Saftey/Fog Sat. 6/5

[fishnfool1]

I fished a tournament Saturday morning at Chickamauga and as we were waiting to take off, a boat idles under the hwy. 58 bridge at 6:00 am and with very dense fog on the lake and they have no running lights and no life jackets and take off across the water like nobody’s business. I turned and said to my partner. “That guy’s an idiot” and he quickly agreed. Shortly thereafter we took off and as we very slowly and carefully ran up the lake we met another group of boats headed down river that I would assume were fishing a tournament and two of those boats had no running lights either. Tournament fishermen have a great safety record for the most part in comparison to the remainder of the boaters that are on the water and as most of us have seen there are some really stupid people on the water this time of year. I know most of us have GPS systems on our boats, but they do not show us where the other boats are much less those that are moving. If you are fishing tournaments anywhere during low light situations whether its due to fog or darkness and you have guy’s in your tournament that don’t have their running lights on their boats they’re putting all of us at risk. It’s up to everyone else to call them out and try and make them be safe. If they choose to not wear their life jackets maybe that is their business but that usually means that they don’t have their kill switch hooked up either which presents another potential problem. When they chose to not use their running lights that’s everybody’s business because they are putting everyone else on the water at risk! It doesn’t take but just a few extra minutes to put them up and take them down. A few extra minutes that might save a big time accident on the water!

 

[Skeeter]

I agree with you post. We had one out of Wolftever and ran up to the nuke. There was a steady line of other tournament anglers coming past us. For the most part they were slow and safe with lights on. Some were not running any lights at all!!! We left that spot and headed up to Haiwassee. Just before we got to Grasshopper I noticed a shadow coming up. We was running about 35 MPH and I was looking for lights and watching my G.P.S. The shadow looked like land but I knew I was in the middle of the river. The fog was thick and I wasent sure if I could see 100' or 10' so I slowed to a idle to find a barge that had run the frontend up on bank and the tug was setting sideways in the river. I will tell you. It scared the heck out of me!!! There was another boat running behind me. We slowly went around the barge and went on. I had planned on a quick run but, no tournament is worth getting hurt or hurting someone else just because I have a G.P.S. that will tell me where the channel is!

 

[beetlespin]

We ran right up on the barge at the mouth of possum creek. That was pretty scary. I was really worried that somebody would hit it.

 

[fishnfool1]

I saw the barge too. It was actually trying to pull away from the bank and it was lit up at the time but we still got fairly close to it before having to slow down and make a wide turn. As far as my initial post I think we owe it to ourselves to be safe on the water but more importantly we owe to our families and the other boaters that are trying to be safe and do the right thing.

 

[clutch442]

If i even think to myself, "Should I put the Nav lights on?", I just go ahead and do it. I know they can still be very hard to see in the fog, but it's better than nothing. I sure don't want to run over anyone, nor do I want to be run over. Wouldn't hurt for some of these people to slow down in adverse conditions either.

 

[tndoe270]

We saw the barge too and I couldn't or never have seen one turn around like that in the river. I told Kim that barge was right agains the bluff. It was still somewhat foggy and barges and other boats have always been my fear riding in the fog. It's just a matter of time before there is an accident since most have GPS's and everyone runs
WFO cuz they have a gps. Hopefully that won't happen but always that possibility...............