Safe Light--What Does It Really Mean?

That's the gist of a question that came to me this morning in an email from my friend, Jerry. And it's a topic that I feel well deserves some airing in this forum.

Jerry pointed out that, over the years, as he has been en route to different fishing holes, he passes boat ramps, especially the 258 ramp south of Franklin and the 45 bridge ramp in Plymouth, NC, "very early in the a.m., and a tourney already has launched. I know I have been by the 45 ramp as daylight just is starting to show," he said, "and 20 to 25 boats already have left the area." Thus, he only can conclude that "the term 'safe light' must mean different things to different groups."

And after spending some time today researching the Internet, I'm in total agreement with Jerry's conclusion. I found instances where some folks consider "safe light" to be as much as, and in a few cases, more than an hour before sunrise. The vast majority of people, however, seemed to consider safe light to exist 20 to 30 minutes before sunrise. This latter choice certainly gets my vote, with the addition of this one caveat: as long as there are no significant weather factors, such as heavy cloud cover or fog, involved.

There is a precedent for adopting the 30-minute head start. During my Internet research today, I discovered that Virginia Department of Fish and Game sets safe hunting hours for all waterfowl in all seasons starting a half-hour before sunrise. If that's good enough for the hunting crowd, it ought to be good enough for the fishing crowd, too.

In most instances, I give the green light for launching our Dewey Mullins Memorial Bass Tourneys about a half-hour ahead of sunrise. Those few times I have held anglers longer usually were due to passing thunderstorms or heavy fog. I don't ever want to be responsible for letting everyone go and then find out that someone has had an accident because of low light or unsafe weather conditions.

I realize many boats today are rigged with GPS units that allow anglers to run in all kinds of weather, but to the best of my knowledge, none of those units warn you about objects that may be in the water between you and your destination. What happens if the GPS is the only eyes you have and you encounter one of those big barges that often frequent the North Landing River?

I vividly recall one occasion last year when Rob and I were just leaving West Neck Creek on tourney morning, headed south, when some bright white lights from a tug pushing a barge quickly came into view. We ducked back into West Neck and waited for it to pass, only to be confronted by another tug and barge when we tried to go again. The same thing happened a third time before we finally were able to resume our trip south.

On another occasion last season, Rob and I had navigated our way through considerable fog when we suddenly heard a noise that sounded like it was coming at us. We immediately slowed to a crawl and moved right--good thing we did, too, because the noise again was a tug pushing a heavy load. I only can speak for myself, but low-visibility situations like that create some scary moments for me.

I'm all for letting anglers get to their honey holes early, but when I'm the guy giving the "go" signal, I want to be left with a reasonable feeling of assurance that everyone is going to get there and return safely. I don't ever want to be responsible for someone getting injured.

As a result of researching information for this article, I have added a chart to the right-hand side of my blog's homepage showing Virginia Beach sunrise and sunset times. I will post new charts each month.

After Jerry re-read this post, he remembered an incident he and his son had with fog about four years ago. They had launched at the Tunis ramp near Winton, NC early in the morning and planned to run to a destination located diagonally across the Chowan from the ramp canal.

"With the thick fog, visibility was maybe just a few feet," said Jerry. "As we were about midway across, we heard a bass boat coming in our direction at a speed far beyond the limits of safety under the conditions. All I could do was just turn to what I thought was a straight line to the shore, instead of our original 45-degree angle.

"Fortunately, we were heading in the right direction, and as we got close enough to see the shore, the boat passed mid-river behind us. The fog was so thick, though, we never saw it, and we never heard a crash, so I guess the idiot made it OK."