Fishing at night has its own challenges. One of them is light.
We normally use headlights, and besides the bright white or yellowish beam of the led lights, most have a red light move as well.
Long did I think that's the best option, while I still dealt with all the mosquitoes, though at least less then with the full light on. Visibility of the red light is low, it's almost stealth like and dealing with water on top of it to see the fish is not easy, so we often turn the full light on again.
Just recently I found that green light is the answer. It is proven to attract less mosquitoes by various studies, due to it having a longer wave and is further even less disruptive to your sleep. Must importantly, it affects your ability to see at night less, hence nightvision systems use green as well for that, and it actually increases visibility in the water compared to red light, because it penetrates water better than red light.
Combined the less impacted ability to see in the dark and the better water penetration makes green light superior for us carp anglers.
There is one drawback though, it is more visible, whole white light is extremely visible and red light the least, green light sits in the middle and is more visible. If you need to be more stealthy it won't be the first choice, but besides that, it has more pros than cons for us.
Highly recommend the following headlights, they are cheap, light, USB-C charged, have a motion detection mode as well as a on and off move and simply jump back to the last light mode used.
HOKOILN Headlamp Rechargeable, 2 Pack 1300 Lumen Ultra-Light Bright Head Lamp with White Red Green, 14 Modes Adjustable Waterproof Motion Sensor Headlight for Outdoor Camping Running Cycling Hiking https://a.co/d/9zuAznS
Florian Rossmark
Germany / USA - Carp Angler
@frossmark , I've got a really nice RidgeMonkey lamp I use with green light setting. It makes a huge difference with the bugs for certain! I sometimes fish in a residential area at night, so it helps with not disturbing the neighborhood as well. Big fan!
@jeff-bourns great to hear that - just proofs the point. Heard from someone else yesterday that is using the RidgeMonkey headlight as well and he even stated the carp are less scarred away by the green light.
After researching this a bit more I can only confirm that green light is less visible to most fish as well, due to how their retina cells are build for the fact that they need to see in very dark / low light conditions.
My conclusion stays, green light is the best option, though we all are to used to red light as it is more available in most headlights.
Florian Rossmark
Germany / USA - Carp Angler
@jeff-bourns Most definitely, Yes! Also not to forget that this type of light doesn't really scare the fish during the netting
