Nite Stalk How To

Have has several questions on how to setup for Nite Stalk. Will try to get this in with several post. Some by myself. A lot by others that night fish a lot. First off I dont know of any perfect way that will work for every person or situation. So gonna start with a few basic setups on my boat. Then you can work out what is best for you. Number one thing I push is safety. Night is a bit different animal. Things can happen quickly at anytime. So I say everyone have a life jacket on. The self deploy type are best for me. Once you wear one a couple times you almost forget you wearing it. And in S.C. they must be on person or they wont count towards the one for each person law. Cant be in the seat or storage locker. Must be on. Yall smart enough to figure that out .

Ya gonna need some lights and a power source for em. Not just your nav. lights. LED has taken the hard part out of lighting up an area. Can get what I call drop lights at most any sporting shop. The big names and some mom and pop stores have em. EBay Amazon Wish have tons of em. I got several of different size and colors. Have even made a few.. But as cheap to buy em. Color is up to you. Most people use green or white. Have seen red or blue being used. Personal preference again. Most have the little alligator clips to hook to your battery. I dont think hooking them to your main cranking battery is a good idea. But have seen it before and had to jump folks off. Back in the day we used 110 house lights ran off power inverter.It workwd but glad they gone. LED just takes very little power to run all night. Have had as many as 3 lights on 1 lawnmower battery.

Batteries are next . 99 %of LED lights are 12 volt. And if your boat is like mine room is a luxury we dont have a lot of. So use as few batteries as needed. My setup has 1 battery for each person on board. I usually fish 2 people sometime 3 and have had 4. I use a lot of the small motorcycle batteries or a good mower battery works well. Make sure they are charged up. If you got room for a spare it aint a bad idea to have one. To keep this kinda short and sweet will put more on in another post. Anybody wanting to add to this please feel free. Question are better asked before you get to the ramp and say ...What about? The pictures aint the best but give you an idea. And we do catch a few and have a great time trying !

Thanks for sharing your insight!

I think 2 anchors are a must. Because you don't want your boat to be swinging around with the wind and currents. One anchor on the bow and the other on the stern. Paint your rod tips flat white, I paint mine up to the first eye.

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I'll try to take pictures tomorrow of my equipment and setup.

Like Ofish mentioned, equipment and setup are all personal choice. You ask 100 people what brand, type, design and you will probably get 100 different answers. So I hope what is mentioned gets you some ideas to try. Give each one a try and see which you are comfortable with. Most people I've trained on jobs at work I always told them, what's easy for me may not be easy for you.

When I go to fish at night, I have a spot I want to fish and when I find my point of interest, a brushpile or drop-off, I'll throw a marker bouy off the back of the boat so I know exactly where to anchor. I'll usually back off the bouy a couple feet so it won't get caught up in anything. Once I had an anchor get loose and the bouy string ended up wrapped around the prop and it wasn't easy but I finally straightened it out. The bouy also will let me know if an anchor has got loose. I always use 2 anchors in case one gets loose or doesn't set good, I can still be where I'd like to be. I use LED work lights mounted to an aluminum pipe 6 ft long. I do some welding and have made some of the items for my setup as you will see in my pictures. I like to use telescoping rods 10 and 12 ft long mostly for the ease of transporting but also I can gauge line depth better. I use corks on a couple lines but that's mostly for my entertainment! As far as tackle I just use a split shot and a hook. I know some guys who simply drift at night, bumping the trolling motor on and off and that can work but it can be a handful at times.

Now you tell me, been doing it wrong all these years

Here's my setup:
My old boat had rails around the corners and I made clamps for the pipe holding the lights. I wasn't sure if I would like not having the rails on the new boat so I made this for mounting the clamp. The second picture is the end of the pipe with the light.

PicsAttachment 415922Attachment 415923

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Are those Led lights on the end of the pole?


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by ofishlbizzness

Are those Led lights on the end of the pole?


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Yes

I have tweaked my setup over the years, one thing I've always looking at is how to hurry to get stuff up if a storm is coming. If you find a setup you are comfortable with the results can be great

Here's the result of a fun tripAttachment 415929

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It’s been so long since I night fished, I used Coleman Lanterns. I still have them and a submersible halogen white light. I bet those LED don’t kill the bugs like the Coleman’s!!! I ain’t as smart as you fellas, I can’t quit at midnight. It will be breaking daylight when I’d get home and be useless for a couple days.


