CONTINUOUSWAVE

Do underwater transom-mounted lamps serve a purpose other than cosmetic? They are pretty and will look nice at night.

Jefecinco wrote:Do underwater transom-mounted lamps serve a purpose other than cosmetic?

[The underwater LED lamps when illuminated are] pretty.

[At night the illumination from the underwater LED lamps on my boat] attracts baitfish.

When hoop-netting for lobster I try to catch fresh bait to add to the hoop nets.

Jefecinco wrote:Do underwater transom-mounted lamps serve a purpose other than cosmetic? They are pretty and will look nice at night.

I have seen some larger and particularly fancy boats at docks in marinas for the night (or the week or the month) with illuminated underwater lamps. The use of blue LED lamps seems to be quite common.

I think illuminated underwater LED lamps are a great attractor of other boaters at night in a marina, perhaps to draw the other boaters toward the boat with the underwater lamps for the purpose of admiring the big, fancy boat.

In our Gulf waters night fishing is common. Owners of piers seem to keep them well illuminated. Many anglers, or fishers as they are being called these days, "fish the lights" as they seem to attract bait fish which in turn attract predator fish which are target by the anglers.

My single attempt at night fishing was an abysmal failure so I can't attest to the efficacy of "fishing the lights".

I'm unreliably informed that piers must, by law, be illuminated to avoid boats striking them.

Fishing the Lights is legal as is flounder fishing using on-board lighting to reveal the flounder. Boats with a very bright bow mounted light array and a small generator to power the lights are used to hunt for flounder on sandy bottoms.

Gigging and bow and arrow hunting for flounder at night is very common. I did some flounder gigging around Port Isabel, Texas as a boy in the 1940's. We would hunt the flounder on the mud flats at low tide at night. Tools used were a frog gig, a galvanized wash tub and a gasoline lantern. The tub was tied by a short rope to the ankle. The flounder were located by light reflected from their eyes. I once had the misfortune to mistake a stingray for a flounder, but that's another fish tale.

My neighbor fishes squid off his dock at night with lights.

Don SSDD wrote:My neighbor fishes squid off his dock at night with lights.

That is interesting but the topic is underwater hull or transom lamps.

It seems that underwater hull or transom lamps are certainly able to attract all sorts of viewers to approach nearer to the boat, including many species of fish and some humans. Underwater lamps seem very practical if the goal is to attract fish or other boaters toward your boat.