lights on ice attract fish?

[Harry]

A man that I know that has had to do underwater diving at nite thru the ice said he was surprised on how a lantern ,Ie Colman gas,..would be seen so well even under some fairly thick ice (unless there was a lot on snow on the ice.) I'm wondering since I don't get out much to ice fish. Do you feel that light attracts fish (baitfish) so that other preditor fish feed on them? I remember my Uncle lived on a lake and his deck lights used to attract many crappie and other fish,..often I would cast out to the darnkness and before it came into the spotlight area ,..on the edges,.. a big bass would hit my lure.
That being noted,.. would you think a submergible light like the crappie guys use would attract fish ? (I'm thinking on the far perimeters, that is in the area where its dark coming into the light,. or do winter fish act differently,..I'm guessing walleyes might be spooked by the light or if the light is steady would they prowl on the far outskirts of this.Also is this legal. I release what I catch so I'm not tring to make a killing on fish but I'm always curious to how fish react/bite.

[MnWalleyeKiller]

In minnesota it is illeagel to use light to attract fish. My friend has one of those 12 volt green lights from cabelas. We used it on mille lacs last year to see what would happen. We turned it on and sent it down the hole with weights attached to one end. There was a green aurora for 35 feet around our house. There was no snow on the ice and you could see this for quite a distance. We gave it some time with no bites to be had, so we shut it down. A short time after that we did catch 2 walleyes. I think that the light was too much for the walleyes or perch. You would do much better off fishing the edge of the light penetration. We havent used it since, the light was way too bright plus its highly illeagel. I would not suggest it the results weren't that great.

I have drilled 1/2 way throough the ice and set my lantern in the hole, to see the boober better. Works great in a low light fish house did not know or think about it for attracting fish. I guess if it is illeagal I won't do that anymore. Never realized if we caught more fish becaus of it.

I doubt a lantern on the ice would count as an attractant light,...might be interesting if you had a few guys set up tipups in line like the spokes of a wheel to see if a certain distance produced more and if to close didn't.

We fish perch on lake Superior and previously had never caught fish after dark. My understanding is that perch can not see in the dark and that is why walleyes are so active at last light.

One evening in late March we were fishing in 15 feet of water in a area we had caught fish previously. We were fishing shallow as the perch were staging in the area close to their spawning grounds. There was very litte to no snow on the ice. We had not had a bite and it was about 9 pm and getting dark so we decide to head home and lite the coleman lantern so we could see what we were doing. As we were taking in the first of our two lines we got a bite and by this time it was pitch black. After that we caught one perch after the other. The lines which were about 15 feet from the light caught about 1 fish for every 5 on the lines closest to the light. After about 15 minutes we could not tend to more than one line as the bites were coming so fast. We caught fish until 11 pm and only quit because we figured the wives might think we had drowned and would call out a rescue party.

We caught over 200 perch and we each kept about 50-60 bigger ones as it was our last trip of the season.

We have never tried it again,but plan on doing so this year as we don't feel it is illegal if used to light up our fishing area,although we are not sure a CO would buy that.:-)

[JCarp]

1. Light to attract fish is legal in Ohio
2. Pretty new to nite fishing on ice. Used a lantern to be able to see a fair portion of 12 tipups on one or two of our 1st nite trips a few yrs back. Ice had snow cover (not deep). Caught some crappie in the inside edges of the surface light zone, saugeye more on the outside edges. Seemed like just as many saugeyes way outside the zone of light.

Only maybe 1/2 dozen or so other nite trips to the same place w/o lantern. We didn't catch crappie and I'd guess the saugeye bite may be a bit better without light. Emphasis on guess. We started running our baits a bit higher after the 1st time or two and that could account for some increase in our catch rate. Use reflective tape and penlight now. Still learning.

Good Luck,
jc

[JCarp]

BTW - we were fishings depths ranging from 4 to 6'. I guess 2-3' of visibility.

[Scott]

We have used lanterns on the ice here in MI for the past three decades to fish for crappies and smelt. The crappie schools will be following the bait fish which are attracted to the light. The walleye will usually be a ways off in the distance to be caught with tip-ups.
Try using tip-ups just on the fringe of the light with light drag, line,and with smaller minnows. When more than one pops, get ready here comes a school of specks.

[fishguy]

walleye are not frightened by light sources, they simply use the edges to their advantage. notice how everyone mentioned the walleyes using the far out edges , or being some distance from the light.

Here's a good one. If you use an Aqua view camera with the low light camera- which emits a green and red light to light up the surrounding area for viewing, is it considered illegal ??