When I feel like a bit of back in the day sort of moment (and it seems to be happening more the older I get), I like to place my tiny little Nitecore NU25 headlamp on my head, sit down in my favourite chair with a cup of coffee, and think back to the days of night fishing with great big headlamps and their respective battery packs worn around your waist, plus expensive halogen bulbs which blew if you did so much as look at them the wrong way. In some respects I do miss those bait days out on the rocks at night, but lure fishing is so deeply interesting and so much fun that for the time being I can’t really see myself getting back to fishing like this, and not for one second would I grumble about the progression of all things lighting based when I have a perfect little and very lightweight, rechargeable LED headlamp sitting in my hand which is all the illumination and has all the features I could possibly need to head out lure fishing for bass at night………….
Since I really started getting into lure fishing at night I have tried a few different headlamps which let’s face it are all a lot lighter and easier to use than they were back in the day (see?), but from memory I think one headlamp I was really liking eventually started to fail on me and the next generation of it which I bought just wasn’t quite as good. So I went looking for a new one, and I remember buying a few off Amazon but then returning them because it drives me bloody mad having to cycle through a bunch of different light settings via the one switch to get the light setting I want from the headlamp for my bass fishing, and I had no idea that a headlamp as tiny as this Nitecore NU25 even existed until somebody on Facebook I think suggested I check one out. It’s probably a load of crap that a red light on a headlamp doesn’t spook the bass like a white light does - and even then I do wonder how much bass spook or don’t spook from light on the water anyway - but a red light obviously doesn’t ruin your night vision which is kinda handy. What always bugged me about the more modern LED headlamps I had used was that the red light was always so bloody dim there was no chance of safely moving around the rocks with it - not on this little Nitecore NU25 though. Nope, this thing has two red light settings - dim, and then bright enough so that you can actually see your lures properly, and you can also move around over the rocks if you take it easy and accept that red lighting does seem to negatively affect your depth/distance perception.
Long gone are the days for me of having to think about whether or not I might need a headlamp in my bag just in case I stay longer than intended when fishing. This little Nitecore NU25 is so bloody small and light that it permanently lives in my waterproof rucksack (this one here, and it’s lasting really well, far longer than I had imagined it would in fact). I am obviously taking a headlamp for night fishing, but it doesn’t actually matter now and a fair few times now I have been glad to have one in my bag for getting back to my Epic Berlingo when a fishing session dragged on unintentionally into the dark. When a headlamp is as small as this and you know that with modern technology it’s not losing lots of battery life over time, what’s the point of it not living in my bag? There is also a really handy and easy to use “lock” feature on this Nitecore NU25, as in you press the right buttons and the light can’t move around my rucksack and turn on unintentionally. I have an old LED Lenser headlamp I think it is that was wicked for turning itself on in my rucksack and when I came to use it there was no juice left in the batteries. Long gone are these kinds of problems when using this little Nitecore NU25.
For walking to and from fishing spots I tend to use the second brightest of the three white light settings, and then for changing lures and/or moving around close to the water, I either turn away from the sea and use the dimmest white light setting - it’s nice and easy to change them - or else I use either of the red light settings which are accessed on their own separate little switch which is what I really wanted from a headlamps. Having to press a single button exactly the right amount of times to get to the right white and red light settings is a pain and I want nothing to do with it because invariably you get it wrong and you light the sea up! It’s not as if we have our headlamps on all the time when we are fishing so however long the little rechargeable battery inside the Nitecore NU25 lasts for is doing just fine for me. I have never run out of power and it’s also so easy to press one of the switches in a specific way and it gives you a good indication of the charge level in the battery (RTFM people). Charging it up is quick and easy and you can do it in the car if needs be. I don’t carry a spare headlamp with me because we have a light on our mobile phones plus there is a light on my walkie-talkie if needs be, but it would be so easy to buy another of these Nitecore NU25 headlamps and keep it as a spare in your rucksack or coat pocket or whatever.
I do actually own two of them - one lives in my waterproof fishing rucksack, and one sits on my rod rack in the hallway for our 6am dog walks here at home. This second NU25 then gets transferred to my surf fishing bag if needed because for some surf fishing I will take a different bag and I find it easier like this. My wife and youngest girl each have a similar Nitecore NU20 headlamp for our before school dog walks because they don’t need the red light that I have on my NU25. The eldest girl doesn’t have one because she likes to have half an hour extra in bed before a 6.30am wakeup call to have breakfast and get ready to leave for school. We lead such glamorous lives! I am all for progression with fishing tackle and you know how much of a tackle tart I am. I can find something I’d like to change about most fishing tackle related items I use, but for the life of me I can’t think of anything that niggles me about this perfect little Nitecore NU25 headlamp, plus I can’t really imagine how a headlamp which might work for my own lure based night fishing can get any better than this. It still amazes me just how much a tiny little thing like this can do when compared to what we used to use. I said earlier that I know what I want from a headlamp for my fishing, and this Nitecore NU25 continues to be it.
Disclosure - If you buy anything using links found around my website, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you anymore to buy via these affiliate links - and please feel entirely free not to do so of course - but it will help me to continue producing content. Thank you.