Night time Fishing?

[DarthVader]

Hello everyone,

I have a few questions regarding lighting when driving down the Lake,Lighting the deck of your boat and fishing out of your boat and most importantly how many batteries do you need or used to run all the lights..

Question 1,

I like to know what type of lighting do you use to see when your driving down the lake to get to you favorite fishing spots? Especially on those really dark nights when there is no full bright moon out.

Question 2,

What type of lighting do you use to light up your boat when your finally stop at your favorite fishing spot,what I mean by this is do you use lanterns or use some sort of lights setup on potable stands mounted or clamped to your boat to light up the surrounding area of you boat so you can see while fishing?

Question 3,
,
I like to know does anyone use underwater lights when there night time fishing if so what kind and how many do you use?

Question 4.

How many dedicated batteries is need to run all these lights? I say dedicated batteries as I am sure when using any type of lights you do not want to use your trolling motor batteries or your main engine starting battery to run any of these lights..

I want to try night time fishing but not sure what type of under water lights I should get and how many I should get? I was thinking you would at least 2 one on each side of the boat..I think this would be enough to cover the whole surrounding of the boat,then again it depends on how bright and what size and type of lights are being used..

I know there some really expensive ones out on the market and some cheaper ones,I would like to stay with the ones that are inexpensive but would still be just as good as the really expensive ones..

I know you get what you pay for but being that I am on a monthly budget I would have to stay with what I can afford as I am sure some of you out there also have a monthly budget they need to go by when they have to buy something..

Thank You for any advice you can give me as it would be greatly appreciated..

 

[Georgesalmon]

Question #1, While driving down the lake you should ONLY use you Navigation lights. Port red, stbd green, and sternlight. If you have any other lights on you are a hazard to navigation. Other boats can not tell what direction you are going.

If trolling I use a few LED lights that show the floor of my boat and don't interfere with my NAV lights. If anchored anything goes but leave your all around stern light on to.

 

[gm280]

A lot of good questions. However, it really depends on what type night fishing you are talking about. Some folks run the boat to their favorite place and anchor for the night...or until they up anchor and move to another favorite place. So any light that you use can run off your trolling motor battery without any issues. And yea others run from dock to dock and use lights at the dock to fish for a few minutes and move on. Different type lights for those two types of night fishing.

Either way, you have to use a bow mounted red/green directional navigation light as well as a white transom area mounted light when running the boat at night or in dimly light times. That IS law. And when stopped and anchored, you have to still have the rear white light on at all times. And it has to be seen 360 degrees above everything else on the boat. So those lights are a must.

Now for lighting the boat while traveling or anchored, a few directional lights to show the floor and such would work very well. They offer a lot of such lights for just that purpose. And since they are directional, other boaters won't be effected. They are merely courtesy type lights for the occupancies in the boat directed at the flooring.

If I were to outfit a boat with lights, and I am presently doing that on my boat project on these forums, I would go for LED types for everything. They offer a lot of light for a minimal current draw. A lot better idea then the typical incandescent bulbs. So check out LEDs for your boat and you won't go wrong.

As for the type of light you would use anchored to help attract fish, that is a really open question. I see some folks use high power LEDs where they can change the color to suit the fish's wants. So again, use some good LEDs with that ability to change their color and either place them off the edge of the boat, or even in the water. It all depends on what you like. I will say, I haven't done much night fishing, just a few times myself, but I can tell you that any light you use also attracts insects as well. So be prepared for those critters too.

I am sure others will chime in here with better suggestions. JMHO!

 

[Teamster]

Other than navigation lights the only thing I use at night is a led light on the brim of my hat,..

And I try to keep that off unless absolutely necessary,...

 

[DarthVader]

Thank You everyone for on your advice on what to use and what not to use..As to the lighting while driving down the Lake I can understand the part of running my nav lights as it is the law. I just figured if I had some sort of spot light it would make it is easier to see a little better while driving down the Lake to avoid any obstacles that may have appeared on the Lake that I might have not seen there before, say for instant logs or trees.

I know during the spring time after the winter thaw is over is usually when you start seeing stuff like this on the Lake..I will not have the spot light on all the time and of course I will not be going really fast when going down the Lake. Now when I am anchored I mainly would like to light up the area so I can see what I am doing, so I was thinking maybe something like a lantern or some sort of floodlights I can mount on the boat for fishing..I be fishing what ever bites at night time,But I will be mainly fishing Catfish and Bull head fishing..Maybe some other bigger game fishing..

Thanks again for all your advice.

 

[dingbat]

No lights when running. A spot light round your night vision and will make you very unpopular with your fellow boaters.

I have blue LEDs strip lighting under the gunnel wired into house battery. Plenty of light, keeps bugs to a minimum.

 

[88evinrude]

i bass fish a lot of nights in the summer. to answer your questions.1. i use my navigation lights on my boat i know guys that have spot lights and they can be a blinding hazard to other boaters.2. when im fishing i have 2 black lights.3. being im bass fishing i dont have any use for lights underwater so in my case no i dont use them.4. i run my lights off a extra battery beside my outboard battery its a interstate deep cycle i think its a 24m group battery.

 

[DarthVader]

Thanks everyone,

Ok I understand that I can only use just the nav lights on while driving down the Lake,So let me ask you this what is to prevent you from hitting something that is floating down the Lake that you can not see even with just the Nav Lights running? Are the front Nav Lights bright enough that you can see if there was any objects on the water?

I am just trying to understand and maybe I am thinking the wrong way, I know this is not the same but I was thinking it be like driving a car down the road with out your head lights on at night to see what is in front of you to help prevent you from hitting something..

As to night fishing while anchor I will mount some LEDs around the inside of the boat and for fishing I get some of those green lights you can put in the water to attract the fish..

 

[gm280]

DV, you are correct. You will hit floating logs and such when running at night. So you have to go really slow and watch really closely. But even with that, you will hit debris and such. I know it sounds counter productive, but that is the law. JMHO!

 

[dingbat]

Thanks everyone,

Ok I understand that I can only use just the nav lights on while driving down the Lake,So let me ask you this what is to prevent you from hitting something that is floating down the Lake that you can not see even with just the Nav Lights running? Are the front Nav Lights bright enough that you can see if there was any objects on the water?

It's called night vision. Your eyes actually change how they perceive light to increase your ability to see in low light levels.

Throughout the day we are constantly exposed to different levels of illumination entering our eyes. The size of the pupil helps regulate the amount of light entering our eyes, and the level of dark adaptation allows us to function under diminishing exposures of light. Dark adaptation is the process of changing from cone dominated vision to rod dominated vision. A person becomes dark adapted over a period of 10 to 60 minutes. Although dark adaptation begins slowly as we enter a dark environment, for the first 7 minutes after someone enters the dark the fovea is still the most sensitive region of the eye. After this, the rods begin to control visual sensitivity and within 30 minutes, the eye is estimated to be virtually completed dark adapted. Between 30 minutes and 60 minutes there may be a small degree additional dark adaptation. When rods are at their highest dark-adapted state, they are highly sensitive to low levels of ambient light. However, even though the rods set the lower sensitivity boundary, the cones will still respond to a sufficiently bright light. A driver on a dark rural road, for example, may be in a scotopic modality but could still see the color of warning light well ahead if it were intense enough to stimulate cones.