Small Lake Night Stalking

[mistertwister]

OK, i have waited as long as i can for this one. Let me give you some background informaion.

Lake is situated in North central / Kentucky. Corinth lake to be exact. By no stretch is this a known crappie lake.
Brother and i really slammed the crappie there last saturday morning. Fished jigs, jigs with spinners, just about whatever we threw out caught a fish.
Caught fish mainly in the tops of downed trees, trees that it apprears were cut by the KDFW.
The tops of these trees were in 8 to 15 feet of water.
Most evey fish was in the 7 to 9 inch range. Did catch a couple that were over 10.

THat said, last saturday we went back and night stalked, for the first time i might add. I followed every single line of Rango's article to the T. Did not catch a single fish. We saw fish on the sonar all night, we fished minnows at ever depth from 3 to 10 feet and fished jigs just the same. we occasional saw fish below us and saw shadows when they broke between us and the light dangling below the boat. Aside of dropping a stick of dynamite below the boat, which is illegal in our state, i don't know what else we could have done. We anchored in the creek channel, 15 ft of water (which was the deepest of the cove) and were 10 yards from the tree tops i mentioned above.

Anyone have any suggestions? I am looking to catch some of the bigger ones with more consistancy and really had my hopes set that this would be an awesome method, just feel i was holding my mouth wrong or something.

as always, thanks
twister

[slab-happy]

Hello mistertwister...I am from Louisville Ky, so I guess I am not far from you. Night stalking is my favorite and how I fish most of the time. Try fishin closer to the bottom.
marvin

[mistertwister]

I will admit that i have trouble understanding the depths that i see people on here posting. In my mind, i really believe that a KY Lake rig suspended just off the bottom with jigs or minnows would be successful, just have trouble making myself do it. I will try that. Ever get a sense that the lights or boat spook the fish? my boat is alluminum and fully carpeted. Pretty quiet. I figure that the fish are more interested in the bait fish swimming around and may ignore everything else but have nothing to substantiate that. Thanks for the tip.
twister

[gooch]

One problem you may be having in such small water is drawing to much bait. The biggest draw of nightstalking is having the light draw the bait to it and depending on how small the lake is you may be concentrating to much bait in one area of the pond. Try throwing a few lighted bobbers in the area where the lighted water meets the dark water. Some nights the bobbers are the ones that produce and the straigt lines dont do much.

Good luck and keep us posted on your success

[mistertwister]

This could be part of the problem as well. THe lake is 192 acres. THe cove that we fish in and the area is probably 100 yards wide, with a depth of 15 to 20 feet. We visually could see the microorganisms in the water under the lights,and also the depth finder had fish on it constantly, some of which could have been bait fish. using 10 ft poles i attempted to keep my bait suspended on the outermost portion of the submerged light, just so i could see the float. The conditions were awesome, the fish just didnt get the memo or something.
thanks for your comments,
chris

[gabowman]

I have had the same thing happen a few times. The graph stayed lit up like a Christmas tree but the fish simply had lockjaw. Most of my bad luck has been associated with a near full moon. Lately I've been casting a float near the edge of my boat lights (maybe 20-25 feet away from the boat) and have caught several this way letting the float drift. I use a float with a minner about 3-4 feet deep. Meanwhile I have 5 tightlines down ranging anywhere from 8 feet to 15 feet deep trying to find somewhat of a pattern as to what the crappie like for the night.

[gabowman]

I have had the same thing happen a few times. The graph stayed lit up like a Christmas tree but the fish simply had lockjaw. Most of my bad luck has been associated with a near full moon. Lately I've been casting a float near the edge of my boat lights (maybe 20-25 feet away from the boat) and have caught several this way letting the float drift. I use a float with a minner about 3-4 feet deep. Meanwhile I have 5 tightlines down ranging anywhere from 8 feet to 15 feet deep trying to find somewhat of a pattern as to what the crappie like for the night.