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Keep 'em coming guys. All great information.:check

Here's a link that can DEFINITELY explain it all.....from the King himself! He was the one that motivated me to get back into crappie fishing. Rango and I had alot of personal conversations together and IMO he knew everything needed to know about night stalking. I hope this thread NEVER leaves CDC. R.I.P. Rango!

https://www.crappie.com/crappie/cont...ng-for-Crappie

Rango wrote the book on this

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gabowman

Here's a link that can DEFINITELY explain it all.....from the King himself! He was the one that motivated me to get back into crappie fishing. Rango and I had alot of personal conversations together and IMO he knew everything needed to know about night stalking. I hope this thread NEVER leaves CDC. R.I.P. Rango!

https://www.crappie.com/crappie/cont...ng-for-Crappie

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Thanks Butch . I was looking for that but never found it. If there was ever a pro then Rango was it.

one thing I do is use a four rod set up, drop green light down about five foot deep in center of set up, then place 9ft rod, 5ft rod, 9ft rod, 5ft rod in holders. Bait for nitestalk is always minnows on #6 gold hook. oh and it doesn't hurt to cross fingers

Waitn on the blizzard so will try to post little more info. As said the way I do it may not work for you. But may give you some ideas to build on. I done got old and blind so at night I like plenty of light in the boat. Lot of guys use just the head light type. Which is fine. But if you see me in the dark it looks like runway lights. Some folks say to much light hurts the bite. Well on occasion Im glad it did. Cant keep up with what I got down. But anyway this may give you some ideas. I keep 4-5 good flash lights in areas I know where to find em in the dark. May need it to unhook a fish or tie on a hook or just throw that snake out the boat. But always good idea to have one close by. On my rod holders I got some small LED lights so you can see your rods. Nite bite is usually just a tic on the line or maybe swimming off sideways. Best to watch your line than rod tips. Some one said they paint the tips of the rods flat white. Great idea. You can see the tips better. But I like lights at night.Attachment 416370Attachment 416371Attachment 416372Attachment 416373Attachment 416374

The rigs I use are just the way I do it. Again personal preference here.I use 6 lb. mono on all my reels. Why? Just used to it and the way it works. Hooks are again your choice. I use #2,4 mainly. Red hooks work ,gold hooks work ,balack hooks work. Some guys use the circle hooks also. I am just getting into those. Learning new things . You can but crappie rigs with 2 hooks on em and just tie em on and bait em. I dont use 2 hook rigs beacause of the perch problem we have here. Them rascals will swallow the hook 75% of the time . So you end bpt retying all night. Weights are kinda important. Size matters there I think. A big heavy weight and your bait cant act properly and you may not see the light bite when it happens. I use 3/8 or 1/4 on my rigs. Split shot works well but I have the barrel weights or bell weights .Depends on my rig that night. Attachment 416376

I rig two ways. Hook on bottom of rig and hook on loop knot bout 12-14 inches above weight. Hook on mottom I put mw weight on line from rod and tie a small swivleto keep it form going to hook. Tie 10-12 in leader down to hook and tie it on bottom. Loop knot is tied on mainline by just tying your hook in a loop about 6-8 inches big. Then tie weight to bottom about 12-14 inches from loop. I tried to draw it out but I aint no Picasso. Hope you get some ideas from this . Questions are better asked before the ramp !Attachment 416377Attachment 416376

Great info John. I like those small LED's to ,light up your lines and rod tips.:ThumbsUp

reviewing all the good tips and I might have missed this, but one more thing that is really handy is a good headlamp. doesn't have to be one that they use in the mines and lights up a football field, but one that fits good and gives off enough light to bait your hook or take fish off the hook. I light up my boat pretty good but the headlamp always makes things easier.

There is a write up in Lake Wylie Magazine about Nitestalks. It’s a local magazine but if your in the area you might find em in stores and bait shops . Kind of a chamber of commerce type thing but still has some good info. She asked me bout it before Christmas. I had forgotten it. Has some of Rango’s tips. A few pictures I sent her. Our own BiggDawgg is there. If ya see one check it out Ain’t often ya get a famous Dawgg !


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Too cool

Lake Wylie Today - Spring 2022 by SC Biz News - Issuu
Nite Stalking

That sir was a fine read. That is part of the culture of many lakes across the South. Surely brings back memories for me. I have stalked a many of night to the hiss of an old Coleman lantern hung out over the water or from the underside of a bridge. Great times they were

Someone suggested a few pictures from our last Stalk. Ok here are a fewAttachment 427424Attachment 427425Attachment 427426Attachment 427427Attachment 427428Attachment 427429


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Ok folks. Gettin to be good nitestalk time. As water gets in low 50s and lower they hang out in deep water. Your lake may be way more then Wylie but look deep. Here 45-50 feet is deep . They hang out close to bottom in these temps. Won’t be as many but quality is lot better. Same setup as summer just deeper. Just prepare yourself for the night chill. Keep check here. We bout to start fishin again. Come out and try em.


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