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Thread: Fishing Lights at night during the spawn???

  1. #1
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    Default Fishing Lights at night during the spawn???


    Anybody do this? Will crappie spawning under a dock come up at night to feed and leave their bed? I know crappie spawn in waves so there should always be some crappie that have not spawned yet or have already, around the lights. Just wondering if the catch is usually less do to many fish being preoccupied in love? Thanks.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by crappster
    Anybody do this? Will crappie spawning under a dock come up at night to feed and leave their bed? I know crappie spawn in waves so there should always be some crappie that have not spawned yet or have already, around the lights. Just wondering if the catch is usually less do to many fish being preoccupied in love? Thanks.
    Good question. I have been wondering about the same thing but my question would be during or just before spawn would you have any luck night fishing under lights. During pre-spawn & post-spawn time I wondered about mouth of coves just off the points. During the spawn just off shore in 15 foot of water?
    Duane

    My soon to be ex-wife calls me a CrappieHead

  3. #3
    sar'elilsucrsnagr Guest

    Default night fishing w/lanterns

    Years ago, my dad, made a styrofoam pad to put the lanterns "on". He put metal plates on each corner...then put springs with a hook on each corner...put a ring clamp around the lantern just below the globe...on one side of the pad he mounted a pipe nipple, about 3/4" or 1" to slide a piece of pvc pipe w/string to tie pvc to the pad...secure the other end of pvc to the side of your boat w/pipe nipple or similar....this keeps the bugs away from your boat and no wave action will cause you to lose your lantern...I'm still using a pair he made 20 years ago....this does'nt answer your question about spawning crappie, but they don't all spawn at the same time...at least I don't think so...we typically set up in 25'-30' of water and fished 15' deep

  4. #4
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    Well it's hard to know which fish are feeding under the dock at night even with the lights on. Like you said some fish are spawing while the others are in prespawn and other's have already finished with their spawning duties. It's really hard to tell which fish that are bitting at night are the pre or post spawners. I really doubt that the males would leave the nest to feed until the spawn has hatched and left the nest. Also I would think that the male crappies would be off the feed or they might end up eating the baby crappies that are all hatching at the same time in the same spawing grounds. I think that is natures way of protecting the baby crappie... males not eating for a while after they finished guarding the nests. The Females don't stay on the nest very long as they stay out in the deeper water until they are ready to lay their eggs and then the come to the spawning grounds to choose a male to mate with and to lay her eggs in the nest that the male built. Then the females are reported to leave the nest and go back out to the postspawn deeper water areas. So the females may be feeding as they go to the spawning grounds and again as they leave the grounds. Not sure if they are going on hungar strikes like the males to protect the new crappie hatchlings.

    I use to catch lots of crappie off a dock in cypress bay on KY Lake in March and April. The dock owners sunk brush piles at the end of the dock and they had dusk to dawn lights on the dock also. The lights always attracted lots of bugs and there were spider webs all around the corners of the building on the boat dock. When we went there in June to fish for bass we still fished for crappie at night. The Bay gets to about 20ft deep in the middle of the bay and this bay is a bay off the main part of Cypress Bay. It's on the north side of Cypress Bay (KY side of the bay). The South side of the bay is TN. The state line runs right down the middle of Cypress Bay. The north side was dry back in the 1960's and the South side was Wet. If dad wanted beer they just drove over to the TN side and got them some beer to bring back to the cabins. I can remember fishing for crappie at night off the end of that boat dock. The water there was a least 10ft deep during the summer months. This was before they built docks with covered slips for boats and everyone back in those days had the old aluminum type fishing boats. Most of the motors were not bigger than 40 hp in those days and most were 10 to 15 HP engines. But the crappie were there and would readily take a minnow that was held under a big plastic red/white bobber. We use long bamboo cane poles back in those days but we use to catch lots of big crappie. Back then there was buck brush all along the shoreline and when the water came up in the April the buch brush was sitting in 2ft deep water. The crappie would spawn along the shoreline in the buck brush and you could just row along the shoreline and pick up spawning crappie anywhere along the North shoreline of Cypress Bay. As the years went on the buck brush vanished for some reason. Some say the KY DNR sprayed the bay to kill the buck brush but I think that the changing water levels killed the buck brush. Not sure but I would love to know if that stuff is back along the shoreline these days or not. I have not fished that area since the late 1970s and then it was only one time for a few hours and I was dead tired and can't remember much about that trip. It was one of those trips where I didn't get much sleep the night before and was too tired to even drive home. My friend ended up driving my truck home that weekend.


    Quote Originally Posted by crappster
    Anybody do this? Will crappie spawning under a dock come up at night to feed and leave their bed? I know crappie spawn in waves so there should always be some crappie that have not spawned yet or have already, around the lights. Just wondering if the catch is usually less do to many fish being preoccupied in love? Thanks.
    Regards,

    Moose1am

  5. #5
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    here's an idea on how to float a lantern above the water.





