Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

[rfdfirecaptain]

Has anyone ever tried this method? I saw it on YouTube last year, then bought a light and gave it a try. The kids and I hauled in about 120 pounds of fish in just a few trips? mostly 5-8 pounders. In 90 feet of water the bait fish under my boat were so thick my Humminbird screen was solid red and said the boat was in 6 inches of water. I would like to exchange information with anyone who is also using this method.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

Interesting....

I've had similar experiences using fluorescent lights, where the bait was so thick the sonar was reading 5' in 60' of water. Good fishing on those nights.

So what's your setup and how much did it cost to rig up the boat with the sodium light. You have to run a generator to use those lights, right?

 

[sam60]

Re: Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

This has nothing to do with lighting but I think ^ this poster will someday land a Striped Bass in excess of 67LBS, 8 OZ.

 

[rfdfirecaptain]

Re: Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

I don’t have all my photos on this laptop, but here are a few I took off my Facebook Mobile Upload page.

I mounted the high pressure sodium light on an “L” shaped 1 inch galvanized pipe bracket (with diagonal brace) that I insert into a 90 degree rod holder on my stern wall. It hangs out over my swim deck. I use a 2000w Honda generator that sits on my swim deck and I secure it to the handrail on the aft stern wall. I try to have the light on the water around sunset. The light attracts plankton which attracts the smallest minnows. After 2 hours I usually have a huge bait ball in the center with rings of larger fish circling the bait ball. I try to select nights when I am not competing with the moonlight. Obviously, my light will appear “brighter” when I am not competing with natural lighting conditions. The darker the better!

Since I am stationary (at anchor) I have to rely on a school of fish coming to me. I have found my most productive locations to be out in the open, off “points”, where the bottom structure is hard and rises gradually back toward the shoreline of the point. Usually I fish in about 50-90 feet of water depending on how the wind is pushing me around on the anchor. Typically I’ll set about 8 rods around the boat. I’ll set my first rod around 20 feet deep and increase my depth 3 feet per rod. The warmer the water, the deeper I fish. If the water is really warm, say 83-85 degrees, I would probably start my first rod around 25 feet.

My tackle is a mix of Penn heavy trolling rods to a couple of Zebco 808 units. I use a 2 ounce egg sinker sitting on a plastic bead, which sits on my fisherman’s knot that is tied to a heavy duty quick snap. Then I have a 3 foot line with a loop connected to my quick snap and on the other end I use an 8/0 or 9/0 circle hook.

I use live bait, of whatever I can get. I’ve caught and used bream from my farm pond 3-4 inches wide, but usually I use bass minnows. 3-4 inches in length is about the largest I can buy, although I would prefer them to be much larger. Sometimes when I need more bait, or if the fish aren’t biting I’ll use my throw net and grab some of the 6 inch shad that are in a ring circling my bait ball. The only thing is, they don’t live long in captivity and their scales get all over everywhere. A few times fishing was so good we left dead minnows on the hooks because we were running out of bait…. And we still caught fish. My son used his untra-light rig and 2 dead (2inch shad) on a 4/0 hook and he caught the biggest fish of the night. He continued to use those small shad and had the hottest pole of the night. Sometimes we have tried jiggin, but that has not been productive. So, as you can see I am not married to any one technique and I would love to learn others.

I didn’t started doing this kind of fishing until last July so I am still learning myself. I only did this as a way to save fuel and still catch fish worth mentioning. If you want to chat about it send me a PM with your phone number and I’ll give you a call.

Keith

 

[rfdfirecaptain]

Re: Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

Only 5 photos per post, but I also wanted you to see what my sonar looks like.... and this isn't even one of the better photos that show all te fish blips on my side scan sonar.

 

[Davem3]

Re: Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

damn, i LIKE this................ i want to start learning how to do this

 

[sam60]

Re: Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

About 10 years ago I went out at night with my brother on his bass boat and he had an old car headlight that was in a foam floaty thingy....that worked well.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

This has nothing to do with lighting but I think ^ this poster will someday land a Striped Bass in excess of 67LBS, 8 OZ.

^^^ LOL, I wished! Maybe one day... (I chase big stripers below Hoover dam, that's what mz is referring to)

RFD, sounds like you have a good handle on striper fishing with lights. Right now I'm using a cobbled up LED light that throws out a lot of light, that and a sealed beam car headlight. I used to use fluorescent fishing lights, but started having problem with their ballasts burning out and decided to ditch them. Those HPS lights sound great, but too spendy for me as I would want a quiet (expensive) generator.

I basically anchor out like you in 60+' of water like you do. We don't have access to live bait out here unless shad are netted, so I always bring 5-10 bags of frozen anchovies or sardines. Live bait is better, but the chovies and dines work really well. I rig up similar, though I tie 2 swivels to the line and hang a #2-#3 treble hook on each swivel. The bait is cut into 2-3 sections, shank of treble hook driven through section of bait to hide barbs, then clipped onto the line. When I get bit, I'll reel in slowly and sometimes come up with a double on the line, second fish tags the second bait on the way up.

I find the best nights are a couple days around the new moon, and with a good breeze to get 2' waves going. I've tried competing with the moon, but don't have enough light to do a good job.

My boat has a 4' livewell that's filled with ice before leaving home. Once fishing we fill it with water and it turns into an ice slurry, keeps the fish in good condition until we get back to the landing to fillet them. We can pack 40+ dink stripers in the livewell and I wouldn't want more as it gets to be a pain filleting those fish after being up all night long.

How are you jigging? We drop a buck tail jig to the bottom and burn it up. I've had them slam it on the way down, but they usually nail it on the way up. Kind of funny watching the pack chasing it up and a fish or 2 come flying out of the water after the jig. I bought a couple Arkie's glow in the dark jigs that have worked well. I also took 2 small crappie jigs and tied them to a line and jigged with it, it worked well, but was a pain since it took a long time for it to sink, and we had to tie it on a light 6# trout rod.

I try to use 14-17# test line night fishing so I don't have to re-tie often. Lighter line can be more productive, but when you have to re-tie every couple of fish, it becomes a hassle.

Have you boil fished yet? That's a blast! Stripers push shad to the surface and go on a feeding frenzy, toss a spoon, popper or plug into the boil hang on. When the sun starts coming up and the night fishing is dying off, I'll start hunting around for boils.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

he had an old car headlight that was in a foam floaty thingy....that worked well.

Those work well and I have used them a lot, but they suck a battery down pretty quick. The HPS light RFD is using is really bright, probably 10x times brighter than a car headlight, but you need a genny to run it...

I had a trip last year when 2 of my fluorescent lights went dead and it ruined the trip, so I started looking for a low current alternative, other than florescents. I bought 6- MR16 4W LED lights off Ebay and cobbeled them up into fixture. They are pretty bright and have low current, but it needs to be brighter to do a good job. I'm looking at putting 10-20 of those MR-16 lights into a fixture to see how it does. Maybe make a bar to hang off the transom of the boat? This still won't be anywhere as bright as RFD's HPS light though.....

If i had one of those Honda or Yamaha generators on hand, I would be buying an HPS light. You could run a HPS off a cheap generator, but I hate that type of noise.

 

[dadtodc]

Re: Striper Fishing At Night - With A 400w High Pressure Sodium Light

Awesome night for sure. I use a generator with a 100w peak, and 6 work lights around the boat. I bring in tons of bait fish, and can fish all sides. I fish mostly for crappie, but have been into the cats and strippers heavy as well.