- Newsletter from Nuts & Bolts -
Almost 90% of the biomass in the world’s oceans have bioluminescent charateristics… in other words… they ‘glow’ in the dark. Why, you ask? Well, down deep, it’s really dark, and of course when the sun goes down it’s dark even at the surface. These critters, like squid, krill, shrimp, and lots of fish use bioluminescence to help them find food, ward off enemies, and to help locate a mate. If you’ve ever been on the ocean at night and motored over an area, looked behind the boat and seen a trail of illuminated water, then you’ve encounter bioluminescent lifeforms… plankton, known as dinoflagellates. It’s really neat, and amazing to see. Well, lots of the critters in the ocean use light to hone in on their prey… or attract their prey to them; the most common fish most people have seen in pictures is the Angler Fish who dangles a light-emitting organ right in front of it’s mouth to get an easy meal.
For decades, anglers have been using lights to attract baitfish, and subsequently the game fish that come along to feed. How many boat docks have lights… and big snook, tarpon or seatrout cruising around them. At sea, it’s common to see light wands suspended beneath boats to bring in big cobia, cudas, snapper, and more. These boats look like alien spaceships hovering over the dark waves. Swordfishermen have been using light sticks for years, with very good results.
Well, some very smart folks from Norway worked for years, studying the exact light frequency and pattern of a variety of bioluminescent critters and have developed a high-tech device that you can actually fish with. It’s called the ESCA lure light, and it generates a light that mimics the same kind of light living creatures emit….the kinds of critters that big game fish love to eat. And…it does it without needing a battery. Amazing? Yep.
The power for the ESCA is generated through the combination of a small zinc anode and a housing. Saltwater provides the electrolyte to let the process happen. Drop it in the water, and the light comes on. I was impressed.
But the proof is in the pudding as they say. So, we put them to the test on an overnight fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico. We fished for mangrove snapper. And, to get some semi-scientific, real-world comparisons, we fished rigs with, and without the ESCA. Even before the sun went down, we were catching BIG red snappers with the ESCA-equipped rigs. You see, the electromagnetic field that’s created when the ESCA gives off its light, is also the same type of field that living things have around them. So, the fish comes to investigate our lure… takes a bite, and then holds on, because it thinks it has a living thing in it’s mouth. I know, sounds kind of crazy, but whatever happens, it darn sure works… in the daytime and at night.
It’s hard to give an exact ratio of fish caught with the ESCA versus fish caught without the ESCA. But, the rods with the lure light were definitely busier than the rods without. We fished them with live bait, with cut bait, and with nothing more than a hook dangling beneath the light. And the results were consistent…the bite was better with an ESCA. I fished it under some less-than-ideal conditions, and it made a beliver out of me.
It’s easy to adapt an ESCA to virtually any rig you fish… jig, bottom rig, trolling rig, even flat lines. They are small, but put out quite a bit of light. We could see it blinking under a flat line rig that was 50 yards from the boat. And if we could see it, the fish could as well.
Look for an upcoming Nuts & Bolts episode where we actually used this high-tech, fish catching lure light to haul in some monster snapper and more in the coming months.
So, if you fish the salt…day or night…you ought to seriously consider adding an ESCA to your tackle arsenal. We’ll have them available in the Nuts & Bolts On-Line Store very soon, but if you just can’t wait (and I would suggest you don’t) then you can get them directly from ESCA.
