green underwater lights

[garvin]

If you goggle "underwater lights for fishing" or "green underwater lights" you will get ads and comments about their use.
I understand that divers that had to work underwater at night noticed that a lot of bait fish were attracted to their chem glow sticks.
I wonder if anyone has tried the greenlights or just even a green glow stick in ice fishing ? I'm thinking that they might be useful on late ice with a lot of snow that even mid day not much light gets through the surface.

[Rockfish]

I've used them in saltwater and they do work real well to draw in baitfish and in turn predators but never tried them in sweetwater...I'd be interesting to see if anyone's tried it.  I have heard of folks using regular lighting for crappie but I've no first hand experience with it.

Rock

[crowkiller]

thats a new one by me, let us know if it works

[MXFISHER656]

I tried a green light when jigging for smelt. Not conviced it did anything different than a lantern on the ice. I was told "it's the way to get'em, you'll slaughter them with this" Didn't do any better than any other nights, tough to say if there was a difference.



656

[Reel Wet Ride]

I've fished with green light for smelt probably about 15-20 times. I can't tell you how well they'd work for other species like crappie or w/e , but for smelt I'd say they're a must.  The trick I was taught was to set your light as deep as you can and then pound the bottom with heavy weights to still up the mud/bottom, then the larva buried in the mud are attracted to the light, then the whole food chain thing starts.

The other night I was fishing a local lake and I used a light and I can say for sure that it made a difference. Other guys who were walking off the ice only caught  one...two...maybe three fish, I ended up with 40. So maybe when the huge smelt run is on you don't notice it as much, but when no-one out there is catching a thing and you outfish them by over 1000%, I'd say it makes a difference.

[MXFISHER656]

Reel, How deep of water do you fish for smelt. Where I fish it's roughly 30 feet give or take. We do our best catching them 6 inches under the ice. I'll have to try your method on a slow night. Sounds like it would work. Now if we can just get some ice so we can go get'em!!


656

[Reel Wet Ride]

656
At this local lake I've fished in 25-30 fow. If I travel north to Higgins Lake I'll fish either in 70 fow or 15 fow. When I fish 70, I just set the light 6ft under the ice and set up so I'm fishing on the edge of light and not right in it. When I fish shallow, I usually just do the same thing and fish about 5 to 6 feet under the light. But on Higgins you can catch smelt all day long if you find them, and they won't hesitate to swim up into your hole, so when it gets to that point I'll fish 3' or less.

Last report: Higgins has appox: 8-10" of ice. The big smelt run is about 2 weeks away. Decent number of smaller Lk.Trout are being caught on Swedish Pimples and tip-ups with smelt right on bottom. Small number of cleanable perch are being caught. (higgns doesn't have many Yellows over 10", but millions in the 7-8" range.

[crappieslayer22]

they work good

[Slammerman]

A couple of buddies of mine are veteran smelt fishermen who grew up fishing on Green Lake in northern Michigan and they swear by the green light over a white one.

I've ran the smaller Cyalume glow sticks on the bottom (taped to a rock and plopped down the hole in 4 foot of water) and on my line for steelhead and they DID NOT improve on activity ... it could also have just been "one of those days" as no one around got a hit either.

[Reel Wet Ride]

I just bought my own light a few weeks ago, so I would always try to borrow one. I caught at Higgins for a weekend w/o one and tried the glowstick gig.....didn't work for me either.