Tried my new Green LED out tonight

[binfordw]

But failed pretty badly


The light was great. Even in rather low water clarity it cast a huge circle of green glow, It illuminated bobbers well to about 7-10ft from the light. I'd say there was a 25-30ft circle of green light that you could still make out a bobber in around the boat ( I dropped it off the side, in the middle of the boat and down about 6ft.)

Heres the link to the light https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I picked a spot we have had good luck fishing before, a steep point near a large flat area, and setup in about 18ft of water. I marked a good amount of fish on the point so I figured it would work well.

We waited about an hour. Bugs first, then tiny fry/minnows. It was nearly 2 hours before I saw much in the way of actual minnow action. I fished a minnow below a bobber at varying depths, but didnt have much luck. My wife gave up quick due to boredom and napped in the bow of the boat. (Luckily she has advanced into bringing full sleep gear, A camp mat, blanket, pillow, etc.) At hour 3 or so I caught a small 7-8" crappie. A bit later, the bait action had increased pretty well, and I saw bait scatter the surface a few times, running from something. I hooked a keeper sized crappie when i threw out to that area, but it shook off at the boat.

That was it. A little disappointed, I had brought a cooler with ice hoping to catch a mess of crappie even. Oh well. Maybe I can pick a better location and get better results next time (possibly tonight!)


I will say, when I shut the light off to leave, the water nearly boiled with bait jumping, even a good ways away from where the light was visible. So the bait was there, I'll give it that. I guess they freaked when the light cut off?


The pic doesn't show nearly as well what I could see with naked eye, but gives an idea of how much light. Looking at the pic now I can even see my line. It was very pleasing to sit and fish from, alot more enjoyable than sitting in the dark waiting for bells or clickers to wake you up. Although If we had been catfishing we would have caught more fish this time I'm sure lol. Maybe next time we will do both.

[skiptomylu]

Here is what you want to see in your light! The Green light I use now is much brighter and lights up a much larger area!

Skip

[BigDawgg]

Skip/binforw , some times we have to shut the light off a few seconds to scatter the bait. It's like the lottery, 1 in a million chances getting a crappie to bite your minnow in all that bait.

They will bite at different times. Last night for us it was slow too! Temp of water, thermocline and moon played a part of our luck last night. If you can go later or early morning before day break with your light it might make a difference. Get the bait in and fish upward a few cranks at a time from the bottom until you get the zone.

[skiptomylu]

LOL, yes sometimes it looks like you could walk across them! I have had so many you could feel them
bump into your line and make you set the hook, lol! However there have been several times I did that and hooked a shad!

Skip

[CrappiePappy]

LOL, yes sometimes it looks like you could walk across them! I have had so many you could feel them
bump into your line and make you set the hook, lol! However there have been several times I did that and hooked a shad!

Skip

Around here .... that's part of the plan !! Some use sinker on end of line and a couple of small treble hooks about a foot apart ... lower it into the circling Shad & jerk. When one is snagged .... some reel them in and put them on another rod, while others just let the impaled Shad flutter down. Both methods seem to work OK.

I have heard some say that they use white floating lights, rather than green submersibles ... because the green lights are brighter over a larger area, so the Shad tend to circle wider, making it more difficult to snag them.

I'm hoping to put this to practice next weekend.

[Cane Pole]

Try this when you get a chance. If you have a heard of bait fish under your light, move slowly to another location with your light under water. The bait fish will follow the light. Amazing to watch. Blueball and I had a good heard and slowly moved to other locations. The minnows followed. I sped up on several occasions and started out running the bait fish. So I slowed down and let the catch up to the light. We weren't catching any fish, but we had fun messing with the bait fish. They followed us across the lake and stayed with us until we called it quits. So you can heard the bait fish to different locations if you leave the lights on and don't out run them. We had the lights mounted on the back of the boat.

I still use the old floating headlamps. The headlamps don't penetrate water like leds, but the headlights bring in the flying bugs big time, just like they do on the car windshield.

[binfordw]

We gave it another go last night in a diff area. I found a decent drop-off/point in a shallower cove, and anchored at about 18ft. When I put the light out, we immediately saw baitfish. While they never got crazy dense, there was alot more than before. I think alot of them were a bit deeper, occasionally when the bait would spook, they would go to the surface and there was tons. The other reason I think most of the bait was deeper, I had missed a hit from a crappie, and snagged a baitfish on the retrieve. I was confused at first lol, My original minnow was gone, but was replaced by a slightly larger version! It even snagged it up through the lower jaw, close to how I was hooking the minnows.

We put out some cat rigs, and jigged a few minnows. We caught 4 eating sized channels, and 4 crappie. One of the crappie was 12".

The light was absolutely great for cat fishing though, We could see the lines very well. Made for a great experience.

[CrappieDreamer]

I love night fishing from my boat. I have a strip of green LEDs that run the length of one side of my boat and have made a couple of my own submersible lights. I too have had incredible masses of baitfish, but not all that often. I typically have my submersible just below the surface a few inches. I usually fish with one rod equipped with a slip float and minnow and another jigging rod (using either home made jigs or small baby shad plastics). Some nights the jig does better, some nights the bobber and minnow. I never know when to quit and sometimes the sun comes up before I go home