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Originally Posted by MidTNKayakAngler
Looks great agelessone, and great tips Jim. I've been looking into the LED lights for the kayak, I currently run just one white LED that sits a few feet above me to warn other boaters, and have a red/blue LED headlamp for when I'm looking for something around the watercraft. For the past year I have been researching submersible, and interior LED lights for fishing and really like these companies http://www.wildcatlighting.com/kayakscanoes.html (Wildcat Lighting), and http://www.supernovafishinglights.com/kayak-lights (Supernova Fishing Lights). I'll be setting some kayaks up hopefully this spring. Keep the ideas and tips coming, they are great.
Jeremy |
Cool sites, I haven't seen these before. You can "do-it-yourself" easily for cheap these day it you want to experiment.
Bug control is discussed by wildcatlighting
http://www.wildcatlighting.com/mosquito-control.html and I agree with what they are doing. Try to keep the attracting colors outside of the boat and use the "lesser attracting colors" inside the boat.
Red is the least attracting color, but it doesn't give much light to see by. It is hard to tie knots or do much under red light. It is good for seeing the floor so when you walk around in the boat you don't step on things. I also have Yellow/amber inside the boat that I can turn on for seeing better. It works OK, but I still need white light sometimes to see small things. I have that on my headlamp. Yellow does attract more bugs than red so I don't leave it on all the time.
Green, blue, UV, and white are outside the boat. UV is great for seeing fishing lines and totally worth adding to your lights. Blue lights up the bank so you can shoreline bass fish like it is daytime, but it is not super bright to "spook" fish and will not kill your night vision. Green is great for sitting still and attracting bait and fish to the boat. It is very bright to your eyes at night.
My headlights are white LED driving lights. They are very bright and are only used when running or docking.
Frank23 said "LED lights on boats looks superb and amazing. Other than decoration it is quite helpful at nighs to drive boats. But use of red lights is not recomended as other color like green and yellow are better."
I kind of disagree with this. None of the LED strip lights are useful for driving the boat. They don't give off enough light to see when running and they do limit your night vision so I turn off all interior lights when running. Outside LED strip lights don't help with seeing, but do help with being seen. Some nights, especially nights with any fog, the outside lights limit your vision, as the light reflects off the fog and makes it hard to see out in the distance. These are all comments are about the LED strip lights, my headlights work like any headlights and can be used as needed when driving the boat.
Recommending red, green or yellow is only application specific. All do somethings well and others poorly. My experience is bugs at night during the summer can drive you crazy if you use lights. It is so bad sometimes all the lights stay off. Just as a note, the last time I was fishing the steam plant a few weeks ago, I turned on all the lights after dark while striper fishing. Even at night in the winter, some bugs were attracted to the boat. That was surprising. Of course, it was not enough to worry about so the lights stayed on. In the summer, it is a million times worse.
One other thing. Be careful when using red or green when under power. These colors are used for boat direction signals and it makes it hard for other boater to tell which way you are going. It may be illegal, I am not sure, but it can be dangerous. Blue and UV are not "direction signal" colors so I am less concerned about them. The big plus of blue and UV is other boaters see you easily and thus stay far away from you. And you still have your red/green front and white back direction lights on so they can tell which way you are going.
For you kayak guys, the use of green on both sides of the boat when paddling may confuse other boaters which way you are heading at night. Be careful with that. Also, your kayak will look like a "big boat" when all you can see is the bank of lights from a distance. So other boaters may not give you as much consideration for size. Again, I don't know what is legal, but do consider what other boater see when looking at your lights.
Again, LED lights are awesome for night fishing. They draw almost no power, don't get hot, are fully waterproof, are getting cheap, and come in all colors so you can experiment and find the best setup for your boat. I fully recommend trying them out if you like night fishing. They do work well, but still on some nights, no lights are better.
Jim