Led Lighting For Night Fishing From The Kayak

[Ring King]

 

So I'm seeing more and more posts about lighting for night fishing.  I installed SuperNovaFishingLights on one of my Hobie Pro Angler 14s last week.  I finally got around to taking a pic of the finished product.  I have two of their 20" blue LED strips on the outside of the bow to light banks.  These lights also have UV properties that will react with any of the Hi vis UV lines.  I have these lights rigged with a dimmer inline so that I can control their intensity.  Full strength is great for fishing by myself but it's nice to be able to reduce their power when fishing with others so that I don't blind everyone.  The dimmer has a very small IR remote control that's a little smaller than a credit card.  It can control intensity and also has a "mode" feature if you want to have a disco party out on the water!! LOL

For the inside cockpit lighting I used two of the Super Nova 4" red LED strips attached under the side mounting boards.  I cannot dim these but since I don't run them all the time it doesn't really matter, and when I do I want them bright so that I can tie knots, deal with fish, or whatever.

 

The Super Nova kits come with toggle switches.  I didn't want toggle switches as I figured I would just snap them off so I purchased a pair of red and blue LED lighted flush mount anti-vandal switches.  I mounted these in the side rail just below my depth finder and the rudder deployment handle.  The system works great and the install turned out pretty sweet.

My only piece of advise for those interested in installing LED lighting is to make sure you understand the power draw.   Most people are under the assumption that LED lights dont draw much power.  That's true for single lights.  However, when you get into LED strip lighting the power consumption can be pretty substantial depending on how many you install.  Super Nova recommends an 18aH battery for thier kayak kits.  This would need to be a separate battery from the one you use for your depth sounder if you plan on fishing for any substantial amount of time.  Your depth finder has minimum voltage requirements that are well above that of the LED light strips.  In order to power my Humminbird 859ci HD DI and my Super Nova LED lights for a full night of fishing (dusk till dawn) I am running two 22aH 12v SLA batteries.  This is still overkill for what I need but I'd rather have too much power than not enough.  For most trips I'll just run a single battery with everything hooked to it since the LED strips won't be used unless I'm night fishing.

 

 

 

[tomustang]

You sure said super nova lights in your post a lot..

[boostr]

He's a Super Nova fan.

[Ring King]

You sure said super nova lights in your post a lot..

And?????

They aren't Blue Water LED lights and I didn't use some cheap, 3058, non sealed ones from Amazon. I wanted quality 5050, epoxy sealed, non yellowing LED strips for my install so I went with a name brand and proven company. Am I affiliated with that company in any way? Not other than I purchased a few of their components for this install. I didn't even purchase one of their kits as I wanted different switches and didn't see the need to pay for the extra wire, zip ties, and cable management pads that are included in them since I have all that stuff at home already. I am a marine electronics technician by trade and wanted things done to my specs.

[flyfisher]

looks good.  and an 18ah battery is pretty big.  i just bought a 8ah for my new fish finder and i was surprised at how big that one was.

 

I am really thinking of doing some lights on my kayak for night fishing but until i get a trailer i don't want to add more weight or hassle to the launching and loading/unloading process.

[Ozark_Basser]

This may seem like a dumb question, but wouldn't the lights alert fish of your presence?

[HoosierHawgs]

How much weight do the lights/batteries add to your package? I feel like everything you add to your yak adds weight weight weight man