Safety tips for night fishing from a kayak

By Lee on June 8, 2015 • ( 1 )

Night fishing can be a lot of fun in a kayak but you’ve got to be clearly visible to other vessels.

Good lighting and reflective clothing is the key to being seen out on the water. Navigating in the dark is a challenge but here’s a couple of tips that might help: if you do use electronics, dim the lights down or use the night mode function if you have this, as any light directly in your line of vision will make it very hard to see what’s in front of you, even a towel over your sounder will do the trick.

If you do have a GPS I urge you to turn it on before launching. I’ve made this mistake before by not turning it on until I was quite far off shore… on return my track run out and I was a wee bit lost as to what bay I had launched from. Luckily, I had my cell phone and some willing friends to come down to the bay with a torch to guide me back.

I have 3 lights that I use on the kayak, one is a Railblaza navigation light as shown in the picture, the other light is Knog Qudos Action Light for Gopro which is connected to my camera boom. As you can see in the photo the light is very bright and to make it even better it’s water proof.

The other light I use is a head torch, just to see what I’m doing on deck.

Waves can be very hard to see at night so you really have to keep your wits about you. So my advice to you: always fish with a buddy, carry some means of communication, cell phone and or VHF. Let somebody know where you are heading and if you feel unsafe just head back in to shore, no fish is worth risking your life for. Tight Lines.