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Built me a couple underwater fishing lights

iowabucks

Member
I have always wanted to do some nightfishing for crappies. This year it's going to happen.

I found a thread on another fishing wesite that explained how to make an underwater green fluorescent fishing light. There is a company that makes one called the Green Monster, it retails for $190. You can build one for around $60.

It uses a 24" industrial green fluorescent bulb. F20T12/green
12 volt 18 watt ballast. Here.

I used schedual 40 clear PVC tubing over the bulb instead of tube protectors sold at the hardware stores. More expensive, but alot more protective. I didn't want to bust a bulb the first time it banged against the boat. The clear tubing is about $64 for a 10' piece, but i found an Ebay store that sold 2' sections for $15. Thats all i needed. Wire the ballast to the bulb using 14 gauge wire. Slide it all into the tube and seal it up real good with 100% silicone. I added an extra piece of tubing on the bottom to hold some weight, and a piece on top to cover the ballast. You want the bottom sunk and the top just floating out of the water. Some caps and connectors and your all set. Run about 15' of 14 gauge double conductor wire out the top to a couple battery clamps.

These only draw about 1.7 amps. I did a test with a smaller 12v 8Ah battery i had. After about 6 1/2 hours i pulled the plug on the test with the bulb no dimmer than when i started.

I bought a couple 48" padded level cases to help protect them. They fit perfectly.

Looking forward to my first night out with them, but it sounds like the fishing may be better during the dog days of summer.

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Sweet... Kinda makes me want to make one.. My dad and I tried night fishing for crappies on Bull Shoals lake in Sounthern MO/ Northern AK quite a few yrs ago. We had a floating one with what looked like a headlight in it that just floated on top of the water. We through that thing out and pretty soon there were thousands of minnows swimming around it and our boat. We thought it should be good fishing, but we didn't catch a thing.. They definately attracted the bait fish though and we sat there for a couple hours.. It was a good time relaxing and reminiscing with a beer or 4.. Anywho, let us know how you do and any other techniques you use along with them for success. Good luck!
 
Can you please tell me how you wired the ballast cant figure it out.
With the ballast being contained in the sealed PVC i can't really check it. It did have a drawing on the back of the ballast that i thought was easy to understand. Does yours?

If not, i will try and get it figured out.


I have tried it out twice this year so far. Results were mixed. One time had tons of baitfish around, the next time no baitfish at all. Both times we did catch maybe 6 or 7 after dark but not as good as i expected. Both times had high muddy water so i don't think we have really hit it at a good time yet.
 
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