# Underwater lights good or bad for YFT?



## Kevinwwings2 (Mar 3, 2016)

I have fished YFT several different ways, but never at night. I am wondering if underwater lights (blue) are good or bad? I have never seen them draw much bait to the boat which obviously would be good, but curious to hear opinions.

Thank you in advance
Kevin


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## PELAGIC PIRATE (Oct 10, 2007)

Kevinwwings2 said:


> I have fished YFT several different ways, but never at night. I am wondering if underwater lights (blue) are good or bad? I have never seen them draw much bait to the boat which obviously would be good, but curious to hear opinions.
> 
> Thank you in advance
> Kevin


:thumbsup:


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## Kevinwwings2 (Mar 3, 2016)

Awesome, thank you, for the info.


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## rustybucket (Aug 18, 2011)

I'd say good and bad....

Good b/c you can see the flying fish, and hence catch them, and hence use them for bait for said yellowfin...

Bad b/c (from my experience at least) sharks and barracuda's like to 'hang out' near underwater lights. When you hook up to said yellowfin turn the underwater lights off and you will have a much better chance of landing a whole fish.

*disclaimer: I'm new to this game, above is just from personal experience.


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## Kevinwwings2 (Mar 3, 2016)

Rusty, thank you for said observation. Every bit helps. I fish the Bahamas for them, but only been up in the Gulf once on a charter out of Venice, and it was strictly day fishing. Personally though it kind of sucked as we spent all day running and only had 3-3.5 hours to fish. Too much to spend for a short window of fishing. We plan to fish both day and night, hopefully sneaking in a nap somewhere along the way.


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## BananaTom (Feb 16, 2008)

Kevinwwings2 said:


> in the Gulf once on a charter out of Venice, and it was strictly day fishing. Personally though it kind of sucked as we spent all day running and only had 3-3.5 hours to fish. /QUOTE]
> 
> I had a completely different experience on a Venice Charter. We ran about an hour, to the mouth of the Mississippi, threw the cast net for bait, than about another hour, to the rig we targeted, fished 8 hours, and ran two hours back.
> 
> Left the docks at 6 am, and were back after 6 pm.


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## Kevinwwings2 (Mar 3, 2016)

Banana: I am betting you were not during the mid/late summer? We went in Mid June, and we ran the hour out the river, then another 45 minutes, spent 45 min sabiking little hard tails, then another hour and a half to the rig, fished for 3-3.5 and then headed back. We left the dock about 6, got back at 5 or so and but between running and catching bait it felt like we only fished for an hour or two. Granted it was productive, and I am not complaining. I just look forward to leaving the dock just after sun up with boat full of bait, then start fishing around noon, fish through the night and run back the next day. We are planning to take shifts during the night, so everyone can grab a few hours in a bean bag.
Always more rewarding doing it yourself VS just showing up and following orders.


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## BananaTom (Feb 16, 2008)

Kevinwwings2 said:


> Banana: I am betting you were not during the mid/late summer?


We went in May as seen on this post:


http://www.pensacolafishingforum.com/f38/team-tuna-town-must-watch-video-119137


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## Kevinwwings2 (Mar 3, 2016)

Banana, great job on the video and looks like a great trip. We did well had a 118 and a 128# with several in the 50# and one 75# over the course of 2 days. It just felt like we didn't spend much time on the fishing grounds. 
I love that you put the girls on the rods too, they weren't just there for boat rides. Great work.


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## tkramerv (Sep 5, 2011)

Underwater lights = good night time fishing, including YFT


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## SnapperSlapper (Feb 13, 2009)

Underwater lights are good. They help catch fish. As for the complaints about the runnng time, underwater lights won't help you catch tuna where there aren't any tuna. Sounds like you had some great trips. Sounds like your captain knew the tuna were way offshore, so that is where he went. Your captain could have taken you half that distance offshore to fish in dirty green water where there weren't any fish and saved himself some fuel and been back at the dock earlier. But you would have had more fishing time. Was this last year? Because last year in June blue water started pushing way off offshore and fast. One trip last year we rode for 11 hours before we put a hook in the water. But we caught fish. We could have saved $1000 in fuel and had a lot more fishing time if we had stopped at Ram Powell. But the fish weren't there.


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## Kevinwwings2 (Mar 3, 2016)

The Capt did a great job, not against him at all. The charter was a set price plus the fuel so honestly he didn't care about the fuel burn. He knew exactly where the fish were, and that is where we went. We stopped at one other rig and tested the waters for a little bit and then on to where we scored. I was just saying that this time I want to fish at night which is new to me, so we get more fishing time as compared to running time. 
Thank you for your input.


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