Night Stalk Equipment

[Darin115]

I guess I am new to crappie fishing. This is really my 2nd Summer fishing for nothing but crappie. I fish mostly at night in the Summer. So I have built my boat around night fishing for crappie. I went to the Jordan social a couple of months ago. I was amazed at the rigs used for trolling, spider rigging and night stalking.

My question is about rods/reels that people here use for night stalks. I have mostly short ultra light rods and reels that I use for this purpose. 4 1/2 - 5 1/2 feet long ultra light rods and small spinners loaded with 4-6 pound mono.
This set up is working out great for my type of fishing and I am catching fish generally every time I go.

What do ya'll use for night stalking? Just curious. I guess I am looking for ideas that I have not thought of.

Darin

[gilby1955]

let me know, i want to get into the night life too. i live close to you I think.

[Darin115]

Glby1955,

Give me a call and we will go to Shearon Harris one night. I am going to Washington, DC this weekend with the Scouts but I plan on going Friday August 6th. I will leave Asheboro around 7:00pm. I am meeting a guy named Chris I met on here at the lake. He is taking his boat as well.

I have my style of fishing figured out. I just wondered how others do it. I have all the lights and rod holders and stuff. Night stalking is pretty much all I ever do in the Summer. I fish some in the Spring and Fall during daylight hours but still do it the same way just without the lights.

I have limited experience in trolling and no experience in spider rigging.

cell # 336-953-2909

Darin

[Rat]

I generally fish with 6-8 rods. Four set up like you use, 6 footers with Shimano Sienna 1000 reels, two 8 foot BnM rods with small baitcast reels and two ten or twelve foot BnM rods with small baitcast reels. I don't care much for rods shorter than 6 feet in length unless I am fishing in a crappie house (which I don't do much anymore).

With this combination of rods I can set out all my rods at the 'edge' of the light (I use a submersible light). From right to left my set up is like this:
Rod 1, 6 footer angled out to about 45-60°
Rod 2, 6 footer angled out 30-45°
Rod 3, 8 or 10 footer angled 15-30°
Rod 4, 10 or 12 footer usually straight out

I setup the next rod holder the same way in descending order so it looks like a big fan on the side of my boat; it looks like a spider rig set up and is in fact the same configuration I use when spider rigging, but that is off the bow not the side.

With the rods set up like this I can get all of them in the edge of the light where I feel like I catch more fish. I can also move the rods so I can get closer to exposed brush or a steep bank if I am close enough. In open water over brushpiles I can cover a large portion of the brushpile this way as well.

I paint all my rod tips with white paint to see them easier. When the bite gets hard and heavy I can cull rods to just as many as I can keep up with. With two people in the boat we easily have between 8 and 16 rods in the water at any given time.

If I were you I would add a couple of 8 footers, and maybe a couple of 10 footers, to the rod locker.

[gabowman]

I fish 8 rods ranging from 5' to 6.5' staggering them in length in the rod holders to space 'em out trying to avoid tangles. If two people fish out of my boat we can fish up to 16 rods off the rod holders. My boat isnt real wide so I have 4 T-bars with 4 holders each set up on the 4 corners of my boat so I'm fishing 4 rods pretty much from each side of the boat, front or back. All my rods are painted flat white on the tips to see them good. I use an overhead energy saver bulb off and invertor mounted on a 6' piece of PVC (one for each end of the boat if two fishes). I use a couple submersible lights. Anchors off both ends of the boat. Since most of my stalks are during the winter months I also carry a heater along. As long as the temps arent below 38* I fish comfortable and catch some real hawgs in early Feb. until the spawn. I use a cooler for a fish box during cooler weather using lake water and have a holder and landing net for each end of the boat. Once winter time ends I move to day fishing and am either spider rigging or longlining. All of my different styles of fishing requires different rods and reels or poles so I have enough to stay on ready for whichever style of fishing I want to do.