So the night light...help me...

I got a submersible fishing light tonight from Gander and am not sure how to use it. Just hang it out the side of the boat? How long does it take fish to find it? Should I fish by the light or on the edges? Does it really work? In stained to muddy water or better in clear water? Do the red and green lenses make a difference? I didn't know if you used certain shades in different water types or if they'd draw different types of fish or what.

Tell me everything you know about night fishing with a light. All I have is a white light...

How deep?
How long?
What color?
What time?

All is appreciated, I'm green.

I'm not sure what I'm doing when it comes to night fishing for crappie...someone help me out. Thanks alot.

Fro, let me tell ya what Ive learned about night fishing. Ive been crappie fising (day) for quite some time now, figured Id get into the whole nightstalking thing. After talking to people, reading on here, and a whole lot of other research, I tried it. Heres what I found out. IVE LEARNED NOTHING :mad: . All jokes aside, there is no one way to do it. I done everything I was supposed to do, only to find out later that my lights drove the fish away :confused: . Go figure. Wish I could help, bud, but Im still trying to figure this thing out myself. (Youre probably wondering why the h@ll I even replied to this, then, huh:D ) Good Luck! Just takes patience, I guess.

Hey Froman, I don't have a whole bunch of experience with nightstalkin'...just what Gooch has taught me...and half the time he doesn't even know what he's doing either...:rolleyes:

Anyways, there's a fellow on the SC board that nightstalks religously and he wrote an excellent article detailing the technique. Be sure to give this a look... http://www.crappie.com/rango/index.htm

And from my limited experience, it seems that clear water works much better than dingy/muddy water. We just use the white lights (lots of folks use green as well) set just under the surface of the water. If you sink the light too deep, you will be constantly getting tangled up in it with fish. We usually set the lights up right at dusk. It can take a while before the baitfish start showing up (up to an hour), but sometimes they are there within 20 minutes or so. The crappie and other predator fish won't be too far behind. Once we get set-up at dusk, we usually stay put until we figure that it's time to leave. The run-and-gun approach doesn't really seem to work for nightstalkin'. Hope this helps some...but the article explains it much, much better. Good luck and let us know how it works out...

I use a 48" green light on each end of the boat. We fish with long rods so we can reach out aways from the light, the fish seem to be under the light on the edges of the green glow. clearer water is better.

Be careful about using too much light IN the boat. The last two trips, I set up a clamp on light to light up the interior of the boat, clamped to the anchor light mast in the rear of the boat. The fishing for the guy in the rear of the boat and the middle has been tougher than ever when the guy in the front has been doing better than ever...I blame the light on the mast shedding too much white light on the surface of the water. It is getting left at home next time!

we use minnows. We set the rods in rod holders and fish 10-15' deep off rocky points with good drop offs to 20+ feet of water, or on weedy points that drop off into deep water. The fish seem to relate more to the weeds the later you go into the summer. The hotter it gets, the better the fishing gets. If you can take it, the best fishing is right before dawn.

Muskies suck. They chase off the crappie and the bite stops for awhile!
Catfish suck. they make a helluva mess when they make a run through the gauntlet of long rods hanging minnows out in 15' water!

We've caught 25 fish limits all year this year, so I must be learning something.

Joe

I tried the night fishing thing a few times last year but really didn't give either outing enough time to develop. I plan on going at it again this year. My wife and I enjoyed being out there under the stars and she really enjoyed seeing all the shad and minnows.

The first time I used a light in the water at night was interesting. We anchored just before dark, dropped the light about 10' deep and waited. It was overcast and cool enough that the sketters didn't eat too much. Around 2300 the minnows started showing up and within 10-15 min there were thousands of them under the boat. About 2400 the dark shapes of bigger fish began to show deep. About that time, the big full moon popped out from behind the mountian and trees. When that moonlight hit the water, everything vanished and did not come back. So that tells me to fish the dark of the moon or at least to fish only quarter moon so there isn't so much light on the water. Also, Joe is right about white lite in the boat. Keep above surface light to a minimum and if possible keep it in the boat, not over the boat. Good luck and tight lines.