Night Fishing Question?

[OkieDon]

Here's ?? for you die hard night stalkers.

Does the moon phase affect the Crappie bite? What I'm wondering is if the Crappie fishing is better under a full moon or new moon?

Not that it will matter either way. I plan on going whenever I can, but I was just curious.

[filletfetish]

Die hard, I'm not. I just like to catch fish and it's not always tryin for slabs. If I just must go out on a full moon, I'll trade my catfish rods for crappie sticks everytime.

As soon as I get my lights set, I'll drop a bottom line just for something to do. I don't get to pick where the moon phase falls on friday nights, but I'm still going fishin. It's not that the fish don't bite, but you may have a harder time attracting bait. I've fished places that always produce bait, and ended up with only a handfull after of hours of soaking under a bright full moon.

[Darin115]

I generally can't get bait under my lights on a night with a bright moon. I typically have a crappy night when the moon is bright.

Maybe it is just me.

Darin

[crappiman]

Most effect of the full moon on fish is gravitational.The shallow fishing increases from the light of a full moon,but light penetration beyond 6ft or so is very minimal from the moon.

[AtticaFish]

I am decidely low tech compared to most... I bank fish with my only light being my head lamp, but i do go out often. I don't look for concentrated crappie, i fan cast an area and pick a few here and there using tied jigs either swimming them or under a float. After catching a few, move down the bank and repeat.

A full moon does seem to affect the overall bite, i think it just spreads the crappie out even more as they can roam and feed a little better with some moon light. A great time to fish under a full moon though is when it is a late rising moon. I went out last weekend and the moon did not come up until around 11:00 or so. We had a good bite right at dusk.... slowed down... but was back on again just as the moon started coming up.

Must agree though, the moon phase does not determine if i'm going out or not, anything is better than whats on TV..... except for Breaking Bad that is. :D

[Locator79]

I have way more productive nights when the moon is not bright. Like mentioned before, its a lot harder to get bait to the lights on a bright night. I have my best nights in July and August, on dark calm nights. I no expert either though.

[gabowman]

Sometimes even a full moon is late coming up and that can be a good night to fish. On plenty of ocassions my experience is...once that bright moon pops up over the trees the bite is over.:rolleyes: That being said...if a full moon (or any bright night as far as I'm concerned) comes up at dark then I take the wife out to eat. I save the dark nights to fish.