Charter Member 2253 posts
Apr-26-04, 11:55 PM (PDT)
"Underwater lights.... Awesome results!!"
LAST EDITED ON Apr-27-04 AT 06:56 AM (PDT)

I finally was able to pick up a replacement digital camera (my wife lost my good one in Italy last week.... Grrrr) and take a few pictures of the "Deep Sea" Underwater lighting system I picked up from San Diego (BTW... great company!).

I've been able to use the lights at night a few times and the results I shot tonight are typical.

A quick recap, these 110V underwater lights are a new product made by a local company in San Diego (Deep Sea Lighting Systems). Their background is underwater lighting for deep sea submersibles (they were the guys who lit up the Titanic on the robotic submersibles), so these guys know their stuff.

Anyway, I picked up two of their lights a short while back and had them installed on the boat, figuring I might get an edge in making bait and even some of these tourneys, but waking up in the morning to my own bait school.

Well, if the results offshore are anything like the inshore results I've seen at the wall or at my slip, I'm in for a pretty interesting summer!

Here are a few shots I took tonight that I thought might be of interest. What's amazing is the camera I picked up doesn't do will well in low light conditions, so what you see in the pics is toned down quite a bit from what you see when your actually looking at the water. I took my dingy into the channel and the lighting actually extended out much further than what you see when standing at the transom looking out. I was truly astounded by what I was able to see tonight.

Here's a shot looking at the transom

Here's a shot further out, but what you can't see is the glow actually extended out past where I was sitting taking the picture... you just can't see it on the camera

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This shot is taken 15-18 min. after turning on the lights and looking down from the transom. What you can't see are the fish below the surface fish and these fish extended out in a radii @ 80' from the stern of the boat.

Here's another shot and besides the smelt, there were some 'chovies mixed in (no doubt from a bait tank somewhere).

While my lights were the 110V models, they are coming out with 12V models as well. I believe these are probably near ready for release, but maybe Erik from Deep Sea could comment here (I'm sending him a link to this post).

For those wondering about the installation, the lighting unit consists of a good size (beefy), thru-hull (in my case Titanium) and a ballast which is mounted in a dry location. I mounted both ballast units in the engine room and can view the indicator lights from a window to check on the lighting status.

As far as the lighting units go, I'm more than satisfied with the quality and follow-up from this company. I had earlier purchased a set of Fibre-optic lights from - - - lighting and was very disappointed with the workmanship and the overall unit itself. I haven't received a refund yet, so I'll lay off commenting further on a public board, but if someone has a question, feel free to e-mail me.

Along this note, a buddy two slips down just installed three lights from - - - * in Florida on his 50' Viking and this last weekend, we got the chance to compare. The short story to this was he's pissed once he had a chance to compare this lighting system with the one he installed in the boat. By far, this is the whitest, brightest system I've seen yet.

What was amazing to me was the bait visually extended out beyond the boat to a 50' radius around the transom. Even more amazing was when I switched the lights off (the last thing I did before I left), the bait wend nutzo.... Once I hit turned the lights off, the harbor for 100' feet around the end of the transom came alive with fish jumping, skitting back and forth and just plain going nuts! This action continued until I left, which was 5 minutes later.

The only thing I can think was these guys were so attracted to the lights that they instantly reacted when the lights shut off and went into a defensive mode. I'm going to have to try this offshore, and toss a bait into the middle and see what happens. I'm not exactly sure what created this effect, but if there was anything larger beneath the bait school, there reaction would definitely bring a strike. I'm not sure what created this response, but it was pretty amazing...

I can't wait to try them out at the Islands and the WSB.....

If anyone is interested in more information I suggest you check out their web site or contact Erik or John. Both are real good guys that are more than willing to help answer any questions you might have.

Cheers, Bill

'44 Jersey