As told by YakGear Brand Ambassador Miguel P from YakAngling 

First Impressions

The LuminaLED 6 Cree Flood Light is a 12V, 1250 lumen work horse packed into a micro body. The LuminaLED Flood Light (as I will refer to it from here on out) is a high powered flood light/lamp designed specifically for night time visibility. Yak Gear swung for the fences and knocked this one out of the park finding the perfect use for this product in the kayak fishing market. Traditional night time fishing usually began and ended with a flash light and a headlamp of some sort.  With this minimal and unreliable light source, nighttime kayak fishing became one giant worry about safety combined with the stress of not having enough light to fish effectively.  At the end of the day, all you ended up with was a bad attitude and some serious disappointment in your headlamp. Lighting products for kayaks are really taking off recently. As a kayak angler, this is really nice to see!

With the integration of the Railblaza StarPort system to light, mounting to a kayak, canoe, ATV or vehicle just made nighttime visibility much more reliable.  Not only could I mount it anywhere, but I could also rotate the 120 degree beam 360 degrees and pivot the beam 100 degrees.  What can’t you light up with that?

Installation

Straight out of the box, you notice that once again Yak Gear provides all the means necessary for proper DIY installations. The LuminaLED Flood Light came standard with the Railblaza StarPort Base mounting system, stainless steel hardware, as well as the necessary wiring for installation. Upon further inspection of with the wiring, I noticed that the wiring was a fully waterproof IP67 setup including on/off switch as well as the pigtail connections.

I instantly knew that this unit had to be mounted to the bow of my kayak. This would allow perfect lighting to guide me through my night time Snook and Trout fishing adventures though the maze of creek systems that make up the waters I fish in Northeast Florida.

Now that placement has been determined, I need some power!  What’s my power source? First off I needed to do some deep information gathering. I knew for sure that I needed a Sealed Lead Acid battery.  As a long time kayak angler, I would not recommend anything else in kayak.  However, I wasn’t sure how many amp hours I would need?

As a Brand Ambassador for Yak Gear, I’ve learned that every question can be solved by referencing the directions or the website!  While I do love reaching out to the Brand Ambassador Team Manager/Marketing guy or even the President of the company, I checked the info on the website and learned that I needed a 12V battery. The LuminaLED Flood Light has a 1.4 Amp Current Draw at 12V and recommends a minimum of an 8 Amp Hour Battery.

Being that I already had a 12V -12AH battery from my depth finder, all I needed to do was add some female terminal clips, connect to the battery, flip with switch to on and ………..Wow! That’s bright! Sorry it’s taken me a minute to regain my sight…

Operation

All jokes aside, the LuminaLED Flood Light is the perfect light for the kayak angler that I (think I) am.  Nighttime fishing has always been something that I love and the safety concerns combined with the impracticality of other lighting products has always kept me off the water after dusk.  What’s better to get me back on the water at night and make that time more enjoyable/safer than to have another outlet of proper lighting.

Up until now I have not seen anything like this available to kayakers!  After the first night with the light on the water, it felt like I was watching the outdoors light up as if I had an HID Kit retro fit to my kayak.  I was SOLD!!

With the LuminaLED 6 Cree Flood Light Light mounted to the bow, I did have to do some reaching for the on and off switch.  As a measure of keeping the installation simple, Yak Gear designed the switch location directly connected just below the light and in front of the water proof connector.  This means I needed to reach up to the bow to turn the light on once on the water.  While my flexibility isn’t what it used to be, I got the light on and wasn’t worried about the stretch after a couple minutes of light!  While I would have preferred a wiring set up that still had the water proof disconnect close to the light for the easy ability to remove the light and allowed the switch to be closer to the seated kayaker, the wiring set up Yak Gear uses does make for a simple installation!

All in all a VERY rock solid product and I love it! Everyone I have shown off my LuminaLED 6 Cree Flood Light to has been very impressed. I would HIGHLY recommend this product to anyone!!

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We want to know what you think about the LuminaLED 6 Cree Flood Light! What are some other uses you would use this light for? Tell us what you think! Comment below, reach out to us at socialmedia@yakgear.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram using the #YakGear hashtag!