Night Fishing Raid

[Kirk]

Ratman and I were fishing a night tournament Friday night on Chickamauga. We were sitting in 2-3 feet of water in the back side of a slough back in Sale Creek. Way off of the main river channel and up a creek and off to the side in a shallow water slough. Since the dang bugs were so bad we turned off the Nav lights and were running a black light. We had been fishing for about 30 minutes and decided to leave. Kenny flipped the Nav lights back on and we started to ease out of the slough.

A big boat started heading toward us and flashed the blue lights.
We were in about 5 foot of water when this happened (all lights on and functioning properly). It was TWRA and they informed us we had to have our lights on even if we were out of the channel. As long as we were in navigable waters we had to have on the navigation lights. I didn't know that included sloughs and shallows. We got a warning and lost about 30 minutes of fishing time.

I guess the long arm of the law even reaches out during night tournaments.

 

[shopson]

It's the law. I don't know you but I think you should have been fined. Nothing personal.
Last time I fished a night tourney we saw a party barge go down main channel with not a single light on and saw a boat fishing along the bank with no light of any kind visible. This was less than a year after a prominent high school coach and his son were fishing a tourney and colided with a party barge. The son died and the coach is paralyzed.

 

[Hook1]

$150.00 ticket,,,know several that have gotten them,,,u got lucky