    Quote Originally Posted by sar'elilsucrsnagr
    Years ago, my dad, made a styrofoam pad to put the lanterns "on". He put metal plates on each corner...then put springs with a hook on each corner...put a ring clamp around the lantern just below the globe...on one side of the pad he mounted a pipe nipple, about 3/4" or 1" to slide a piece of pvc pipe w/string to tie pvc to the pad...secure the other end of pvc to the side of your boat w/pipe nipple or similar....this keeps the bugs away from your boat and no wave action will cause you to lose your lantern...I'm still using a pair he made 20 years ago....this does'nt answer your question about spawning crappie, but they don't all spawn at the same time...at least I don't think so...we typically set up in 25'-30' of water and fished 15' deep
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    Regards,

    Moose1am

  6. #6
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    I always night fish during the spawn. I always do well this time of year. I believe the crappie feed heavy at night during the spawn. I have some of my most productive trips at night this time of year. It is even better than summer. Just my opinion. Not factual information.

    "If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles." ~Doug Larson

  7. #7
    sar'elilsucrsnagr Guest

    Default Moose1am

    Quote Originally Posted by Moose1am
    here's an idea on how to float a lantern above the water.
    I like the idea of anchoring lanterns...you would never have to anchor your boat...just move to the next lantern if your not getting bit....I'm planning on putting some of Jerry Blake's crappie condo's in area's where I night fish...as summer comes "on" remember that the fish won't be below the thermocline...so if you fish deep areas of the lake and your minnow is dead after a little while, chances "are", your below the thermocline where the oxygen level is too thin....I've been told you can see the thermocline with a good depth finder...they say turn sensitivity way up and you can see the line...I use a lms 240 lowrance and have yet to see thermocline on it, but it has so many features that it almost overwhelms me...

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    Well they say to turn the sensitivity way up to the higherst level. At that level you may get multiple bottom returns as the sound waves go out from the transducer and then bouce of the bottom back to the transducer and then bounce back off the bottom of your boat and back down to the bottom and back up again. You can tell that there are multiple bottom echoes as the second bottom reading is exactly twice as deep at the first one.

    Thermoclines sometimes show up on the depth finder as a thermocline is a area of the lake (vertical wise) that changes water temp very quickly in only a short distance vertically. The density of water is effected by it's temperature. Colder water is more dense that hot water in most cases. So when the water at the thermocline gets cold it also gets more dense. Dense cold water will slow down sound waves. Hot water increases the speed of sound in the water. At the boundry of the hot cold water (thermocline) the sound waves can actually be reflected off the thermocline and back up to the boats transducer. But you must have the right frequency type of transducer and the power must be set to the highest levels and there must be a good thermocline. Also disolved substances are often trapped in or below the thermocline and they can help reflect the sound waves.

    Not all lakes will develop a good thermocline as high winds and currents can prevent a thermocline from forming. Very shallow lakes may not have a thermocline at all. And even in lakes that can develop a thermocline they won't have one in the winter spring or fall after the fall turnover. Only during the hot summer months will the thermoclines normally be formed. It all depends on the lake volume, depth and the radiant energy that the water receives and how the water heats up.


    I have a temperature gauges with a broken DO meter. It woudl cost me almost 300 bucks to get the DO meter fixed so I just use it as a temp gauge. The cable is only 25 ft long and I wish I had a 50 ft long cable as sometimes on the lake I fish the thermocline is deeper than 25 ft and I can't find it with my temperature gauge. Maybe someday I will spend the money and get the 50ft long cable and update the DO probe so that I can take Dissolved Oxygem measurements down to 50ft as well at temperature readings down to 50ft. The only problem with the meter is that it only reads in Celcius and I have to convert the C readings into F readings. Readings in F deg have better resolution. So I can tell easier where the thermocline may be. But most Scientifc equipment reads in Metric Units and Centigrade is a metric temperature unit. It's base Ten. Everything in the metric unit is base ten unlike the English measurement system that switches base units all the time. 12 inches to the foot then three feet to the yard. This example has two different bases. Base 3 and base 12. Now most Americans are taught the English system but it's actually harder to learn when you first start vs learning the metric system. Most of people (Humans) in this world have ten fingers if you count the thumbs and that is why we use the Base10 system. Hell we use the Base ten system for our most important calculations... our money system is base ten. You all get paid based on the metric system but just didn't think of it that way. LOL

    Its' all relative anyway. And if you are using the English system today you are not going to switch. I use both equally badly.


    Quote Originally Posted by sar'elilsucrsnagr
    I like the idea of anchoring lanterns...you would never have to anchor your boat...just move to the next lantern if your not getting bit....I'm planning on putting some of Jerry Blake's crappie condo's in area's where I night fish...as summer comes "on" remember that the fish won't be below the thermocline...so if you fish deep areas of the lake and your minnow is dead after a little while, chances "are", your below the thermocline where the oxygen level is too thin....I've been told you can see the thermocline with a good depth finder...they say turn sensitivity way up and you can see the line...I use a lms 240 lowrance and have yet to see thermocline on it, but it has so many features that it almost overwhelms me...
    Regards,

    Moose1am

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