait fish circling the light. Then I just drop em down around 10-15ft and hold on. I know that the size of the bait I'm snagging is way to big for crappie typically around (4-6"). This year I did pick up a smaller net so hopefully I can start using some smaller bait fish.