Lighting for a bowfishing boat

[beendare]

Robtattoo covered it well- nice rig.

I might add that the HPS fixtures which are much higher lumens/watt need a ballast which can be inside the fixture or built into a separate ballast box. The ballasts can be heavy so it helps with weight distribution in a small boat. You can substitute digital ballast which is much lighter but more expensive.

 Many guys claim the HPS is easier on the eyes [less glare] and helps you to see fish in murky water- both of which I would agree with.

 Fishing all night next to a noisy generator can be a pain. Small Honda and Yamaha are pretty quiet but still they drone on.  Many guys are going to the LED fixtures which can be run off your batteries without a generator.

[snufer]

robtatto, great rig! Who built the boat? I would like to find one just like it.

[mark land]

I switched out my 300watt Halogens for 150watt MH 2 years ago and really like them.  Was able to drop down to a smaller, ligher and quiter Invertor generator.  
I am running 12 lights on my custom 2080 SD boat with 8 on the deck, 2 in the middle on the video deck and 2 in back by the fan stand.  I can definitely light up everything all around me.
Went from about 72,000 lumens to 168,000 lumens of light and from 3600watts to about 2200 watts of power.  No problem running those lights with power to spare on my boat.
Some guys are starting to use alot of the new LED lights so you might want to check into that on some of the bowfishing forums, they claim to be able to run all night on 2 batteries and the quiet sure would be nice!
With my fuel injected belt drive fan, it makes too much noise to mess with going to the LED's so I am not planning on that anytime soon, but sure would be nice for those trolling motor trips or shooting bigheads I imagine.

[Robertfishes]

I am getting back into bowfishing.. In the 1990s we used aircraft landing light bulbs attached to hardhats and 12 volt batterys.. I now have a 238 Carolina skiff with a 80 thrust trolling motor and will use lite weight 12 volt head lights, have only used boat in day time so far ..will look at the LEDs.. I used a 20 ft seark in the 90s, it was a nice stable boat.    

[robtattoo]

Originally posted by snufer:
robtatto, great rig! Who built the boat? I would like to find one just like it.

I honestly couldn't tell you who built the hull, it dates back to the late '60s as far as I can tell.
The rest was done by me. I put about 80 hours into it over 4 months or so.

[lpcjon2]

Rob, is that for bow fishing or pimpen with those blue party lights...LOL

[Robertfishes]

Ya Robs boat is ready to go. I'm still tweaking mine.

[Guru]

Rob, The new rig looks great bud!  

I can see where having the deck, fuel tank, and then adding shooters would make it plow pretty bad.

How hard would it be to switch tank to the back to try and off-set some of the weight? Must be a pain if you haven't done it.

[lpcjon2]

If you cant move the tank you can move the deck back about 1-2ft and that would balance it out and keep the nose up.You can also add trim tabs in the rear for when you are motored up a bit,they will bring the nose up .

[Guru]

Originally posted by lpcjon2:
If you cant move the tank you can move the deck back about 1-2ft and that would balance it out and keep the nose up.You can also add trim tabs in the rear for when you are motored up a bit,they will bring the nose up .

If you moved the deck back it would make it hard to shoot off the front. That's where alot of the shooting is done and a good pecentage of the shooting is about straight down. Deck needs to stay flush with the front at least.

[lpcjon2]

Good point,I never bow fished of a boat didnt know that. last resort get a bigger motor.

[beendare]

Many guys using the smaller aluminum john boats build those platforms from Aluminum and shift as much weight back as possible. Get 2 big guys plus lights, ballast, troller and platform in the front of a 14 footer and you could be plowing big time

[robtattoo]

Yeah, the problem I have with this rig is that there's very little room between the rear bulkhead & the transom & I really didn't want the red, portable, 6 gallon tanks. The only other option was a custom built aluminum tank, but I didn't have the $800 that everyone wanted!

I was trying to keep as much floor space as possible & the only room I had was under the deck. A 25gal tank was possibly a bit of overkill, but I've run out of gas before & trying to get 5 or 6 miles upstream on a trolling motor with 2 or 3 guys + gear + fish is a complete nightmare!  :D

I have as much weight as possible at the back of the boat, the only thing forward of center is the deck & tank & unfortunately, due to the age & design of the transom I can't go bigger on the motor. I had a 70 to start with, but it was bowing the transom out so I dropped down to a 45. It's slow (around 20 knotts unloaded) but it'll get me there!

[Terry Green]

Wish We had some pics to post of Chris Surtees' boat....Larry has it now...and it was really set up let me tell ya.

Mark Land also has a jam up Muzzy boat.