Night Fishing Crappies

[Ishmel]

Sorry if this is a repost.

Is it a lost cause to try to catch crappies at night? My wife and kids sack out by 8pm most nights and that gives me 4 or so hours to get out to my perm house and try for some crappies. But I am a little afraid I might be wasting my time. Do crappies bite at night as a general rule?

Thanks.

d

[protrapper]

Depends on water clarity or what there feeding on in the water column. If there feeding on Ice Lice or Zoo Plankton they will be night biters. Or if the water clarity is really good and you can see deep they will be night biters, most likely.

If you have stained water more than likely they will be day biters. Or they may bite at night to. Example is Red Lake. As far as going out at 8 pm you may hit the tail end of the bite. But I don't know what lake your fishing. One lake I fish they used to start at dusk and quit biting around 7 pm. This year there staring around 6 pm and biting till 8 pm.

You still can get out and try it. Sure beats sitting in the the real house right? Some lakes the crappies will feed at different times of the night so go give it a try. You may get schools of crappies moving through all night. Never know untill you wet a line.

[Ishmel]

Thanks for the info. Here's my situation:

I have a permanent house that I have to put on a trailer to move from lake to lake, so I picked a small local lake that doesn't get a ton of traffic. Last year I marked Crappies with the vex constantly, but had very few biters. I put the house on the same lake this season, in shallower water. (It's a 100 acre bowl shaped lake with the deepest basin at 28 feet. It drops off quickly from shore and levels off at twenty feet with the deep spot in the middle). Again this year, graphing fish, one in ten actually hits the bait, half of those hard enough to get a hook in them. I've tried all manner of presentations with little success. I'm too lazy/stubborn to move lakes. I'll just take my portable out for some action if I can't make this work. The issue is that I like to take my 4 year old daughter with me when I go and need to use the perm for that.

Anyway, long story short, I am determined to figure out how to catch these devils. Maybe dynamite?

d

[protrapper]

What are you using for bait? and what size jig are you using? That could have an effect. Most people use to big of bait and jigs for panfish. Also could the crappies in that lake be small? Trying to catch small stunted crappies can be a challenge.

[Ishmel]

I've tried waxies, euros, and crappie minnows. I've tried them on everything from #12 plain hooks to Angel Eye Jr's. They don't seem to be interested in anything except the minnows and the ones that bite will bite on anything the minnow is attatched to. The water is pretty stained this year (it was a lot clearer last winter) so I've been using glow jigs, and it doesn't seem to matter if they're charged or not, when one decides to bite, it bites regardless. The smallest crappie I've caught was 8" - not great but I don't know if I'd say "stunted".

I'm thinking about maybe trying some berkley powerbait, as well as some crappie "scent". Any advice on this stuff?

Thanks for all your help!

[CrappieJohn]

Ish...Try putting a few waxies and sawdust in a film canister with a couple drops of your favorite scent. Shake it up gently and just let them sit. Do this a couple days before you want to use the bait. Its a lot easier to handle just a waxie or euro than to have all the mess with scents in the shack. You may want to try some cod-liver-oil. I use this stuff all the time when I need something for scent. Think about it...it's as pure a product as you can get. It is non-toxic. Nothing smells more like fish and if you get bound up eating cheese curds, jerky and beef sticks you can take a shot and get cleaned out too.

[lars0926]

Did CrappieTom crack a joke? First one I've seen from him in my two years of coming to the site. What gives?

[CrappieJohn]

Ish...go to your local pharmacy and ask for it at the prescription counter. $5 for an eight ounce bottle, enough for about three seasons of hard fishing.

[Ishmel]

Thanks for the info. I'm going to try the cod oil and see how that works. It can't hurt anything, and it gives me another option before I try the dynamite.