Underwater Light In My Slip

I now have the mercury vapor underwater light I built installed in my slip. I have it on the side of the slip but am thinking about moving it to the middle of the slip so it sets under the pontoon instead. I think I can use a concrete block to center it in the boat slip.



Now I am ready to start building some pvc crappie condos to place in the slip.

I'm debating whether I want to extend the green LED lights to the front of the slip. I have them on both sides on the last sixteen feet of the slip. I have them on the sides of the pontoon so I am not sure I need them on the front of the slip.

Sweet

well sir one thing for sure ....
it looks super cool ...

You got that placa lit up like a stadium!!!
THE CRAPPIE BOWL
Great Job

I didn't have the green LED lights on the pontoon turned on. It would have really been lit up had those been on with the other lights. But all the lights are green, even the overhead lights

I'm going to need to test if it produces better with or without the green LED lights with the underwater light on.

There might be just a little bit too much light if everything is turned on.

But the test will be how well it produces slab crappies.

Last night it was only producing babies.

Looks good! Nicely done "ezgoing".

you know fish dont have eye lids...lol

I know that when a neighbor's light three slips down turns on the fish swarm it. So they must love the bright lights. I'm hoping to attract some of them my way.

But I may have the slip too bright and need to turn off the green LED lights when the underwater light is on so I have some shadow areas in my slip.

As I stated, I will test different combinations of lights to see which is the most productive.

its all about the shadows

and another thing thats fun is to tie just a hook on with no weight and put you a livly minnow or (shad). Toss it in to the light and let it swim around as if free.... and watch the fish come up and grab it.

Ed are you using Minnows or Jigs and how deep is your slip right now?? PM sent

Answered your pm. Thanks for the advice.

My wife fishes minnows exclusively, I fish whatever the crappie are biting.

I start with lures, then switch to vertical jigging. If neither work I will go to minnows if my wife is out-fishing me.

When I am jigging or casting I often have a couple of rods in holders, one with a couple of jigs with a float and one with minnows.

Unfortunately my slip in not that deep. It runs from 10' at one end to 11' at the other.

I'd leave the one under the slip and add some to the outside.. The more the merrier.

I think I want to test this first, before I add any more.

That's pretty cool. A lot of green you've got there. Be sure to post pics whenever you see an entire school on those lights.

Hopefully that will be tonight. We didn't fish this past weekend.

We going to fish this afternoon and tonight. I don't know if I will take the pontoon out on the lake or just fish from the slip. But I do know I will fish some from the slip as I will come in before dark if I do take the pontoon out.

I have seen schools of white bass in my neighbor's slip last month, swimming upside down in his light. So I hope to draw some of them to my slip.

I fished the slip tonight from 6:00 P.M. till 10:00 P.M.

I did not see any fish swimming in the lights at my slip tonight.

I checked my neighbor's slip and he had a lot of fish swimming the light pool created by his underwater light. When you dropped a line with minnows you could see large fish swim up to look at the minnows. But none of them would bite.

His slip is two slips over from my slip. He has had the light in his slip for a year, I placed mine last week.

Both lights are mercury vapor 175 watt lights. Both lights are at 8'. His is in the middle of the front of his slip, mine is on the side of my slip, about 16' from the front of the slip.

Both appear to put out the same amount of light.

Is the difference in time the lights have been in the slips the reason his underwater light was attracting fish and mine was not?

I placed a light in my slip this year also. Same as yours. I think the key here is not just the light but the amount of structure. Crappie condos and brush mixed allow the algae to grow. This brings in the smalls which bring the bigs. Just got to give it time to grow a good amount of algae and place plenty of brush. (cedar, bamboo, condos, whatever else makes shadows and places for algae). Good fishing!

I understand but in this case the other slip does not have any brush. This is a new dock and the current slip leaser is the only person to have used the slip. He states he has not added any brush to the slip.

His slip is 11' deep at the front, the same as the front of my slip.

The only difference between the two slips is the location of the underwater light and the length of time he had the light in the water.

He stated he bought the light last July. So he has had the light in the water for over year.

I am going to add pvc condo's to my slip over the next month. I will probably dump a few Christmas trees after the first of the year when people threw them away.

i dont know what type of lights you have but if you have wildcat lights you will be just fine. The lights will bring in the fish really good.

The man with the most lights wins.

I had a Barge for 3 years, and always had lights, I disagree about the lights (more the merrier) I found that while lights bring in the Bait and the fish. The Larger fish are caught in the periphery of the lights, not directly under it.

I didn't buy a commercial mercury vapor underwater light, I built my own for approximately $100. Frankly, $350-$400 is too much to pay for something where the component only cost $100 retail and even less if you buy in quantities at wholesale.

