you all pay attention out der..

[zooker]

today in the fog we were runnning down badin lake from the main launch -circle drive- a much faster bass boat came running up beside us.. as we were blasting thru fog collumns we enter an area where vizability is 1/2 mile or so. he cuts a hard left in front of us. i slam the boat down while turning hard left,i missed him by about 10 FEET. of course we cussed him slap out.

if i had not been watchin him as we went side by side i would have run right over him. we were 50 feet apart while running side by side. he never once looked over at my boat..

moral here is always be aware of other boaters in your vincinity. now i have a slow boat and always look over my shoulder before making a turn.i know several poeple with that "tunnel" mentality. i refuse to take off the same time they do...

zooker

[Earl Marshall]

I was fishing thursday evening just trolling around this area that was only 6-7 feet deep and a bass boat came threw at least 40 MPH about 10' from my boat boy I wasn't very happy.

[bamabassman]

glad you are okay my friend. your right about we ALL need to look around us at all times while out there on the water. it is hard to see in fog, plus..... with motor going full blast it is also hard to hear. so thank you for the reminder buddy. TAKE CARE OUT THERE GANG!!!! watch them cuz they ain't gonna watch fer you!

[JB]

For you new to boating never run in the fog, let it rise before ya venture out.
Even when you are experienced like zooker its still a gamble to go out when visibility is a few feet or yards, just fish that area by the ramp till the fog lifts and you'll be safe.

[woody]

Good words of advice.
Sometimes I'm at fault for this, it's when I get in a hurry and forget to put on my PFD(personal floatation device) then after hitt'n a few big waves during full throttle I'm quickly reminded to put it on and attach the switch. Be safe

[zooker]

i know it is grainy but it gives you an idea of what it looked like this morning.. btw in the very end of the video you hear me choppin the thottle while throwning a hard left..i watched it four times and had to edit it. as i did some very foul cussing-which i edited out- but you don't see the boat that cut me off he is on the right through most of the video..






jb
is correct for beginners to op a boat in these conditions is insane.. while i have been "behind the wheel" for over 20 years fog and pitch dark running is risky at best. i do this by choice not cause i have to..







zooker

[Bob Smith]

As wonderful as GPSs are, they have only added to the "Idiot Factor" because a lot of these guys that now own and operate big fine High Powered Bass boats were never taught common sense and common courtesy on the water. The problem with GPSs is that now these same guys think they can navigate WOT on a GPS. They tend to forget that there are other folks on the water too!
I, personally, know one of these folks that thought his GPS would guide him through the fog on one of the "hotwater discharge" lakes in Texas on a cold January morning. WE picked him up off the dam and drug his half sunken Ranger back to the boat ramp after he made a last minute turn and broad sided the riprap on the dam.

[carolina-rig-01]

another thing i might add........i don't care if the sun is up and shining or not, if the fog hasn't lifted yet then leave your running lights on even if you are fishing and not running. they don't help a great deal on the fog but they just might mean the difference in another boat seeing you or not. seen several boats fishing way out on points in the fog without their lights on and that is just asking for someone idion that is running too fast to broadside them.

[zooker]

c-rig
if you watched the video you seen my lights were on the red light reflecting off the troller shaft..

zooker

[WTL]

The problem is people naturally equate driving a boat with driving a car.

When you are driving a car you can be pretty confident that the road is going to be clean of debris - how often have you been stopped driving on a road because of a tree in the road? Probably not too often.

When you are driving a boat, it should be understood in a different way. The water was not built to be navigable. Hazards come and go day in and day out. There will be logs, stumps, sandbars and idiot boaters where they werent earlier. You can't trust your maps, your prior knowledge of the area - you have to be able to see.

Last night I put in on Mobile bay to hit the fish lights up. There was a little wind so I wanted to hug the shore coming and going, which meant there were numerous abandoned piers and posts randomly placed in the water. I drove the whole way at about 5 mph, that way even if I did hit something I wouldnt be dead.

[carolina-rig-01]

Originally Posted by zooker

c-rig
if you watched the video you seen my lights were on the red light reflecting off the troller shaft..

zooker

yeah man i noticed that. this past summer my wife and i were fishing a husband and wife tourney on table rock. at the ramp the sun was rising, not a cloud in the sky and no sign of fog. i was making a high speed run about 13 or 14 miles down the lake and all of the sudden with no warning we ran into a wall of fog (couldn't see the fog until we were in it), i mean i could hardly see the trolling motor on the front of my boat. well since takeoff was later than normal (because of all the grumpy old wives in the club i guess) i didn't have my running lights in. so there we were in the middle of the lake, thick fog, no running lights, in a white boat of all things, and could hear boats RUNNING all around us. then we found a school of kentuckies surfacing out on a point and i was not about to sit out there in the open and invite a disaster like getting T-boned by some idiot running 70mph in the fog. not a good position to be in and to make it worse, by the time the fog lifted enough that it was safe to go after the surfacing fish........they were gone.

[Bender]

I consider myself a safe boater, life vest, lanyard, slow in fog, etc. But Sunday I had a slight scare, it was raining and 30MPH winds and I was driving across the lake at about 45 MPH bearing down on a hump I had marked on the GPS when I noticed another boat out in front of me. He was probably 1/8 mile away still and in close to shore where I don't run anyway, but I had not seen any other boats around and I thought how easily I could have run up on him. It was a full camo duck boat/blind. I don't think the weather had much to do with it, but be careful out there this time of year.

[Lilmoosecountry]

Originally Posted by zooker

today in the fog we were runnning down badin lake from the main launch -circle drive- a much faster bass boat came running up beside us.. as we were blasting thru fog collumns we enter an area where vizability is 1/2 mile or so. he cuts a hard left in front of us. i slam the boat down while turning hard left,i missed him by about 10 FEET. of course we cussed him slap out.

if i had not been watchin him as we went side by side i would have run right over him. we were 50 feet apart while running side by side. he never once looked over at my boat..

moral here is always be aware of other boaters in your vincinity. now i have a slow boat and always look over my shoulder before making a turn.i know several poeple with that "tunnel" mentality. i refuse to take off the same time they do...

zooker

Coffee can full of 8oz snagging weights in the boat will slow him down!!!

[bamabassman]

heard that moose, also a double barrel 410. makes a heck of alot of noise and puts a good enough size hole in da side.