Awesome thread.

I ordered a set of those lights, going to give them a try!

👍 ...I bought a roll of 3m double sided tape to mount them.

Not sure how I’m going to mount the ones on the T-top yet. Round tube and cloth top aren’t great for mounting things.

If you are looking for flatheads, I would go to grapevine. There are tons there. Would catch them every trip in the summer when crappie fishing.

As to a cheap 12 volt setup with LED ...

My uncle rigged up 4 LED Flashlight heads with wires soldered to them. You have one tube of Water PVC about 3 to 4 feet long, with 4 "Tees". The Flashlight heads are glued on. He had it capped on one end. On the other, he glued a "90 ELL" & then a short portion that he capped. That was for a handle. We had them snugly twist tied to the front crossways PVC roof frame. I let him run the motor. I would run our lines. For cruising at night, I would grab the handle & tillt to shine in front, but slightly down, to keep an eye out for stumps & such. But when stopped & running lines, I could reach up & pull on the handle to angle the tube to have the lights shine on me, the bait, the fish, and lines. He had a wire run back & had set up a small set-up of toggle switches. Such as for the Boat night lights, this Light set-up, main bilge pump, second higher bilge pump, and whatnot.

He got 4 LED flashlights, each ran on 3 volts (2- D cell at 1.5 volts each). If rigged in line, 4 lights would run on 12 volts. And naturally draw much less juice off the battery than conventional lights.

I will have to look at it & take notes (dimensions), in case anyone wants to build these.

Took my wife for a sunset cruise around the lake yesterday evening. Went way up into Hickory Creek to scout for Flathead spots to fish. Didn’t get to go as far up the creek as I would have liked as it got dark on us but I found a dozen good areas. Wife asked if I would take her back further up into there on Mother’s Day so I should have a real good feel for that area by the time me and my son have to navigate it at night. I marked 2 giant Flatheads at dark that were under a fallen tree. Water was 76 up in there so I sure hope I’m not to late to the party. Catfish are about to spawn.

Dang! those tight contours look goooood. I am rooting for you guys to pull some pigs out of there!

The sheer amount of biomass of fish up in there was incredible Tim. Seemed like half the fish in the lake were crammed up in there. You should have seen all the driftwood piles and fallen timber! It was like National Geographic up in there. Best part about it was we didn’t see a single plastic bottle, jug, or Styrofoam cups up in there. Not a single 1!

Anyone know if you can launch a yak comfortably at Old Alton bridge or nearby?

Shouldn’t be a problem Jonathan. Lake is flooded 2 1/2 to 3 ft so the water is up in the Willows and scrub brush.

Depends on the yak you have. My Native is heavy and is a pain to put in there but the lake is up so that should help. There are rocks right there under the bridge

Ok I’ll jump In here too, and I also am enjoying seeing these nice fish and smiling faces.
This was a couple of years back on the Brazos, I tried to black out my abundant man skin, the fish is all that matters anyway.
Caught this on R&R early in the morning while doing an overnight trip.
I kid you not I caught this thing in 18 inches of water, we were camped beside a small rapids, and this thing went for a SNAKE, I had a small snake getting onto my minnow bucket and I had shoo’d him away a couple of times already, so I swat him with my rod tip and took him prisoner.
Put him on a jig head and threw him in.
Fighting him that river current was awesome.
And the fish was released to let someone else enjoy catching her/him.

The snake did not survive.

That’s awesome Steve! Love that story man

Catfish 1 - Snake 0