Ice fishing for crappies at 12:00 am, will that same tactic work open water?

[Skunked-Rookie]

Some guys have told me that they ice fish Crappies at 12:00 at night, others have said the same thing for Walleyes in open water in the shallows by weeds. Just wondering if anyone does this or has success. Or would this be a waste of time?

[Pig_sticka]

I know when there is a full moon late night fishing can be real good. It is very popular on M. Lacs.

Crappies I haven't tried to much for late at night in the summer. But I know alot of walleyes are caught after dark casting rapalas and lindy rigging.

[CrappieJohn]

Some bodies of water have a potential for good night fishing whether it be in the winter or in the summer. The thing is that not all waters will offer this up....they just don't seem to generate a night bite.

I would suggest sticking to waters that do get a good night bite during the hard water season. The summer nights are more likely to pan out that way.

Incidently....the areas where people get their mid-winter fish are likely to be good right now as well. Try fishing them just like you do in January. No kidding!

[Matt Johnson]

I guess I've never really put the time into chasing pannies at the midnight hours. I'm sure you could catch some fish during those times, maybe not as many as you would during low-light periods, but you should be able to hit a few waves of feeding times.

I know that during the winter I'll get my best feeding times for crappies throughout three different time frames...

1)Sunrise (and the hour or so cushion surrounding it)

2)Sunset (and the hour or so cushion surrounding it)

3)"The Midnight Wave"

By the midnight wave I mean the series of feeding times revolving around the midnight hours. After the sundown bite (on many lakes) it can be tough to find a bite for a few hours. Once that sundown flurry ceases, people begin to pack-up and head home. However, if you stick it out, you will see the activity level pick up once again, maybe not like during the sundown, but an increased level nonetheless. This time around you will see "waves" of activity level. It almost seems as if different schools or pods of fish are letting each other take turns. I'll experience a period around 9-10pm or so when I'll land several fish (when the few hours prior resulted in no fish). Then just like the fish began to bite, they shut off again. Then around midnight this feeding period comes about again. Then it shuts off. Then around 2am it starts again. And once again it shuts off. Then after that you will begin to have the aggressive sunrise flurry. Somedays it's like clockwork.

Why this wouldn't be the same in the summer? I don't know the truth to that, mostly because I've never tried it to any extent. It could be a locational thing, it could be a forage thing, and it could even be just a winter thing, I donno.

I do know that crappies will devour more in one sitting during the open water periods than they will during the winter. This has partly to do with the metabolic slowdown, but it also has to do with aggressive nature, water temps and more "in-your-face" available forage. So, I guess you could contribute the piggishness of the open water crappies to the reason as why they might not feed throughout the midnight hours like they do during the winter.

But, when it all comes down to it, I look at it this way...

We catch crappies all day long during open water, even outside of the "magic" hours of the low-light periods. So, why would they cease to bite once things turn dark? Crappies have outstanding night vision and visibility is not the issue here at all. We've all seen crappies feed from sunrise to sunset, so what reason do they have to make them quit after the sundown bite? I guess there really isn't any, it's just that people don't target them during late hours of the night like they do during the day and during the low-light periods.

My guess would be that you could catch crappies all night long if you can locate them. Locational patterns might be a little different then other times of the day. I would contribute this to two things...

1)The location of the minnows and plankton (forage)

2)Nearby open/suspended water from where the crappies are feeding during the sundown bite

First off, crappies (and all game-fish in general) can be found where their food is, especially when it's feeding time So when the minnows and other organisms venture out into the open (open/suspended water) you can expect to have optimal conditions for a late night crappie bite.

Crappies have an advantage over their prey at night because of their vision, and when their prey move out into open water, it makes things easy for the crappies. And, to add onto that, crappies won't have to worry about larger predators during the late hours of the night (atleast not as much as during the light hours), so roaming and feeding in the open water provides a higher comfort level.

