Flounder gigging

Backwater boy · **Posted:** Tue Aug 28, 2012 7:24 pm

Does anyone know a cheap way to make flounder lights and gigs or is it better to just buy the already made flounder lights

Maverick904 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 28, 2012 7:36 pm

What type of gigging are you looking to do?

from a boat? or wading.

I wouldnt recommend gigging from a yak, tho I would say it can be a good vehicle to get you to other places to wade and gig. There is not enough stability in a yak to be dealing with spears in the dark.

Depending of what type of gigging you are looking to do I can give you a few suggestions for cheap set ups.

as for gigs. I recommend the alumnium shaft/stainless steel head gigs that you can pick up at gander, academy, or strike zone. they are 50 or 60 bucks if i remember but will last FOREVER.

After further thought. I figured id add all the info anyways so that others with different situations can also read some of my ideas/ advice.

Now I dont claim to be a flounder gigging genius by any means. But I have spent many hours researching and thinking up different set ups for flounder gigging.

As for lights. there are two paths you can take on a boat, and one path wading (unless your crazy)

You can either run with a generator or battery system in a boat, and typically battery systems only for wading.

As for boat gigging I myself (along with my gigging buddy) prefer batteries. they are more quiet and it makes the night much for fun and enjoyable over listening to a generator run all night. generator setups tend to be more straight forward and to the point, the more power, the more lights, shazam your gigging. But this is not so budget friendly.

As college kids with not a lot of money we wanted to get into gigging as cheap as possible to see if we liked it and were sucessfull before dropping a bunch of money on it. we gig out of a 12 foot jon boat with a plywood platform on the front of the boat. Our original setup was powered by 2 12 volt deep cycle batteries that we have had laying around. We went to the local hardware store, picked up 4 of those clamp on lights with metal reflector bowls and attached 2 on the front of the boat and 2 on the side angled off the front corners of the boat. with the purchase of a couple 12v lightbulbs we were able to wire up a system of 4 lights that ran off 2 batteries (2 lights per battery) that would last ALL night. We did have an extra battery for backup. These lights were above water lights and to be honest we never had an issue with glare.

This is probably the cheapest way to try gigging from a boat. with little investment and still can produce plenty of light. I do recommend using a good bit of silicone to seal off the switches on the lights and any other place water can get in and just use your battery terminals as switches. these lights lasted us 2 years before we decided to upgrade our setup. Since then we have moved onto a much brighter LED setup. We now run a 4 foot LED bar off the front of the boat that is submersible. This thing is BRIGHT and lasts MUCH MUCH MUCH longer than our previous setup. However i have noticed with our water here that the LED lights do not penetrate the dirty water as well as our previous setup. There is a lot of information about LED vs. Halogen in the gigging world and a simple google search will get you all the reading you want on that subject.

As for wading. I myself purchased a few waterproof LED flashlights that can be mounted on the end of a pole. Incredibly bright, long lasting, and compact. and best of all LIGHTWEIGHT.

Here is a video using my wading light setup

These lights have been good to me when I have used them, tho most of my gigging is from a boat.

I have heard of people going to the autoparts store and buying automobile headlights and rigging those into submersible gigging lights. this can be used for a boat application as well as a wading application, however these need power, and batteries can get heavy for wading. one popular fix is using a large cooler with a big PVC type boat. you float your cooler behind you, and in the cooler you can store your battery as well as drinks and fish.

Sorry for the long read but I hope this atleast helps somebody!

Kameron

Backwater boy · **Posted:** Tue Aug 28, 2012 7:57 pm

We may use paddle boards or a boat and u doubt we will be wading but it's always a possibility

Maverick904 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 28, 2012 8:11 pm

edited original post

StealthYak · **Joined:** Thu May 24, 2012 9:10 pm **Posts:** 378

Great post Maverick, thanks for sharing that info.

