The Boating Forum - Radar and night fishing

When fishing at night will radar pick up lobster pots? If not how can you be sure your on a safe heading? Anyone have any good advice on night navigation?

look at a local paper chart. the fishing (pot) areas are designated by a magenta long short alternating line where the pots can be. stay out of the pot area and dont worry about it

When fishing at night will radar pick up lobster pots?

Nope, that's a job better suited for fish finders/depth sounders. ;)

Might pick up a bouy though, depending on the size and shape of the bouy and the strength of the radar.

I have seen lobster fisherman put small radar reflectors on the floats--but generally the floats are not reliablly visiable. Don't worry about them. Go slow and keep your eyes open. I have not tried nite vision, scope--but that mgiht help....

Any open array 4 kw and up should spot the floats from a couple of miles.

What about a 4 KW dome raytheon radar? Will the dome pick it up also?

Sure ,that set should pick them up but you need to initiate avoidance early as close-in "boat clutter" will often mask such targets when you most want to see them. Of course high sea conditions will impede their reflectivity substantially without high-flyers. If possible , best is to move to a depth you have previously observrved to be relatively free of pot buoys.

I worked offshore for a couple of years...you can pick up high-flyers radar detectors easily. Floats are a different story -- even on a flat sea we could not make out floats or larger orange ball/floats.

We run thru crab pots/ floats in the Chesapeake all the time. I have yet to pick up a single float/crab pot running thru areas that are crabbed.

BassAssasin - 9/26/2005 10:13 PM
Anyone have any good advice on night navigation? Watch your plotter, watch your radar, keep alert, and go SLOW.

I have never seen a radar capable of picking up small floats.

The only way your radar is going to pick up the pot is if it has a Radar Deflector on it. Some pots dont unfortunatly. A 4KW radar will pick up a deflector.

slow? i dont run at night, but often wonder how i see people running full bore in the pitch black.

is radar that good? do those remote spotlights help at all? or is it better to conserve your night vision?

The only radars that are are gonna pick up a float or poly ball are 25KW Furuno Black Box Radars or Furuno S-Band Rasterscan Radars.

JoeyM - 9/27/2005 10:07 PM

slow? i dont run at night, but often wonder how i see people running full bore in the pitch black.


Then you don't see them cutting off the line. :rofl:

JoeyM - 9/27/2005 9:07 PM

slow? i dont run at night, but often wonder how i see people running full bore in the pitch black.

is radar that good? do those remote spotlights help at all? or is it better to conserve your night vision?

If you don't run at night, I wonder how you see them running full bore in the pitch black too.

Is radar that good? Some radars in some conditions may do it reliably enough, but I wouldn't count on it. Spotlights should not be used for running at night. Not very helpful to you or very courteous to others, illegal too I think. It's ok to use them briefly to spot nav markers, but it is best to try to keep it to a minimum.

I usually fish about 10 miles from the dock... that's a long way to crawl home... I just use my gps and follow the exact route home that I used to get out...

I can easily pick up crab pots and other small objects with my Navnet 4k array (1933C). Note this is on low range (1/8 or 1/4) and in protected, calm water while moving slow. The key is having your radar adjustments zeroed in for optimum performance. I assert most folks do not take the time to properly adjust their radar for maximum detail.

go slow..dont use a spot light..not much you can do about the pots other than to avoid the line they are on..or laid out I should say.
I have a furuno 1731 4kw dome and I love it..you can pick out a bouy no problem..watch out for the idoits in the go fasts running 25kts at night..they are the ones that will get you!
last time out I broke a calume stick and taped it to my stern light..no way one could miss that thing..green as an alien...white lights on shore seem to take on a life of their own..
its kinda erie and takes getting used to..you must trust your radar or I dont go.
doug :Q

"Anyone have any good advice on night navigation?"

On nights with any kind of moon, you want to develop a sense of looking for the "holes" - water will have some sparkle, other stuff won't.

OTOH, some of the guys that run around Delaware Bay at night for stripers and drum don't slow down very much - they say the odds of hitting a buoy are pretty slim, and even if you do the nose of the boat is pointy and the buoys are round, so you've pretty much got to hit one dead center to have any serious issues!

If you are talkin offshore pots, yes they will have radar reflectors and are easy to spot. Inshore pots with just a float, forget it.

I've heard that if you are running on plane, there is a much smaller chance of getting a crab line tangled in your prop...

makes a little bit of sense if you think about it...

If you don't run at night, I wonder how you see them running full bore in the pitch black too.



oh...i surf fish at night. just last week while fishing at napa tree point in ri we watched a boat hauling ass in the darkness. looked like he knew where he was going, up until he ran into the sandbar. never found out what happened to them.

Don't run on plane on a dark night with poor ambient light in unfamiliar waters. That would be a recipe for eventual disaster.