Why do you think crappies are known as a suspending fish during the winter? Why is it that once that sun goes down my LX-3 lights up with suspended fish? This means that the crappies are coming out to play, and their forage is right there with them. Open/suspended water, forage, crappies... they tend to go hand in hand during evening hours.

Too many open water anglers are structure orientated, meaning that they need some sort of structure to have confidence in a spot. Open/suspended water scares a lot of anglers during the summer months. If you can locate a hump, point, bar, etc, then you're OK because you have somesort of target. But once you get over a featureless flat or hole, we tend to bypass it. Why is that? During the winter it's the holes and featureless flats that we look for when targeting crappies, perch, walleye, etc. Maybe a little misconception or maybe not...

I do know several outstanding crappie anglers who primarily target deep water (mostly open/suspended water) crappies during the summer months, and their success rate, on not only numbers but big fish too, is incredible. Rarely do they run up shallow and pitch structure, they are spending their time over deep holes, featureless flats, and breaklines. Some of the same areas we find our fish at during the winter.

There are lot of options out there for open water crappie anglers, and several things can be tied into winter fishing, and visa versa. We tend to get in a rut (CrappieTom knows what I'm talking about) and we go with what "has" worked in the past on a given situation. Being versatile and willing to change/adapt is one of the most important characteristics an angler should have, even when the fish are biting.

Good Fishin,

Matt Johnson

[CrappieJohn]

Matt has just mentioned one of the biggest setbacks for today's anglers: getting in a rut. Let your mind wander a bit while you are fishing.

I love plastics for the pannies and will spend a lot of my time whipping the water with them in search of roaming, open water fish. These fish are challenging, but this style of fishing does not lend itself to catching large numbers of fish. Larger fish, yes, and for the reasons Matt has just set forth. Another factor to open water roamers is the lack of competition for the available food. So if you are looking for deep water structure and weed lines that are holding fish, but catching only smaller fish, try up-sizing to a 3 inch twister and drift or slow troll the open water and don't pay much attention to the locator- heck, turn it off since the fish you are going to catch will likely not be seen on it beforehand anyway. Remember....out in the big water these fish are sight feeding and chasers.

If you have been using a favorite color of a particular bait, doing well, and then finding your hands getting too dry, change colors. I go through a color change pattern very quickly.

Then the plastics get set aside and the small hair jigs come out. They are fished bareback first and when I know that they are not going to turn fish without help, I hang a waxie.

Since I'd rather mow the lawn than fish a minnow, we won't discuss them. lol

Most people find themselves in a rut when the fish get lockjaw and this is exactly when the angler with sights set on crappies and panfish need to expand his tactical approach to them. In other words, crawl out of the rut.

There will be times when the crappies will be downright elusive and simply cannot be hounded into hitting anything. It is at these times when I take an extra rod or two and try some new kind of fishing....for me it has been bass using plastics and topwaters. I have learned a lot from using this hot period of weather to chase those fish that are better suited to hot weather performance. As a bonus, the northerns have been willing to hit the same bass tackle. Things can get interesting doing something new. Yes, I take a crappie rod or two and check to see if they are remotely willing to play.

With today's gas prices, I think we need to go prepared to challenge ourselves in a number of posible ways and make better use of the fuel we are using, whether it is used on the road or on the water.

More directly relating to your question about the midnight hour fishing, you may want to pay aprticular attention to the moon phase when you consider going. Many of the aqautic micro-organisms that crappies feed on at night are triggered by the moon's phase. And the period closetest to the full moon by three days either side are likely to be the best since the water will have considerably more illumination on it.

If it were me going out after dark in search of crappies, I'd simply slip along until I found suspended fish that seem to stay where they are at and use the electric to stay right on top of them and this these guys just like in the winter: drop the bait down to about a foot over their beans and tease them into hitting. Again though, don't settle on just one bait or approach. Be very will to change.

[Matt Johnson]

Great post Tom! Glad to have you back!

Good Fihsin,

Matt Johnson