Early Bird Catches The Worm

[jorluivil]

Originally Posted by jimbo

congrats on the fish and nice trip!

i know it's none of my business, but i heard your comment about boats zipping by and i don't see a light on the yaks in your pix. if you don't have one and are in the harbor in the dark, you're taking your life in your hands. boats cannot see you in the yak. even though the harbor is flat and they don't lose you in the swell, the skippers lose their night vision in the harbors as they pass diff lights. you could be invisible to them until it's too late. i'm not saying boaters shouldn't be more careful and slow down... just saying its not worth your life.

OK, lets make it your business. The reference to 'boats zipping by' was made regarding day time boaters, not at the night time boaters although on occasion you do get extremely close calls regardless of how visible you make yourself. I was a private boater for 6years and I know how tuff it can be traveling at night and how bad visibility can be. I did numerous hooping trips to Catalina, launch at 2pm, in Cat by 4pm, hoopnet all night and return -in the dark- to the launch site. If you read my post again you'll see the part that says, "Decided to launch solo, it was still dark when I did so I peddled out of the way of the boat traffic and alongside side the docks until I reached the bait barge....." I did this because I knew that boats would never get as close to the docks as I was and I knew what I was getting myself into. I did have a headlamp on and would flash it in the direction of any boat that was in my area.

Anyway, I know how important it is to make yourself extremely visible at night and even then you're still guaranteed that some *ss-hat will not be paying attention and not see you.....I can assure you that most if not all of the yakkers on this forum have had a close call when fishing at 1am, 6am or even 2 in the afternoon. With that being said I think we all take our lives into our own hands when we get in our cars, on a plane, in train or in our kayaks. I'm sure Matt, Roby can add to this, I've seen both have EXTREMELY close calls in the harbor......hell, one was in a no-wake zone.



P.S.
no offense taken