Maverick904 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 28, 2012 9:57 pm

this is the type of floating cooler setup I was talking aboutl

also PVC is a great way to rig lights on your boat. Strong, non corrosive, and cheap.

snookslayer · **Joined:** Sat Feb 06, 2010 7:22 pm **Posts:** 235

I have done very little gigging in my life and all the gigging i have done has been down in stuart, fl. My buddy made a gig light with pvc pipe and some led lights. Instead of the floating cooler idea that mavericks has (which is a good idea) we just used my yak. My mini-x has that big center storage space and we just placed a 12volt battery inside it. It was a two man operating though where one guy would hold the light and tow the yak while the other would have the gig. We found that if you tried with just one person its was just too much.

I do want to try and rig my yak for gigging. My idea is to place a battery in the center storage again with those same clap lights that Maverick was talkin about. Clamp one at each end of my yak and have both of them facing off to one side of the yak. I can pole my mini-x very easily with my paddle so with a gig it shouldn't be too bad just need to make sure to keep the gig head face down. Infact a gig might be easier to pole with. I don't know if i will be able to have enough force to pin down a flattie or keep my balance while gigging.
What do you guys think about it?

If i was to have my buddy come to wade gig what would be a good area to wade gig?

bigfish5 · **Joined:** Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:26 pm **Posts:** 70

If you plan to stand in your kayak and pole and gig, i suggest you wear a bathing suit. I have a better suggestion. Use your kayak to get to places that you can walk and gig. Call LED adventures and order a GIG-A-BITE light. They are not cheap but they are the bomb. I have been doing well with their 2 pound gigging light for a couple of years now. If you call them, tell them that Dane in Jacksonville sent you.

Backwater boy · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:46 am

Are there any advantages of wading? I've never been gigging before so all this is new to me

Maverick904 · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2012 2:53 pm

I think the only advantage of wading would be that you cant fall out of the boat/ you lose less fish. disadvantages would be the limited areas that you can gig.

When boat gigging, often time you will hit rocks, clumps of oysters, etc. and if you dont have good balance you can be thrown out of the boat. (atleast some of the shallow areas we gig) however boat gigging give you the ability to gig oyster bars, areas with softer bottom, and give you more of a range.

the best piece of advice I can give you is work the incomming tide, near/on oyster bars, shell bars, and sand bars. working near bait is always good as well as working near creeks and such. it really isnt much different than fishing. Look for bait, structure, moving water, etc.

keastman · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2012 2:57 pm

I gig out of my Wavewalk, it's easy to pole yourself along with the gig. I suspend an LED light under water mounted on a PVC pipe between the hulls. Can't say I've been real successful finding them but the set up works well.

JUICE · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2012 8:46 pm

I gig out of my 13' gheenoe solo. I have 2 starfire halogen lights from academy that were pretty cheap. They are underwater lights, so I rigged a pvc setup I clamp to the rails, I think its 3/4" that fits pretty snug with these lights, not 100% sure tho . I also put a switch in line, and connect it to my trolling motor battery. The battery usually outlasts me..... If you rig up underwater lights with pvc, I would recommend not gluing any of the fittings, so the system "gives" when you bump an oysterbar, or hit bottom.

I use a B&M #6 gig head, which is steel and will rust, but it gives me an opportunity to grab some files, wd40 and a couple beers after work and play with the boat during the week, so I don't mind. I've got it attached to a 12' wooden closet rod, which floats FYI.

This is one hell of an enjoyable way to catch fish, but be sure to bring the skeeter spray or hope for some wind

SeaDog · **Posted:** Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:15 pm

When I googled waterproof LED flashlight I got hundreds of lights at many different prices and no way to tell which is the brightest?
Can you recommend a light? which ones have you used?

Maverick904 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:51 am

these are the LED flashlights that we use when wading.

http://www.fishingkites.co.nz/flounder_ ... nderlights

yes they were ordered from new zeland. at the time we couldnt find a better priced alternative here. there may be one now but im not sure.

as far as brightness look at the lumen ratings. the higher the number the better.

bigfish5 · **Joined:** Thu Jun 30, 2011 1:26 pm **Posts:** 70

The gig-a-bite light from LED Adventures is the bomb. They are expensive but i have seen nothing out there that can touch them for ease of use and brightness. Weigh around 3 pounds with batteries. We gigged 18 the other night, 5 of them were over 20 inches. If you call them tell them that Dane in Jax sent you.

Flounder gigging

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