Underwater lighting

[Necessary Evil]

I'm going to pull the trigger on some underwater lighting for my Tiara 38 Open this month. Any suggestions regarding type/brand/colors would be very welcome. Horror stories and warnings would be appreciated as well

Happy new year to all!

[Mackey]

I put the Coastal Night Lights on my 27 Phoenix. They work great and did not cost a arm and a leg. Easy to install with no hugh holes thru the hull, just one very small one. I would go with the color blue. The picture of them turned on ready does not do them justice.

[BlueH20Boss]

N.E, Hey, i work the cockpit on a 2005 38' Rampage, and the owner had four LED underwater lights put on last year and we used them all last season. I will get the make and model of the lights, but knowing the owner, he def. never skimps. I think the four lights were just under 10 grand installed

OK, so we have 10 g's of illumination now under the boat, and in my complete honest opinion, i would rather fish in the dark, or fish with a standard old 200 dollar hydroglow rather than these lights.

The reason why: we have 4 bulbs, the inner two lights closer to the keel are bright blue, that pulse or strobe out, and the outer two bulbs are bright white and remain constant. You can select one or the other (Either white or blues) or you can run all four. When we chunk and use all four or just the blues, sometimes i will not even see one squid, or when i do it darts away from the boat like a bat outa hell. I believe the STROBING effect freaks them out rather than 'attracting them' as the makers claim...my opinion. When I run the whites only, squid will show up, but they still act weird. A lot of them stay in the dimmer water out of reach of the net.....The whites are more like a HYPER white. The LED bulbs are so bright, and out at the canyon i'd say the light spread with all four lights on has to be over 100 feet. When boss goes to sleep when things are slow, more times then not i flick the breakers and fish in the dark, or just fish under the spreader lights. I catch a lot more fish this way, and i think it has to do with turning off our unnatural/super bright underwater lights!! I have been thinking of ways to fix them, and some ideas include making colored caps to fit over the light housings/ like the ones people snap onto inground pool lights...hopefully dimming them and changing the color a bit.

sorry for the novel post, but i really get upset when people spend mucho bucks on superficial accessories to catch fish, when the money could be used way more efficiently like on longer outriggers, more rods/reels, etc. or even on safety equipment. Those things WILL catch more fish for that kinda dough, or save your life in the latter situation but it is the guy signing the check who makes the call!! Good luck with the lights you choose, but i would def. go with something greener in color and not overly blinding, or you may end up with an expensive set of flashing dock jewelry for your guests to admire.

Kevin

[Fortunate One]

Kevin, you touched on the exact reason that I have not pulled the trigger on underwater lights for my boat.

I'm simply not convinced that they actually increase the chances of getting fish in the spread.

The two greatest nights I've had fishing was on a boat that had very low cockpit lighting, no spreader lights on and no Hydroglow.

We had fish under the boat what seemed like all night. They'd come and go but once we had them in the slick it seemed like you could catch as many as you like.

And like you I think that money could be spent in better ways.

It seems like these things are catching ore fishermen than fish.

I've yet to have anyone prove that these lights are helping to increase the catch.

Mike

[Necessary Evil]

Thanks for the advice about the fishing guys, but, the truth is, I am buying the lights for dock decoration more than anything else. The wife thinks they are pretty, and the kids love to gaze into the depths looking for sharks and mermaids The Coastal lights look good Macky, thanks! Does anyone have any experience with Abyss products?

[fishfighter]

I have white coastal lights. They pull less then 1 amp of power per hours. For the cost,one can't go wrong. I fish at oil rigs at night. There is a fair amount of light coming off these rigs. As far as bait swimming thru the underwater lights and fish,yes they do work for me.

Now coastal lights has LED deck lights. I had installed a set. Very happy with them. Just wish there was a way of dimming them a bit at times.

[Necessary Evil]

My dealer recommended Ocean LED's, so I'm installing two of their A12's in Blue. Can't wait to see how they look

[giantfan]

First off, nice boat!

I installed the Abyss lights last year. I installed two of the 1515's in blue.

They work great and won't break the bank. I am not sold on the fish attracting, but they do look cool at the dock and help seeing the fish when they come to the gaff.

One thing that I can tell you about Abyss, they stand behind their product and are a pleasure to deal with.

I will try to keep this short. 4 years ago I installed two of the smaller Abyss (white) lights on my 28' Stamas. They worked great for about a month and then took a crap. I chalked it up to "you get what you pay for" and didn't look back.

Fast forward to last winter. I wanted to install underwater lights to the Pursuit as I was having trouble seeing the fish boatside while gaffing. I put a post up on here asking for some advice and told my story about the Abyss lights. Luckylady told me that they had been using Abyss lights on a lot of the Contenders and they haven't had any problems. She told me that they were very helpful at Abyss and that I should give them a call about the lights on the Stamas.

Well I gave them a call, and sure enough they knew of a problem with the older style lights and told me that all I had to do was send them back and they would replace them free of charge. Keep in mind that these lights were close to 3 years old.

Stand up company and very helpfull. Needless to say I went with them again for the Pursuit and haven't had any problems other then keeping the growth off of the lens.

[rumblefisch]

My dealer recommended Ocean LED's, so I'm installing two of their A12's in Blue. Can't wait to see how they look

These are great lights. Make sure you get the A12 Pros. These are the newer, brighter model.