Thread: Fishing Lights

Originally Posted by wish4fish

Good info guys. If and when I attempt to night fish it will be on Greers Ferry. My question now is..... do ya'll tie up to something on the bluffs or do you prefer to anchor and get away from them?

Well its always nice to get out from the bluff a little. But you can tie right on the bluff if it is nearly straight down under the boat. Ive caught fish under lights sitting in as little as 18 feet of water, but I prefer to sit over a minimum of 30 feet. Ive also caught fish at 40 feet in late summer. The hotter the surface water temp the more important it becomes on the depth. Sometimes I can find tops of trees sticking up and it will be around 30 feet under the boat. Now where Im fishing it might be 30 feet deep under the boat, but on out away from the bluff another 20 or 30 feet it might be 100 feet deep. The reason for getting out there far enough is because in the summer most deep lakes develope a thermocline. Most of the time its not over 30 feet deep, but Ive seen it as deep as 40 or 45 feet deep. The thermocline is a cool band of oxygen rich water that lays between the hot layer of water on top and the cold oxygen poor water on the bottom. The reason I recommend 30 feet is because most people doesn's know at what depth the thermocline is. With a good fish finder you can adjust it to see the thermocline. But if you have a fish finder and you put out your lights afer awhile you will see on your screen the depth that the fish are at.
Let me give you another little tip that really works for me. I use several different spots, depending on the wind direction will determine where I fish for that night. You need to fish on the spots that have the waves coming into it. Most people do just the opposite. Sometimes its difficult to get tied and anchored like that, but most of the time its worth it.
On Beaver Lake Where I fish Hwy 12 bridge is 1/4 mile long. I was on the west end one time with about 8 other boats. The water was crystal clear no incoming wind. We sat there for about 5 hours and not one fish was caught by us or anyone around us. I untied and moved to the other end of the bridge where the waves were coming into it. The water was stained. We tied threw our lights in and within 20 minutes we had a ball of shad under the bad that was incredible. We started catching Whites and by daylight we had over 100 fish in the boat. We caught them in about 3 hours time. There was 3 of us fishing. There was no one else up there on that end because everyone thinks the west end is the best because its right in the channel.
Its gotten to the point now where there will be people under that bridge from one end to the other.

3/4 moon set out the lights @ 9p and had bait fish by 10p. caught these on jigs until them stinkin ass gar showed up

Very good post, pics, you all got me ready to hit the night life, me personally im a white light fan, but to each his own. If a lake has a bridge on it thats one of the first places i look at when night fishing for crappies or whites on new water. Ive heard of that Hwy 12 bridge for years, just never made it up there with all the water around me here. But thanks for the great info.

Originally Posted by stinkies daddy

3/4 moon set out the lights @ 9p and had bait fish by 10p. caught these on jigs until them stinkin ass gar showed up

Ive got me a bow fishing rig I like to use in that situation. Gar is pretty good eatin.

There's a very good discussion on green LED lights on the main forum under the thread title of "Honest discussion of LED lighting". Jumping Cholla Jigs makes a green LED light that seems to be very much liked by the folks that have bought one from him. Also he has some other threads that discuss light penetration, etc. that are pretty interesting.

ok, so maybe im missing something, im no scientist and im not trying to sell you one light over another....but during all this submersible light talk about what light colors penetrate farther under water, etc, I had an epiphany...correct me if im wrong, but doesn't white light have ALL the colors in it, since none are filtered out? and by putting a color filter on the bulb, aren't you actually limiting its output by blocking all but one wavelength? seems to me, let the water filter the light...and let the fish decide how far from the source the wavelenght/color is too their liking.