My mercury vapor light bulb has the clear glass bulb, which is the important thing to consider. The coated glass bulbs do not produce the same quality of green light.

As seen from the photo my light provides a bright green light. It is brighter than his light, illuminating a larger stretch of water.

I do wonder if I have too many lights. My slip is much brighter than his slip, although all the lights are green.

If the fish do not start showing up in a week or so I will try it with the green LED lights along the sides of the strip turned off.

If that does not make a difference I will move the light to the middle front of the slip. I would prefer it at the side as that provides more fish-able water. But I will experiment until I find what works.

I am looking for a method to suspend the light in the middle of the slip so the underwater light sets under the pontoon. I think this would provide more fish-able water than having it set at the edge of the slip.

Last night I had a few fish swimming in the light, just not the quantity of fish that was swimming in his light.

So it may just be a matter of time. But I intend to stack the odds in my favor by adding condos to my slip.

Crappie have huge sensitive eyes and prefer shadows. In my test of green lights and LEDs all this year. I found that green LEDs on the edge of the boat facing down 16' above the water line won hands down.attracts the bait fish to the surface. They are Really Bright but not blinding. And the fishing was fantastic slab after slab and big whites and big stripers. I highly endorse green LEDs from 1st Class Tackle

The green lights on your boat do look nice. I also like the way the green lights on my pontoon look.

During September I had the green 5050 LED lights I purchased from ebay for $15.00 a set. I have them on my pontoon and on the sides of my slip. I caught a lot of small crappie while using them. I agree they attracted a lot of small bait fish when they were on.

However my neighbor two slips down had the mercury vapor underwater light in his slip. He had a lot of large fish swimming in his light pool. I caught some very nice large mouth bass and white bass from fishing in his light pool. (I have his permission to fish anytime he isn't at the lake)

My green LED lights above the water were not attracting the large fish that his underwater light attracted.

I now have both types of lights. I still am not attracting the large fish he attracts. But I have been reminded that fish are creatures of habit. That given time they will start coming to my underwater light as well.

However I will experiment to see what produces the best results. I will know in a few months whether the green LED lights by themselves are best or whether the mercury vapor underwater light is best. Or if both working together produce the best results.

I went to Cabelas this morning and bought the set of three Porcupine fish attractor balls. I went to Home Depot and bought some 1/2" gray electrical connector pipe and three tee's.

I cut enough of the pipe to make one Porcupine fish attractor and took it to my slip to assemble. Here is a picture of it.



I cut the pipe to 3.5 feet so the overall size of the ball is seven feet.

I forgot to take a tee with me to hook it to the concrete block. So I will not be placing it into the water until tomorrow. I am going to try and cut enough pipe tomorrow for a second attractor and build it tomorrow afternoon.

I am going to place the first two attractors at the end of the slip, facing the fishing barge. Between my lights and the attractors I hope to convince some of the crappie at the barge to switch homes.

I will place the third attractor at the front of slip. After Christmas I will get a couple of Christmas trees to place at the sides of the slip, probably underneath the wood of the sides.

This will allow me to fish them at the sides of my slip and the two adjacent slips.

Note to self! LOL

Nice setup man!

Looks sweet WHERE??? lol

I thought by now everybody knew I fished Joe Pool and have my pontoon on A dock at Joe Pool Marina.

I have even stated it is the 3rd slip from the end. Anybody is welcome to fish the end of the slip but please don't throw jigs or lures down the side of the pontoon. I don't want that new light broken before the new wears off it.

The mercury vapor underwater light is on from 5:00 P.M. till midnight, when the timer turns it off. Have to give the fish some time to sleep.

The green LED lights on the sides are not always on. I unplug them when I'm fishing as I think they may make the slip too bright. Then I forget to plug them back in when I leave.

They do look nice when they are on.

Well, I placed the first one into the water today. I ended up placing it at the front of the slip as the wind was blowing too strong to move the pontoon to place it at the rear of the slip. I have my top up and the wind catches it as a sail.

The next two will go at the rear of the slip.

I didn't get the second one built today as I had hoped. I wasn't able to cut the pipe this morning as planned. So I will cut it tomorrow and build them when the weather settles down again.

I can't wait for all the crappie to move into this first one.

The light draws in plankton which draws in baitfish which then draws in the gamefish. Once the baitfish come the predators will follow. They will hang on the outside of the light until they see a baitfish they want too pick off.

Reggie

That LIGHTS UP!!! That looks awesome!!!

Thank you. I hope the fish like it as well as I do.

