(1) Sportline Steel Capped Water bottle (18 oz. / 510 ml.)
(1) Bayco 25 LED Light
(1) 5 lb. bar bell weight
(6) zip ties
Instructions:
This design is very simple. The Bayco LED light fits perfectly inside the water bottle at a diagonal. Be sure that the light is as far in as it can go so you do not squish it when screwing on the cap.
(note the diagonal angle of the light)
As you can see from the above picture, the next step will be to secure the weight to the water bottle with zip ties. My zip ties were a bit too short so I had to make long zip ties out of two short zip ties in order to get around both the water bottle and the weight. Tighten two long zip ties around the water bottle and the weight as hard as you can. At this point, the water bottle will still be able to shift around. To fix this, you can put zip ties around the zip tie loops you just made (see below).
Upon building this, I had doubts about whether or not the weight would sink the bottle full of air. So, it was tested in the good ole’ bathtub…
(it sinks!)
Now it is ready to be thrown in river/lake (with a line attached to it of coarse)! Because of the air pushing up and the weight pushing down, the light will always point upwards. The light puts out 48 Lumens for 10 hours so this thing will be good for a full night of fishing (using 4 AAA batteries).
I found this cool video today. It describes how to make a “power mouse” using Berkeley Gulp Trout Bait Dough and a Berkeley Gulp Worm. Essentially, you mold dough on a treble hook to form the mouse’s body and then you add a worm tail. Why didn’t I think of this? I’m going to try using this on some brown trout later this week…
The larger fish tend to feed at night. When you catch a fish at night, odds are it is going to be a keeper. The big ones seem to remain stationary in the day, waiting for nightfall to ambush the bait fish.
There is less fishing pressure. Obviously, human beings are a major predator of game fish. When the vast majority of fishing occurs in the day, why compete with the daytime crowd?
The “night bite” is harder. When fish bite at night, they don’t seem to hesitate. I will fish all day and get nothing but nibbles but after the sun sets, the fish hold on!
The mystery is greater. When I catch a fish at night, I can’t see what it is or how big it is until I am landing it. There is just something about reeling in a fish in dead silent darkness that makes me want to do it again and again.
In the world of night fishing, no nights are better than those of the full moon. I like to use a jointed floating Rapala (J-9) on these nights. I use a slow, steady retrieve; enough for the lure to have action and stay just below the surface of the water. The idea is that the fish will see the silhouette of the lure against the full moon’s light. I used this tactic to caught this beautiful trout on Nevada’s Truckee River. It was 1 am with the full moon high in the sky. I made a few casts with no luck and on my third, this 21-incher attacked with no remorse. Remember, good fishing has a lot to do with picking the right time to go fishing.
testing testing! Hello fellow night owls! I am going to start this blog out with a Primus video. I remember listening to this band in the 7th grade and thinking they were out-of-this-world. I suppose that I still do. My question is, when did Les Claypool have time to fish when he was learning to play the bass like that?
Speaking of 7th grade… I also remember catching a monster Salmon while night trolling on the Columbia river up near Wenatchee, WA. So here I am, 13 years later and I’m still listening to Primus and night fishing. But now, I am blogging about it!
Songs about fishing are a rare commodity, if you ask me.
(note the diagonal angle of the light)
(it sinks!)
