Night fishing buoy
- This topic has 7 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated Sep 11, 2013 at 3:14 pm by
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I’m building one.
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Cool. Is this something you can drag out and deploy with a canoe, or will you need a bigger craft? I’ve seen guys on Hartwell fishing with big lights, generators, the whole deal. Around Charleston, the flounder giggers have some pretty elaborate setups.
G
Need to get my milk crate (I decided it would be lighter and also drain water in the event of a boat wake wave) but I’ll post pics when it’s done.
Zach
That’s a pretty cool idea.
I’m curious about what sort of lighting you’ll be using? Along with what size battery?
And how long do you expect the battery to power the lights?Be sure to have some circuit protection/fuse at the + or – terminal.
One of these would be pretty useful on an annual Lake Norfork trip.
Brian
Bass Pro Shops sells green submersible lights that are about 24″ long, Brian. Jay had a couple and I bought a couple more. The first time we went my trolling motor battery was still going strong after at least 6 hours; we weren’t catching fish and the full moon was rising so we bagged it. I would expect to get at least a night’s worth of juice with just two lights on a deep cycle trolling motor battery.
The lights also have a little fusebox just before the gator clips. And Gary this would definitely fit in the canoe. I bought inflatable rubber inner tubes that are pretty darn durable but not all that huge. They’re supposed to be 6″ around but they deform without a tire to sit in, so I left them a little smaller. The last time we rigged this with a regular human being pool float circle and it held the battery up just fine; it’s not all that much weight. With a milk crate I can just zip tie everything together; I have a flashlight with a dome attachment as a safety light that I’ll tie on there too.
Zach
I looked at them on the BP website. It says that they draw 1 amp. That’s really not too bad at all. A marine battery could power a couple for a long while. Some of the reviews say that they didn’t last one outing. They would flicker and then die from water ingress. Some people say they work great. So it might be wise to check out the ‘waterproofness’ of these. Maybe fortifying any susceptible places with some goop to make them bullet-proof.
I really like that idea. Do you just let them float around or do you anchor them in place in some way?
Brian –
I’ve done this a few times in Arkansas lakes too. You anchor them up, oftentimes just by hanging them off the side of your boat, especially if you’re on a pontoon type craft. The reason for the buoy is that we want to be in control of at least one “dock light” while we search around the lake for more. This is kind of a fall/winter fishing method but Henry Cowen here in Georgia has been very successful getting his clients on stripers this way.
Jay Malyon and I have certainly seen big stripers crashing bait up on the lights, but we have also been freaking shot at and we’ve frozen our nuts off just looking for lights that are turned on.
So the idea would be to anchor up the buoy, with the lights suspended at say 7-8′ and 15′, with a dome light on top mounted on a post to keep the rig from being run over. Then we’d leave it for a while to attract bait. I suppose it might get stolen but I think the odds of someone coming along and stealing our whole rig are pretty low. There aren’t that many people out at night and I can’t imagine many thieves are among them.
After giving it a few hours we’d come back at say 3-4AM and troll in quietly, keeping our distance and fly-casting to the light to try to pull a big fish off it.
I have pretty strong confidence this will work because I’ve seen just how much of a bait tornado one of these lights can pull in.
Zach
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