[awaldro7]

So I'm not the kind of guy that typically fishes next to houses, however, the way the lakes here are in NC it is difficult to bowfish and not be within sight of a house for the majority of the night. So I was trying to figure out how to still be able to see well and not light up houses so bad. With the growing popularity of bowfishing there are alot more boats on the water and I'm afraid that one by one, lake by lake, we are all going to start seeing a lot more rules and regulations, so we need to all start being careful and try to find ways to minimize our impact to the home owners on the lake.......Yes I know this is America and they dont own the lake.....but they are for the most part much wealthier than all of us and typically these kind of people are highly influential with local government and jurisdiction. It just takes pissing off the wrong person one time to ruin the entire thing for us.........So enough with my big spill here is my idea.

My light housings have a curved reflector behind the bulb almost in the shape of the letter "C". The bulb is located in the center. Considering that light reflects from objects in an equal and opposite angle it makes sense that the light that is shining into the water is reflecting off of the top of the lens, and the light that is reflecting off of the bottom of the reflector is shining upward (into the trees and up into peoples windows.) I am thinking that if the bottom half of the reflector (maybe bottom 1/3 or 1/4....not sure yet) was painted flat black then the light that was reflected into the trees would be minimized greatly. The light that is actually used to fish with would not be effected because the top half of the reflector would still be polished aluminum.

I haven't tried it yet so feel free to tell me I'm an idiot if you don't think that it will work....I plan to do this as soon as our club championship shoot is over in 3 weeks..

 

[Waterproof]

The only problem that I can see with your thinking, it appears you forgot about the light reflecting off the surface of the water as well. The lights on my boat were directed pretty well down into the water with limited amount aimed horizontally. Whenever I got near a dam or the shore, the lights would still light up everything around the front of the boat even though they weren't directly aiming that way.

 

[awaldro7]

The only problem that I can see with your thinking, it appears you forgot about the light reflecting off the surface of the water as well. The lights on my boat were directed pretty well down into the water with limited amount aimed horizontally. Whenever I got near a dam or the shore, the lights would still light up everything around the front of the boat even though they weren't directly aiming that way.

That is a very good point. I had not really considered that. I guess I will try it and see still though. I am thinking that the light reflection off the water wouldnt be as great as off of the reflector but I am sure that it still reflects quite a bit. Thanks for the input.

 

[SKEETER]

Might aswell try a wall pack while you are at.

 

[awaldro7]

Might aswell try a wall pack while you are at.

Actually had 2 of those on my first boat (the 2 didnt match in size or color and weighed about 30 pounds haha), it was combined with 3 econo 150 watt HPS and 2 halogens.......looked like it came off of the old show junkyard wars.....

 

[bow assassin]

Can't help you out much but just glad to see you care enough about the sport not to make people frown on it.Good luck with your lights.Where in NC do you live? Which lakes if you don't mind me asking?

 

[water snake 2]

THS Sporting center has a good setup with the lights out over the water pointing down looks to be very efficient setup telescopeing poles heavy duty might help also.

 

[afflicted]

Yep most of the light that hits houses is reflecting off the water.
It's not my thing but, like water snake said. THS SPORTS has a very efficient looking setup that i don't think would bother houses. An looks to work really good

 

[THS Tim]

Thanks for the compliments. The poles I use are 1" square heavy guage aluminium 8 foot long. The base are steel Here is one of my latest youtube video clips

 

[THS Tim]

One of my shooting partners has just purchased a boat and we are looking at rigging a 250 or 400 HPS on a straight post 24-30" off the shooting platform angling down step as possible. Again the goal is to get all the light down into the water. We have noticed that it does have to be angled slightly out away from the shooters. If the light is straight down you do get more reflection back at the shooter.

 

[Gbollom]

This is another reason why I like LEDs, plenty of light to see fish, but not blinding home owners

 

[Istickem]

Most of the light is coming from the bulb. The reflected light wether off the reflector or water is far less the the light from the source, sorry but your not gonna find an easy solution

 

[Waterproof]

I am going to venture a guess and say that ALL of the light is coming from the bulb. When I was talking about my setup and how my lights were aimed, there was very little lamp exposed to be able to directly shine anywhere but downward.

Most of the light is coming from the bulb. The reflected light wether off the reflector or water is far less the the light from the source, sorry but your not gonna find an easy solution

 

[awaldro7]

Can't help you out much but just glad to see you care enough about the sport not to make people frown on it.Good luck with your lights.Where in NC do you live? Which lakes if you don't mind me asking?

Western Nc but we shoot lake james, rhodhiss, mtn island, norman, wylie, badin, gaston, lookout shoals, Cherokee lake in Tennessee, jordan, falls lake, and a few others.

 

[awaldro7]

Thanks for the compliments. The poles I use are 1" square heavy guage aluminium 8 foot long. The base are steel Here is one of my latest youtube video clips

This looks really cool but the way we fish with the kicker and the fact that in NC there arent any wide open flats (normally to see the bottom you must be within 10' of the bank) I would rip these off the boat within 30 minutes of getting on the water my first trip. But I think it would work good for someone that fishes lakes with large wide open flats.

 

[awaldro7]

This is another reason why I like LEDs, plenty of light to see fish, but not blinding home owners

We tried the LED thing.....Lakes in NC are just to muddy for it. Our tournament results show a good comparison between leds and HPS also... we have 5 boats that have led lights and about 15 that have HPS. There hasnt been an LED boat win a tournament here in about 3 years.

I would love nothing more than to be able to fish all night with nothing but the sound of my kicker and silent leds but I cant sacrifice the ability to see for silence.

 

[THS Tim]

We tried the LED thing.....Lakes in NC are just to muddy for it. Our tournament results show a good comparison between leds and HPS also... we have 5 boats that have led lights and about 15 that have HPS. There hasnt been an LED boat win a tournament here in about 3 years.

I would love nothing more than to be able to fish all night with nothing but the sound of my kicker and silent leds but I cant sacrifice the ability to see for silence.

That is very impressive information