Tater's DIY LED crappie light

[Tater140]

I have had several questions the past couple of years on how I made my crappie light, so i've decided to put together a few pics and instructions on how I make my lights. First of all a couple of years back I had purchased a submersible light from the late Bob Spare (Reel Lite). I had the privilege of talking with Mr. Spare a couple of times and he shared his wealth of knowledge of night fishing and how to go about it. I used that first Reel Lite for a year of so, both on the softwater and hardwater night fishing with some considerable success. All was well until one dark night, my buddy asked to borrow my Reel Lite and proceeded to drop it down the hole while ice fishing. Long story short that light ended up getting water in it and slowly went dim over the next few trips out. I then made a homemade light out of some led's I had setting around. The goal was to make as cheap a light as possible yet be functional.

I started out with some led lights that I had purchased from ebay. The ones I typically use were about 12" long, but I also have one that used 16" long led's. They are the kind that have a plastic coating all around them. You can buy whatever color you want. I have some lights that are all white, some are all green, and some of them I mixed green and white led's. Here is a picture of the individual strips. I dont remember how much I paid, but I think 20-30$ built two nice sized lights.



http://www.ebay.com/itm/Blue-24cm-24...e68187&vxp=mtr

All that I did was to cut a section off of my wife's broom handle. (she doesn't use it anyways) and then zip tied the led strips to the section of broom handle. After that I just tied all of the same color wires together, added about a 10' section of wire and wire it into a small 12 volt battery with alligator clips. The small 12 volt batteries I use are just the 5 mah or 7mah hour batteries. You could also wire it into your boat battery as well. My first trial run had a tube around the lights and I tried my best to waterproof it. I found out two things with that. One is that it is hard to completely waterproof the tube, the other is that it is twice as hard to sink it now that you have a tube. So my last version I ditched the tube and just dropped the already waterproof lights in the water, connections and all. I'm sure there is ways to improve on my wiring connections, but I haven't had any issues yet. Also if you have a hard time getting the wooden dowel rod or broomstick to sink you could just drill a hole in the bottom and use a lag screw with some washers on it for weight. The pictures probably explain it better then I can.







I think you could also build as big of a light as you wish. I just haven't found the need just yet. I have found with ice fishing and being able to make several lights on the cheap, I just setup the lights in several different spots where I think the fish may be. Then as the night wears on I just go around checking out the different lights and locations until I find one holding fish. With the lights it takes about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes until you start to see some activity around the light. I have fished as long as 5-6 hours with just the small batteries and have yet to run one all of the way down. I have no idea how long they would run but I would expect 10-12 hours fairly easily. In the summer while night fishing I typically hang the lights off of the boat behind me and fish on the opposite side. I need to get some pictures of the lights in softwater, but here is a couple of pics of the lights under the ice. The ice was around 12" thick on these pictures, as well as had some snow cover.

[kb2112]

Nice. Did you find any particular color more successful than the others?

[Tater140]

I have only tried green and white and combinations of the two. I can't really say that one has been better then the other. I have heard the white light can scare the fish, but can't verify this myself.

[strmwalker]

I have only tried green and white and combinations of the two. I can't really say that one has been better then the other. I have heard the white light can scare the fish, but can't verify this myself.

I have fished with green and white LED lights and I like the white the best !!! here is the the picture the white light scared for me on one of my nightstalks !!!

[kb2112]

I'll make one up and try it out. Thanks.

[FIN]

Did you use connectors like these or how do you connect them?
Thanks
FIN
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A1S9XZSR60KVU3

[Tater140]

@ Strmwalker, awesome looking fish there. I love those nights when their biting good, the bugs can be the only draw back.
@ FIN I just stripped the wires and twisted them all together by hand. I then put a couple of layers of shrink wrap and then good old electrical tape. Like I mentioned above, I'm sure there is better ways to connect them then what i used. In fact the wire I used to connect the led's to the battery is just the thin wire you get with your garage door sensors that you throw on the shelf for the "someday" project.

[FIN]

I'll make one up and try it out. Thanks.

Why not make a utube ?
Making and using.

[Gobob]

Sweet I always wanted to try one of those lights but the price of them changed my mind. I'll be making me some Thanks for the info

[Knot2Bad]

Thanks Tater for sharing. Instead of a wood broom or dowel rod you could use a pvc pipe to wrap around. That might reduce the floating problem. Put a cap on the end of the PVC and put weight on the cap end. Only need the sch 10 for this application. Just my thoughts. Now I am off to ebay...