Drawing Crappies in at night

[Chris338378]

Here's an old trick my Grandfather taught me that he did back in the 1960s.  To attract Crappies at night get yourself at least twenty lanterns (you can use more and put them out in a square about twenty feet by twenty feet.  This will end up having four rows of four lanterns and will light up the area pretty well.  You can make the area you cover bigger but you'll need more lanterns or you can make it smaller if you don't have that many lanterns.  He set them up about a 1/2 hour before dark so he could see what he was doing because he wanted them in rows and evenly spaced.  He would clear any snow from around where the lantern would sit and drill a hole near each of the lanterns that he would either jig or set a tip up in.  He said at times it was just easier to drill a hole a few inches deep and set the lantern in it but either would work.  This attracts the Crappies and will greatly increase your odds of getting them but as we all know nothing guarantees they will bite.  Make sure it's legal where you fish before you do it. 

[Whopper Stopper]

.  To attract Crappies at night get yourself at least twenty lanterns (you can use more and put them out in a square about twenty feet by twenty feet.   

Wonder what that would cost 

          WS

[Swift]

Carry enough stuff as it is. Never had attraction problems if I set up where they intend to be in the first place

[BudMan]

That sounds like one expensive way to attract fish. 1 lantern and moving around till I find them works for me.  It must look like a runway with all those lights lined up.

[CrappieVermonter]

Ive been useing one lantern and cheap green lites that go in the hole and I can say it makes a big differencem one fish got tangled in my lites and they fell off after i lost them no more fish showed up on my vex

[Chris338378]

Oh trust me it does look like a runway.  As I said you can make it bigger or smaller but the more lanterns the more light in a bigger area to attract them.  A single lantern works but the fish need to be somewhat close where the bigger the area and more light it is visible further away.

[Townie]

Techni-Glo lures and/or bobber glow sticks secured above lure...

[wish4fish]

I'm sure it works but sounds a bit labor intensive..... I use a green light also. I have good results for 1.5 hr. or so then my Vex gets so cluttered w/ small marks its more effective to start over in a different location.

[slipperybob]

Are crappies really attracted to the light?  Or are they just after some bait that's attracted to the light...

[Swift]

Are crappies really attracted to the light?  Or are they just after some bait that's attracted to the light...

It's all about the easy food. Crappies are fully capable of feeding in the dark and have been long before people started going after them in the dark. It's a food chain starting with the plankton thing. That's why there's a dawn/dusk flurry on most lakes. Plankton are light sensitive, they change levels in the water column and concentrate depending on light levels. The sun rise/sets, good fishing, toss in our artificial light source and they move again, which causes the things that eat them to follow, then minnows eat these and Crappies go after them and hopefully we catch dinner.

[BLUJBURD]

I've been kicking around the notion of using good emergency glow sticks in quart mason jars under ice.  Their intensity will last for a good few hours has anyone used an intense blue light or even ultra violet for that matter as they diffuse at a further distance. 

[pokey]

When I catfish we float 2lt packed with glow sticks to attract shad to cast net for bait. We normally snag a bunch of crappies in our nets, which we throw back. We sink the 2lt at times too.