Night Ice Fishing

Anyone do much ice fishing at night? I’ve heard several times that fishing is just as good, if not better at night. Anyone?

A few years ago I and a friend did really well at night on crappies. I remember it was a Super Bowl Sunday. We were fishing near the cribs in deep water on Onalaska. As the day started turning darker and cooler, the bite just started picking up. We ended up rigging a Maglight flashlight to a rope and hanging it from one of the support poles above the holes. When it got dark, we were nailing the craps one right after another. We started out using two lines each but had to go to one, their was no way to keep up with two. I have not tried fishing in the dark since then. I know one the lake quite a few people will stay after dark and do pretty good.

I know a guy who does it a lot. He’ll even set up a circle of lanterns around his holes, I suppose the light must draw baitfish in(???) and hungry crappies follow. He’s done really well at night, but both times I’ve tried it the answer was NADA

I’ve done quite a bit of night fishing for crappies, generally go out an hour or so before dark and run around with the vexilar and a jug of water to find good numbers of suspended fish, park the shantee and fish till they quit biting. Done well on Gull Lake the past couple years after the JC ice tourny. It’s weird, they can turn on at any time of the night. If I can find a spot where the larva is coming of the bottom at dusk, the crappies are generally not far behind. Can’t say enough about the use of the vexilar!

I’ve tried several times a couple of hours after dark and a few hours before light on the backwaters of the Mississippi. I haven’t had any success on the river but know of an area lake where there is a night crappie bite.

Mo-fishn-n-huntn, I recently purchased a FL8 vexilar.will this work for shooting through the ice? any tips? eyenutz!

Yes, it will shoot through the ice. I always bring a water jug to pour a little water on the ice first. I haven’t found it to be very good at picking up fish through the ice.

Absolutely eyenutz, just squirt a little water on the ice and set the puck on it(make sure the puck is firmly on the ice)…with good clear ice you should be able to pick up fish, set the gain dial to 4 or 5 and the fish should be indicated by a orange / red line and fluttering or moving in and out as they swim around, if you pick up light green lines, hit your interference button, should be the gain dial (just push it in) if the green lines dissapear then it was interference, if they persist its probably baitfish. Fish closer to the bottom (6″ or less) will be a little tougher to read, just turn the gain up a little and watch for flickering on the bottom. The larva on the bottom should show up as flickering green lines. I have the old FL-8, but my fishing buddies all have the new FL-8’s and 18 and they work even better. If you have bad crusty ice (like after a rain or snow melt and freeze), shooting through the ice may not work as well. Good Luck

Well getting back to your question about night ice fishing. I found that checking the fish and wild life forecast works out big, fish feed at night too. I’ve got some crappies and sunfish out on Schmidt Lake (Beebees good too) in St. Micheal around 2 AM a few weeks ago. Shiner’s are key to good night fishing if you can afford to buy them(close to 8 dollars a scoop), but I usually resort to fatheads (glow jigs to make up for dark). Shiners do make the walleyes go crazy though. Something I’ve learned when using them is that they like to play dead, so instead of throwing down the hole or out the door put them back in the bucket. They usually warm up and come back to life with in ten minutes or so. (good tip on the vexler, my buddy uses his through the ice, bodily fluids work great if no H2O on hand)