Robbie got a new toy! (& a quick Q. for the fishing boat guys)

[robtattoo]

Went out today & picked up a scabby, horrible 16' fibreglass boat. Spent all day re-building the motor, installing batteries & wiring it all up & she's looking good! (Pics tomorrow     )

Obviously, I'm looking at rigging it up as a bowfishing boat & I'm going to town tomorrow for some lights. I'll be running an appropriate sized generator, but I don't want anything too big probably a 1200 WATT or similar.

My question is, are 150W lights bright enough to shine through 3 or 4 feet of water?

I'm really looking forward to getting out on the local shallows for some more like this....
 
 

[DaleinOhio]

We used 500 watt lights forever.  This year we switched to 300 watt halogens and cannot tell any difference.  The gennie runs easier with the lesser load, though.

[bretto]

Sent a P.M.

[Littlefeather]

Cool! Great to see you getting all geared up. I have used 5-500 watt halogens for numerous years now. They may not be the absolute best but I've shot hundreds upon hundreds of fish from under them. Mount them fairly high. Also, build a shooting deck that is a couple of feet higher than the front of the boat. The higher you can get the better. I use a cheap $300 3500 watt generator and a Great White trolling motor. Make sure you get a good muffler on your generator. Once I switched over to my new generator I found that I could actually think once I got a quiet generator. The loud one I had before would drive you insane before you could shoot any fish. Good luck with the boat. You are in for some fun!!! CK

[Robertfishes]

I used to use a 12 volt aircraft landing light attached to a hard hat, no noise, no generator. I shot about 50,000 tilapia and only had to buy 4 bulbs and 10 deepcycle batteries in 5 years, the bigest drawback was sometimes the bugs would swarm arround the head light. se ond problem was battety life, I could drain 2 batteries if out all night..I second the platform, helps with glare in daytime too. I only go bowfishing on friends airboats now and they use generators with halogens?

[Guru]

That's good advice about the quiet generator....them things drive me nuts!! I seem to be more sensitive to noise than most...