Boating lights - Danger

I have a pet peave. Tournament anglers who don't turn their running lights
on in the morning. First off guys. Let me be perfectly clear. The USCG
says on any USCG regulated waters the lights must be on from sunset to
sunrise. It says nothing about, "its light enough so we don't need them."
Most state boating regs I have reviewed don't jive precisely with USCG, but
in AZ and Ca they do require running lights to be on from sunset to sunrise.
Not last light to first light.

I know that I had a near miss last year because of somebody who wasn't
running with their lights on. I was moving pretty fast up the river. I
glanced over my right shoulder and didn't see anybody so I started to cut
over into the lake I was going to fish. As I cut over I glanced back again,
and anoither boat who had decided to overtake me on the right instead of the
left was right on top of me. I was able to smack the throttle and swing the
boat enough so that we didn't have an accident, but in that early morning
twilight if they had been running their lights they would not have blended
into the background weedline, and I could have noticed that they were trying
to overtake and cut me off from the wrong side. I'ld have just backed off
and let them by or tached it out and cleared them easily.

What reminded me of this was the start yesterday morning. We had fog. It
had started to lift inside the host marina when we launched, but I notice
that more than half the field didn't have their lights on. When we hit the
river it got thick. I ran by my GPS and followed a bank where I know there
is deep enough water to make the run. I also backed it off to about 25 MPH
so I had time to react to any obstuctions or other boats that might already
be fishing or running slow. About four or five miles down I noticed another
boat was dropped into the center of my wake following me down river. What
bothered me was I had to look twice to realize he was there. He didn't have
his running lights on. COME ON!!!! It was a good fifteen or twenty minutes
before sunrise, and we had heavy fog and he still didn't have his lights on.

Sure you may have fished local club tournaments for twenty years like that
and never had an accident, but it only takes once. For a simple thing like
not turning on your lights as required by USCG regulation (which has the
force of law) or your own state statutues you may cost somebody their boat
or their life. And I know for a fact most of these people know the regs.
Go fish a classic like the ABA on Lake Mead and all those same anglers will
have their lights on. The difference is the tournament officials will DQ a
boat they see blatantly disregarding safety regulations.

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