I love fishing at night; whether for barbel or sea trout, there’s something very special about being on the river at night equally there is nothing to beat being on the beach at night fishing for cod in the winter and bass in the summer.
I would guess that like many other anglers who have nocturnal habits I have a collection of different torches built up over the years, all of which are in differing states of disrepair or which have been tried and abandoned for one reason or another.
Heavy rechargeable battery packs and buying huge numbers of ordinary batteries have been a way of life for me as long as I can remember. At times I have wondered about buying shares in Duracell but in retrospect I feel that they should give me some for all the batteries I have bought off them over the years.
I shudder to think of all the torches that I have killed off over the years due to my natural clumsiness either through dropping them or drowning them!
Now, at last, Lucido have made a headlamp that could have well been designed just for me!
This little babe does not use ordinary bulbs it uses LEDs these things are going to be the illumination of the future.
At first the innate Luddite within me was suspicious how could these tiny little bulbs be any good in providing the light that I need.
Now having used one for a time I am completely won over! It takes just a little getting used to at first as the quality of the light is different it is a blue light which has a slightly diffused feel to it as opposed to the focused white/yellow light produced by normal torches but once you are used to it you begin to really appreciate the advantages.
The T7 has as you might expect 7 LED’s and the revolving bezel which acts as the switch gives you the choice of using three, five or all seven of the LEDs .
I found that I tended to alternate between three LEDs for all close up work like baiting up, tying on flies or reading and seven LEDs when walking along the river bank this lamp covers all my normal needs brilliantly.
It takes three AA size batteries, which means that weight is not a major factor. According to the manufacturers the batteries will last for up to 50 hours using the seven LEDs and up to 240 hours using the three LED option. This may well be the case, as far as I’m concerned I have not yet had the embarrassment of trying to fumble my way along the river bank with a flickering torch with rapidly dying batteries since acquiring this beauty.
The manufacturers claim that the T7 is waterproof up to the depth of a metre I can vouch for the fact that if you drop it into a bucket of water even when lit it doesn’t bother it. Well I had to try it …..didn’t I!
It’s tough too! Yes I have already dropped it ….several times without any ill effects.
The only thing I am not too keen on is the rotating switch, which feels rather imprecise until you get used to it.
The T7 currently retails at £54 which may seem expensive at first until you start to take into account the savings that you will make on batteries even these savings can be magnified if you acquire a set of Nimh rechargeable batteries from your local Jessops Camera shop as these things have a capacity of 1400mAh and seem to go on forever and don’t have the memory problems associated with Ni Cads.
I have a feeling that Duracell sales are going to fall!!!!
M. A. Roe
April, 2002
