Editor’s Note: Nighttime crappie fishing is one of the most-addictive forms of fishing I know. Crappie fishing at night in the summer is cool, relaxing, rewarding and an ideal way to spend quality time with friends and family away from the rest of the world. Also, crappie fishing at night doesn’t interfere with any of my daytime activities. I can fish in the afternoons after work, fish all night Friday and Saturday and still have Sunday after church to recover.

The night was muggy. The big, thick, mushroom-shaped clouds allowed the moon only an occasional glimpse of our boat. Large swarms of gnats, mosquitos and sometimes a mayfly circled the white beam from the Coleman lantern (https://www.coleman.com/lighting/lanterns/gas-lanterns) being cast into the dark water below. The heat from the lantern toasted the wings of the bugs, which were inhaled by swarms of shad as soon as they hit the surface of the water. We’d been fishing for 3 hours and only caught two or three small crappie. “Sometimes the+ papermouths don’t turn on until 1:00 or 2:00 am,” my fishing buddy explained. “But if and when the crappie start biting, we’ll take good-sized crappie, and the fishing will be fast and furious.”

At 2:48:30 am, large numbers of slab-sized crappie schooled-up under the light. We caught the fish from 2 feet off the bottom to 2 inches from the surface in 15-foot deep water. Until the sun came up, the fishing was non-stop. Four of us kept 120 crappie that weighed between 1/2- and

2-1/2 pounds each. On many productive crappie lakes, trips like this can occur throughout the summer months at night.

To learn more about crappie fishing, check out John E. Phillips’ book, “Crappie: The Year-Round River Fisherman’s Bible” at   https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YDXB4G9/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p2_i5 and available in Kindle, print and Audible. You may have to copy and paste this link into your browser. (W

hen you click on the books, notice on the left where Amazon says you can read and hear 10% of the book for free). On the right side of the page and below the offer for a free Audible trial, you can click on Buy the Audible book.

Tomorrow: What Nighttime Crappie Equipment Is Needed