Does your headlamp shining on the water actually spook bass when you are fishing at night?

For various reasons I won’t bore you with, I have done virtually no lure fishing at night for bass since my heart attack. But it’s time to try and really get back into it. The other night I caught my first few bass on creature baits in the dark and I still managed to get up bright and early in the morning and go for an 8k run, so I know it’s still all possible and I just need to do more of it………..

So I was out fishing with a friend the other night, and because I have done so little of the night stuff, I had obviously not previously noticed that this lad was fishing with the red light from his (awesome, review here) Fenix HM65R ShadowMaster headlamp permanently turned on. And I mean on, like I used to bait fish at night when for the most part my headlamp would be permanently illuminated and most likely pointing at the rod tips etc. This lad Dave catches a lot of bass at night, including an absolute cracker of 78cms a week or so ago on a paddletail which he has designed himself and is going to start selling soon (check out Labrax Mafia on Facebook or Instagram, anybody who physically makes their own soft plastics AND then catches their largest ever bass on one gets my respect in a major way).

Anyway, because I am always interested in how other anglers go about their fishing, I naturally asked the question: “Dave, do you always fish with your headlamp turned on when you are targeting bass on lures in the dark”? To which the answer was basically “yes, but only the red light”. “Do you think it spooks the fish?” was obviously my next question - “no, not at all” was the reply - and as much as I have always believed and been led to believe that any unnecessary light on the water at night is going to spook bass in shallower water especially, I simply cannot argue with the numbers and sizes of bass Dave catches in the dark when he is fishing with one of the four different red light settings on his Fenix HM65R ShadowMaster headlamp permanently turned on (usually setting 2 or 3 if that helps, with 1 being the dimmest and 4 being the brightest red light settings).

I am not here to tell you that it’s suddenly the right thing to do to leave the red light on your headlamp on all the time when you are lure fishing for bass at night, but it doesn’t half make life a whole lot easier to fish like this! Plus a red light is so good for retaining your night vision as well. When it comes down from on high that any kind of light spooks bass at night, I must admit that I have always wondered how on earth we actually know that for a fact. Of course it makes sense that on a dark and lonely stretch of coastline or estuary, the introduction of a foreign light source shining on the (dark) water might well spook some of the fish, but does it really? Is there a difference with how fish react to white and red lights? Note that Dave does not fish with his white light on at all, but he does keep his red light on and he catches loads of bass at night. As in all things fishing, you need confidence, and he feels fully confident fishing like this. I for one can’t really argue against it because of what he consistently catches.

I think back to when I was doing a lot of night fishing with lures myself and I almost prided myself on as little light coming from me and my headlamp as possible. There is a particular rock on a particular reef that I would often wade out to in the pitch black with no light of any sort to guide me, and tripping up then face-planting in the cold water on a December night ain’t the most fun you can have when you’re out fishing!

What this approach does is remind me how good that incredible Fenix HM65R ShadowMaster headlamp is (review here). As much as I am a fan of the amazing little Nitecore NU25 headlamps - I use this one here for dog walking and/or running in the dark, and this one here lives permanently in my fishing rucksack, lock mode engaged so the buttons can’t be pressed accidentally - the one red light setting on the NU25 isn’t much good for anything other than changing a lure or perhaps bringing a bass to hand. I don’t much like wandering around the rocks on the Nitecore NU25’s red light, and I certainly don’t like wading out over dodgy ground with it in the dark.

If I am to at least give Dave’s “red light permanently on” a good go, then it has to be the Fenix HM65R ShadowMaster headlamp and its brilliant and very adjustable red light options. The battery life is fantastic and I am pretty good at keeping an eye on how much battery is actually left - press down once on the red light button when the light is off and not in button lock mode - but what I will probably do is buy one of these spare Fenix rechargeable batteries that I can charge directly over USB-C and then keep it in my rucksack for emergencies. I am all for making life easier, but the only way I can gain the confidence to fish with a red light on all the time is to go out and try it and (hopefully) catch a few bass like this. Red light fever, thank you Venom, if you know, you know………………

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