Went out last night on Easter Sunday to do some shrimping because the tide was right. I had the batteries(4 Duracell alkalines) in there since last year and judging from last night's outing, any discharge I had over a period of 8 months is negligible.
I purposely left my 20 watts 36 degree beam halogen headlamp and the accompanying 5lbs battery in the car and determined to go purely LED last night. I did drop 4 extras AA into my waders for backup. Wind was about 5-10 knots but I had no trouble seeing shrimp with the high setting(133 lumens). I have to get used to a very bright center and not so bright but even spill. Shrimping in a foot of water or less, the shrimps' eyes were very easy to see. I homed in on the biggest and widest pairs of eyes and proceeded to pick up about 4 dozens large and 10 dozens medium/small. The flats was pretty lit up. I spotted mullets, blue crabs, pinfish, ladyfish.
This light has amazing throw, even at the 133lm mode. Coming back to my car, I had to cross some knee deep and now muddied up water(from other shrimpers walking around). There are always a few big shrimps in the deeper area and I switched on the turbo mode and had no problem seeing them. I walked back to my starting point around 11 pm and spotted some shrimp buried in the sand/mud with just their eyes faintly lit up. I dug my fingers down and grab the shrimp bare handed.
The light remain fairly strong(I used turbo toward the end) after 2 hours on 133 and maybe 20 minutes on turbo. I don't think I missed too many shrimps because of the lack of a strong flood beam but I just wished I could stretch out that spot beam and double it's coverage because the brightness is overkill for 6-10 ft distance. Going to use it a couple more times before I decide to get another one as a backup.
