Contributed by Joe Haubenreich
About 1.5 million vehicles collide with deer each year. 1 in every 169 of you reading this will collide with deer in the next twelve months. (If you live in West Virginia, your odds are 1 in 44. Good luck, MSKA!) What does that have to do with kayak bass fishing? Glad you asked. Deer don’t carry lights at night. Neither do many night-fishing kayakers. Both are equally difficult to spot by drivers barreling along at 50 miles per hour through dimly lit areas. And kayakers run down by bass boats end up just as dead as road-kill deer we drive past almost every day.
Last night we almost lost two kayak anglers near Stark Knob on J Percy Priest Lake. One of them had a dimly glowing light on the stern of his boat. The other…nothing.
Last week, two other middle-Tennessee anglers narrowly avoided injury. Paddling out to an island across open water, they displayed no lights at all. The bassboat operator in both instances is a fishing buddy of mine, and he’s pretty shaken up about the near misses.
Andy, like thousands of other bass anglers, has for decades run the lakes after dark in high-powered boats, guiding, competing, or relaxing after a day’s work. The vast majority of nighttime bass boaters have no issues in sharing the lake with kayak anglers, but the last thing any of them want is a death on their conscience. That might explain why they seem so upset during encounters on the water.
It’s very difficult for a boat operator moving at high speed to tell if a pinpoint of light is on a slender pole three feet above the water’s surface fifty feet ahead or is a dock light two miles across the lake.
Of course, most powerboat operators could exercise more caution, slow to idle speeds in congested areas, and drive so as to not out-run their field of vision. We kayak bass anglers have little control over that. What we can do, though, is to exercise some good sense.
First, get a bright, white light that can be seen over a distance. Even though state regulations may not require a continuous all-around light between dusk and dawn, paddling high-traffic lakes, especially on summer nights, without one is an invitation to disaster. My favorite is YakAttack’s $95 VisiCarbon Pro. It folds for storage into a compact pouch that doubles as a high-vis orange flag by day. The hollow sections snap together with a single bungee-cord that runs through the hollow tubes, like tent poles. YakAttack produces several versions of their lights, and they are available with a either a ball bass or track-mounted base , which I find to be most versatile. Mount it on gear tracks or slip the foam base securely into a rod holder. The articulated pole can be lifted up and the light folded forward over the paddlers shoulder to serve as a task light for tying on lures or photographing fish at night.
Second, be prepared. With the standard 2-LED module in the YakAttack lights, three AA batteries should last 100 hours or so, but they’ll die when you’re on the water, so carry spares. Although one Stark Knob kayaker last night had a light, it barely glowed. The batteries were just about shot. The YakAttack’s light units come with 2-LED waterproof lamps, and a 4-LED replacement module is available for $15.
Third, assume nothing. “I have a light; surely he sees me!” is second only to “Hey, watch this!” as famous last words. Carry a bright, waterproof, LED flashlight by a retracting lanyard on your PFD. Not in your trousers pocket. Not zipped in a pouch, except when you remove your vest later to stow it.
Today’s 4-stoke motors have taken me be surprise more times than I can remember, especially when I’m fishing out toward a point and a speeding bassboat rounds the corner like his house is on fire. Don’t assume the sound of a motor you hear is coming from a 2-stroke a mile away; it might be just seconds away from you.
When you hear an approaching boat motor, swivel your head around and identify the source of the sound. If the boat is on a vector that brings it anywhere close to you, snap on your high beam and wave it back and forth so the light path crosses the boater’s eyes. (I’m not talking about a million candle-power lamp, of course… just the mini-lights that should never be removed from our PFD.)
Last, you know that whistle that’s been hanging by a lanyard on your PFD for a few years…the one you’ve never tooted except to hear how it sounds? Keep it handy, too. A sharp blast on a whistle can cut through the whine of an outboard motor and will help alert the driver.