Bowfishing anyone?

[Jake Leibke]

I’ve Been Bowfishing for quite awhile. Setting up my boat with lights etc for nighttime outings. Went with a guy last spring and it was a blast.

Looking for ideas on light setup. Wanting them removable so I can take them off easy enough for regular fishing and duck hunting.


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[Beendare]

Easy. Mount them to a removable rail with a plug.

 

[Mighty Mouse]

I use a portable generator to run two 400 watt metal halide lights on my gigging boat. The lights are mounted on a removable aluminum deck that covers the front end of the boat from the bow to the forwardmost bench. The light sockets plug into a ballast that sits under the deck, and I run an extension cord from the ballast to the generator at the rear of the boat. I've met some guys who have ditched the generator and switched over to LED's powered by deep cycle batteries. Eliminating the weight and noise of a generator would be nice, but even the brightest LED setup I've seen on a gigging rig can't hold a candle (pun intended) to my metal halides.

I haven't been bowfishing, so I don't know how much light you're needing. For gigging, being able to see just a little deeper into the water can make the difference between getting a boatload of fish and getting skunked. If ultra brightness isn't necessary for bowfishing, I would try a battery-powered LED setup for the sake of simplicity, cost efficiency, and quietness.

 

[HaystackJohnny]

I added an old SureFire light on my bow when doing night fishing and it works pretty well…kind of like how the beam focus adds to the accuracy too.

Only downside is the cost of the batteries.

 

[CoWapiti]

Years ago when I had my boat set up for bowfishing I used some pipe flanges, I think ¾" or 1". I screwed those to the deck of my boat. Then assembled some threaded pipe to make T's and attached my lights on either side, then screwed the post of the T into the flange on the boat deck. Easy to install/remove and the flanges were low profile so I wouldn't trip over them. This was also a cheap aluminum v bottom I bought in college and rebuilt completely, so I didnt mind screwing the flanges to the deck I'd installed. I was also on a budget and that was the most economical option at the time.