Reply With QuoteRadar is something that people who like to night fish need to check into, as it does as Peter explained, you can get radar option with several major brands of GPS/FISHFINDERS. Not A bad thing to have if wanting to run at night.
| Search Fishin.com |
Administrator
Some people think GPS is radar. It is not!
GPS tells you where you are on the globe, period. "Global Positioning System" And that is within a plus or minus range of error.
If you have a gps with a map overlay, that shows someones calculation of where "some" points of interest were at a "given" time, like the shoreline or shoal.
If you run fast at night or in the fog using "only" your gps for navigation, you are endangering your live and the lives of others. That is not navigation. Please use your eyes for navigation and the gps just to let you know where you are on the lake. If you can't safely see in front of you in order to stop quick enough if you saw something you are going too fast.
In dense fog that is idle speed at tops. If the bank is indistinguishable from the water you need to slow down.
GPS will not show a boat with its lights off in the middle of the lake. It may not show a bridge pier, it may not show an island. If you want to be able to see those things you will need to get radar. Radar will show the lake banks, floating logs and everything else.
At night barges use gps, radar and then at critical points huge headlights to see if everything matches up in the real world.
Running a lake at night or in fog using nothing but GPS is playing a very dangerous video game.
Senior Member
Radar is something that people who like to night fish need to check into, as it does as Peter explained, you can get radar option with several major brands of GPS/FISHFINDERS. Not A bad thing to have if wanting to run at night.
Senior Member
Amen Brother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Originally Posted by mhall
Senior Member
I fish at night 95% of the time, and run up on plane. on moonlit nights you can see very well. but on the new moon nights, when it's very dark. sometimes it's hard to see where your going. so I lowered the pitch on my prop, from 23" pitch. to a 19" pitch. I lost 14 mph on top end by doing so, but my boat will stay up on plane at 16 mph. and that slow speed helps to see where I'm going on dark nights. with the 23" pitch, when I dropped below 30 mph the back end started to sink. when on the water at night, slow down as slow as your boat will stay up on plane. and leave the ADULT BEVERAGE at home. and your chances of dry docking your boat, or running over someone fishing will drop very low.
Senior Member
[QUOTE=mhall;421462]Not to mention standing timber and stumps everywhere. You can't fix stupid, there is no known cure.[/QUOTE]
Yea there is it's called death.
Senior Member
Radar. GPS,depth sounders, nothing works like common sense. Of course thats getting scarse now a days. HP goes up, BP goes down.Anyone who runs fast in fog, just shouldn't be operating anything more technical than a wheel barrow.
Senior Member
This maybe a crazy question, but how do they miss the buoys. They don't match up much to gps
Senior Member
In the heavy fog, at dale Ihave hit the sdame bouy several times, but at 3 MPH I found out where I was.
Senior Member
First to admit that I do run on plane at night and do use my GPS for help. I say for help because I know Dale Hollow from Illwill to Hendricks Creek like I know the layout in my house. That being said, only had one CLOSE call and that was when the other boat was running towards me without ANY LIGHTS ON AT ALL and we would have hit head on if he had not turned on a flashlight in the nick of time so I could turn and avoid him. He had forgotten his running lights in the truck but never went back to get them.
I do fish Cumberland at night as well and bought a map just for the 680 lake level. Mainly I fish from the Dam to Harmon and Difficulty Creek so I took a permanent marker and outlined the new "outer bank" plus looked for any new shallow water and islands that were formed when they dropped the lake and marked them accordingly. It is not that hard to do because all you had to do is follow the contour lines on the map. You will find points, islands, shallow water areas and other stuff that makes it so much easier to decifer when you are on the water.
Senior Member
????
What about logs? What about dumba$$e$ setting with their lights off?
What about somebody that was dumped in the drink?
The list goes on and on about not running WOT at night!
Administrator
Right--Use your eyes to view the water, bank, sky -- even better if moon lit.
Don't use your eyes to view "only" your GPS Screen.
Not suggesting everybody get radar becaues many would not know how to use that and if untrained may yeild a false sense of security but that would better than GPS alone maybe. Eyes the best and only way to go for casual boaters like me. Adjust speed accordingly as waterdog suggests.
Senior Member
In Missouri the Corp of Engineers lakes have a mandatory 30mph speed limit after dusk - with that said a little waterpatrol every now and again after dark would be a little comforting. Guys complain about having to use lights at night yet they "turn them on when they see or hear somebody" scare the living crap out of me because they got to think that some yahoo might have a course set right at them and they don't see any lights and look away for some stupid reason and near misses happen at the last second or worse. I have mine on because I want to go home after I'm done fishing - not die before.
They say when your numbers up - it's up; I'M NOT GETTING IN LINE FOR A SMALLER NUMBER, NO THANKS! I have my number and it'll do just fine.
Posting Permissions