When I was younger I did quite a bit of night fishing, mostly walleye and lake trout. When I was very young, my father put two Coleman lanterns together on a long pipe that hung out over the boat. In my late teens I made underwater lights out of GE H2 automotive bulbs. Epoxy the base of the bulb and the terminations to the wire in a pvc cap. Put the bulb under water first, ( otherwise the hot bulb explodes when it hits the water) then hook alligator clips to a fully charged deep cycle 12v battery. This would run a light on each side of the boat all night long. Hang the light down just far enough to reflect off the bottom of the boat. This attracted many thousands of bugs, but more importantly, bait. By the thousands. Sometimes in 120' of water the finder read 2' because of the mass of bait. Works best on a new moon, the moon is tough competition, dark nights were always best. My best walleye night was 78, but we always caught at least a couple dozen. Shining a bright light by shore can attract tons of bait also. I may try this on my fatheads this summer some evening. V shaped netting, then close the open end when full of bait. This is the tactic the bait guys used to use to collect alewives to sell from the Fingerlakes . Not sure this is legal anymore with all the modern rules about collecting bait, I doubt it still is. Some nights, even out over very deep water, we would catch huge perch and crappie suspended about 12 feet down just under the bait. Great way to kill time while waiting for a bite from the big targets.

Last edited by Hollywood; 05/03/16 04:56 PM.
Pond Boss subscriber

Would those that say "it can't be done" please refrain from interrupting those that are doing it...