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Street Light swims


The Flying Tench

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Inspired in part by one or two comments in the Head Lights thread about fish being attractd by lights, I wondered what people's experience is of swims where street lights shine on the water. From a human perspective such swims have light levels like dusk all night long, which you would think was good news - and I have even wondered if the fish in such swims might feed for more hours per day because of the extra light, and therefore grow bigger. But what have people found in practice - are they good news?

john clarke

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I have fished street lights swims, I have found them to be no more productive than non lite swims.

in the Summer there is a down side, you get more Mozzies in the lighted area and tend to get bitten more.

Street light swims are good if you want to fish late and don't have apropriate tackle for night fishing, you also stand less chance of leaving tackle behind.

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..following the flashing red headlight facility that Santa brought for John.

.....comments in the Head Lights thread about fish being attractd by lights, ...........where street lights shine on the water.

 

...and not only street lights shine at night........be careful about your choice of street and the colour of the lights....especially red ones

 

I can see the headlines now... "I was out for a bit of laying on" says vicar arrested in Canal St raid - "Clients sending coded light signals to ladies of the night" say police

 

Seriously, I have fished many piers and jetties that have had lighting varying from none to Blackpool illumination standard. Have fished (a) close under the lights, on the edge of illuminated areas, and [c] as far away from the lights as I could get. I have not picked up any consistent pattern.

 

I have had both good sessions and blank sessions at all levels of artuificial light proximity. I guess the fish just get used to any permanent lights there may be and just ignore them. ie there is neither a positive nor a negative effect.

 

OTOH Lights attract insects, which in turn attract birds such as nighthawks (though not in the UK), bats, plus frogs and toads feeding on the fall-out. In the rare event of the light being above the water I can imagine insect fall-out possibly attracting fish, but have yet to come across that situation.

 

There was a case a few years back where an angling club objected to a golf club (I think) installing lights on the grounds that the lights had an adverse affect on a river stretch they night-fished for seatrout. It went to a court case I believe (anyone remember it?)

 

"When I were a lad", many clubs banned night fishing, with or without lights. It was thought fish were too easy to catch at night !!

Edited by Vagabond

 

 

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Fir Tree Farm in Appley Bridge, Lancashire has, for some time, had evening matches under floodlights, which they say hasn't had a negative impacy upon catch rates.

 

I went there.....once. But it may be someone else's cup of tea.

 

http://www.gofishing.co.uk/wheretofish/Fac...Coarse-Fishery/

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less than 20 yards from my Mother's front door, the house I grew up in flows a Salmon/Trout river. A streetlight illuminates part of the river which for most of the time is very shallow and not seriously fishable. However during floods a dub forms there. I took my first Salmon there under the light on an otherwise dark autumn night. The light clearly didn't put off the 'king of fishes' and one significantly wild, being fresh run from the sea. We often took Brown and Sea trout and Eels from the same spot.

 

I like to fish well into the dark on balmy summer nights in a well lit up basin of the Shropshire union canal, and have caught noticably bigger fish than in daylight.

 

We used to fish brightly lit jettys in Berlin and caught just as well as in daylight.

 

It is interesting how wildlife reacts when illuminated, the places where there are street lights are generally always lit up and so become normal, however even when one puts a powerful spotlight on many species show apparent unconcern. While well lamped rabbits and foxes will bolt, a whole lot of other things seem to carry on with what they were doing quite unconcerned. for example badgers will often simply shuffle on grubbing up worms. Shine a strong light into river shallows and you will see a whole host of species who dont swim off in alarm, we used to exploit this to collect bait. Poachers use lamps to take Salmon and Sea Trout in shallow spanwning becks, and we as NRA (as it was then) bailiffs would check what was going on underwater in those waters.

Edited by Emma two
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Fir Tree Farm in Appley Bridge, Lancashire has, for some time, had evening matches under floodlights, which they say hasn't had a negative impacy upon catch rates.

 

I went there.....once. But it may be someone else's cup of tea.

Floodlit carp puddles,luverly,went there once myself(club match).A fishery that calls one of its 'donuts' NOOKY HOLLOW deserves IMO never to be visited again.Another money making circus..
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There are a couple of spots along the Thames where at this time of year it's nice to sit near the streetlights (it's not urban) and 10 seconds' walk from the car. I don't think the lights affect the fishes' behaviour, but they do make it a bit easier on the winter angler!

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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Floodlit carp puddles,luverly,went there once myself(club match).A fishery that calls one of its 'donuts' NOOKY HOLLOW deserves IMO never to be visited again.Another money making circus..

 

 

Perhaps I should have type:

 

I went there. Once!

 

Certainly it would have been accurate.

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I can think of plenty of street light (and other light source) swims that are productive at night. I don't know that the light itself actually attracts fish into the area but it certainly does no harm IMHO.

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