Originally Posted by
TreednNC
More of a shakedown trip, not worthy of a report really. Trying new stuff. Have a new-to-me boat I'm trying to set up for night stalking. I'm a Q-Beam Starfire II baby from way back, but trying to find a more battery friendly alternative when running two of them. I ordered 2, green LED submersibles.
Report....fished two spots. Both spots we marked a little bit of bait and scattered unknown fish prior to setting up. Spot #1, 25FOW, set up, and within 10min, had a 10"er on the shallow rod. Fish was 2ft down. Had rods varying in depth and location relative to lights. That was the only bite I could see, but unlike the Q Beam's, there wasn't enough ambient light see the rod tips and line on my 10ft Pro Anglers, other than the obvious tip-to-the-water-bite from the fish I caught. Part of my night stalking set-up ideology goes back to the Rango days 10+ years ago, of having all my rods exactly the same, and grabbing the one that looked "different", which was often a subtle bite like crappie can often have.
Fished for another hour and a half with nothing to show, and even the few bait that did show up under the lights, disappeared. Set up on another location, 22FOW, in close proximity to a place I know holds crappies year round, and have caught a two man limit at on Christmas day. Gave it 45min and nothing. Finally tucked tail and went home.
Normally I'll give it a while, give the lights and magic time to work, but my partner was frozen by that point, and the action was nonexistent, not even perch or spots to entertain.
Still undecided whether the green LEDs work or not. I don't want to have to go back to Q Beams and carry an extra battery just in case.
I'm also going to take a page from a post made by another forum member, (cant remember who to credit) and make some light bars to mount on the edge of the boat, shining into the water, with LED spot lights. He claimed to get a full night of run time with 4 lights, all night. I can tell you right now I wont fish THAT long regardless of the bite. So hopefully that solves a couple issues of 1) questioning the greens effectiveness, 2) enough ambient light without a separate dedicated light source to illuminate the rod tips.