Nighttime Crappie

[Ozark]

Last night, my partner and I went bass fishing on Tablerock. For a couple of hours before dark we tried crappie fishing on the outside edge of a bunch of flooded trees where we had done good during the spring crappie run.

Surface water temp was 85.4 deg. and we were jigging and slow-trolling plastic swimming minnows near the bottom in 20 to 30 feet of water. It surprised us - we caught 5 real big crappie before dark, including a 16-incher. After dark, we switched over to bass fishing and did pretty good with those too. Where we caught the crappie, we were scoping them in small bunches about 20 feet down. They didn't seem to be holding on the timber, just a bunch here and there at random.

It's way too hot to fish during the day, but I think we could get some more crappie in that spot at night. I've got one of those underwater lights you can lower down on its cord, but I've never really fished that way.

Can someone tell me how? I'm thinking about tying up to a stump, lowering the light, and waiting for minnows (and hopefully crappie) to gather. How long should it take for that to happen? How deep should I lower the light? Do we fish around the edges of the lighted area? Do we need minnows, or are crappie jigs and swimmin' minnows OK? Thanks.

[Hunter91]

Ozark,

I am by no stretch of the imagination an expert on the subject but, my son and I did the crappie light thing on Stockton about a week ago. All we did was find a point where we knew crappie and walleyes resided due to past trips. Got in there about dark. We put a floating light on each end of the boat and a sinking light in the middle. We let in down about 10 ft. Probably should have kept it shallower. But it took about an hour and we could see lots of minnows and the occassional fish under the lights. We caught about a dozen crappie and a couple of walleyes before midnight using minnows and leeches for the 'eyes. I hear it can be excellent on TR at night.

Good Luck.

[gman]

I'm not a pro at night fishin but I have fished with a light for a few years. The only thing I would do different from Hunter91 is I would put my underlight only 3-4 ft down it draws the bait fish to the surface and most crappie like to come up on there food.

I have night fished a lot on Stockton but for some reason never on the Rock. I live about half way between the 2 so maybe I need to go south for a change.