Best insect repellent for crappie fishing at night under lights — will DEET melt crappie jigs and line?

It will. DEET is a plasticizer: it softens and hazes monofilament, soft plastics, lure paint and sunglass frames, and Keith Jones's Berkley research found bass strongly repelled by it at about one part per million. Buy 20 % picaridin lotion or wipes, which do not attack plastics. Treat clothing with permethrin at home and let it dry; never at the water, because wet permethrin is highly toxic to fish. Crappie anglers meet the problem head-on, since lights over the water at night draw clouds of insects. Run a Thermacell-type unit, wear a head net and long sleeves, and your hands stay out of it. The gear at risk is delicate: light mono with no strength to spare, and boxes of small tubes and soft jig bodies that a DEET fingerprint turns sticky. Minnows hooked with repellent fingers carry it down too.

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