Light from hole spooking fish?

[Jared D]

My buddy just recently bought an underwater camera that we tried out this weekend and boy is it sweet! I did notice one thing however, we were looking around our area where we had a few holes drilled and saw quite a bit of light coming through the ice around the holes. Now we maybe had a foot or so circle of snow/slush pushed back from the hole to set tip ups on the top of the ice. Maybe I am overthinking it, but man the light coming through looked crazy to me and thought maybe the fish thought so too. Should I just start drilling my holes, scooping them and leaving them like that with out moving any snow or slush away from the hole. Never thought of it until now and have always done decent with our current process but I will take any I can to catch more fish!

[Piltzviller]

I too have often wondered. I'm excited to hear people's thoughts

[ice dawg]

At times light shining through holes seems to bother fish in shallow water so I will kick slush into the holes. Then I will step in the hole to break the slush up and drop my bait through it. It works well for walleye when using a spoon just before low light periods. At times I have only a couple feet of water under the ice.

[IceinMT]

I do not clean my holes out. I just push my jig though the slush.If I use a house I clean the ice out of the hole.

[liprippin49ers]

I think the light actually attracts baitfish and will only attract other predatory fish to check it out as well. I have actually heard of people drilling a partial hole leaving a couple inches of ice and then putting a flashlight or spot light down in the hole at night to attract fish. They have special lights you can put on your boat for night fishing as well that illuminates the water. I've never tried either though. Just my thoughts.

[Wenger]

We often do just that at night on Peck.  We have the submersible green tube lights that clip onto a 12v battery and drop two of them down a couple feet. It really brings then crappie in at Crooked Creek and seems to attract walleyes and perch too as they come up off the bottom a ways.   It works in summer (we camp on our boat there a lot) or winter when we camp on the ice. Plus it gives the inside of the pop up a cool green glow from the holes. 

 So I don't think light from holes have any negative effect given the microorganisms that start the food chain are certainly attracted to light and thus the plankton feeders and then the predators.  Then again when I used to fish Devils Lake a lot during early ice we would try to set up on snow drifts to stay in the shade rather than clear ice when fishing in say ten foot of water or so. 

[Gone_fishing]

I've watched uncut angling videos of them fishing at night with a big spotlight shining through ice so they can see fish on their camera. They're fishing lake trout but they do not seem to be affected by the light.

[bootstrap]

i think noise spooks them more.

[Gone_fishing]

i think noise spooks them more.

Agree... that's why I always put one rod away from my group and it usually performs well : )