So far the crappie have refused my invitation to move in. The sand bass and lmb seem to like it but the crappie are turning their noses up at it.

I have found fish like the shadows. The darker my slip is in the day light the better the fishing. We have hung tarps to block off the sun light in the slip. I do use green lights at night but only on one side of the slip. The fish will dart out of the shadows and grab the bait fish and duck back into the dark. I hate Christmas trees for structure. To much to get hung up on. Any structure you put down leave holes to get your bait down. I remember the first time I put structure down I didn't leave any. all the fish were being caught at 18' and I couldn't get down that deep because of the trees. I dropped an anchor down and pulled openings in the brush so that I could get the bait down and was catching Crappie two hours later. Just my 2 cents hope it helps.

I wanted to add my slip with the drought still has 19' of water in it and the crappie just started moving in at 12' deep. The colder it gets the better it will be.

I wish my slip was deeper. It currently has 11', probably would not have more than 15' if the lake was full.

You are probably right about the shadows. Right now the slip on my left is empty and the slip on my right has the boat on a lift. I'm been told he hasn't been to the slip in two years.

So I can fish both slips, which are in shadows.

At this time we catch more fish at the edges of the slip than we do in the middle of the slip.

So you think I would be better off adding more pvc condo's instead of Christmas trees. I was thinking Christmas trees to add more wood to the mix.

I was going to try to add the Christmas trees underneath the walkways at the sides of the slip so you would not actually fish the Christmas trees. Instead you would be fishing the outside of the trees from both slips, mine and the ones next to mine.

I am going to buy some of the green shade covers you find at Home Depot to hang on one side of the slip to block the sun in the afternoon. The glare during the summer makes the slip uncomfortable during afternoons.

I had not thought about tarps. But I think that might block more light than I want to block. But it is something to think about.

Anything the jigs can slide up and not get caught. Most guys on my dock have even went with a square base with the pvc running straight up. I have used pallets like this also. Use the pallet as a base and run planks straight up like a tree growing out of the ground. It takes alot of cender block to sink them so we went back to pvc. build a square base have runners going from side to side and use T's off them to run your pvc straight up. works great.

I thinking about doing something like this instead of the Christmas trees. This picture uses woods for the cross members but I would use pvc pipe.



This was recommended by a member of another forum. This is the picture of one he built and placed in the lake.

I am In Tears with that pic lmao

I haven't tried it yet so I don't know how well it would work. But I never make the mistake of laughing at something I haven't tried, as that has the habit of biting you in the rear.

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IT'S PRETTY SIMPLE , EZ.......!!!!!! He poster that in response to Evan O'Brian....The picture with the little boy with the rod and reel with the Fish swinging around !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am dropping two more of the porcupine fish attractors toward the back of my slip today. They will be just under the stern of the pontoon, so that any predator fish will be just beyond the stern of the pontoon.

My next project will be the 10' horizontal attractor has shown in the image. As you state, I will be using pvc pipe instead of wood.

Thanks for the suggestion of using five foot lengths. I was trying to decide the best length to use. The porcupine attractors are seven feet tall but they will be where my prop can not hit them. Five foot is probably better for this one, so my prop will never hit it.

I was thinking about using two screws on each pipe to hold them in place. I will see if I can make one screw work. Did you screw it into the horizontal pipe from the push through pipe?

I will be placing this one across the rear of my slip. We will fish it using floats, since the rear of my pontoon is about fifteen feet from the rear of the slip.

That will be the last pvc attractor I build for my slip.

After Christmas I am going to pick up a few good Christmas trees. I am going to place them under the wood walkways along both sides of the slips. Since they will be under the walkways they should not interfere with the fishing of the slip. Nor should they cause many hangups, since we do not fish under these walkways.

The wood walkways are set on form floats, which extend a foot or so beneath the water. So it would be difficult to cast under them.

However we catch a lot of nice lmb fishing the edges of these walkways. I'm hoping the wood Christmas trees will convince some nice crappie to take up residence in the same area.

I am also going to have the dock area at the front of the slip extended another four foot, to give me a ten foot front slip platform.

I will have a trapdoor cut into the platform area at the front of the slip at the same time. Another slip owner has done this. He catches a lot of fish from the trapdoor area.

I may be "stupid" but I do know enough to copy successful people.

My final project for the slip will be to build a 400 watt mercury vapor underwater light after the first of the year. I plan on placing this light at the rear of my slip. It will not be in my slip but in the water about fifteen feet or so beyond my slip.

This should attract fish from the fishing barge, and if I am lucky, to the 10' horizontal fish attractor I will have in place at the end of the slip.

I will need to find a way to anchor the underwater light there there, with the electric cord running back to my slip.