After-dark electronics are particularly important

Good depth-finding equipment is critical to bass fishermen who spend time on lakes at night.

Things look very different when the sun sets, and plying the waters at night puts the angler at a disadvantage when to comes to finding good fishing.

Landmarks are simple to use as navigation aids during the day, but at night all there are to navigate by are dock lights, silhouette of trees and your GPS and good electronics. Digital maps loaded on GPS units are tremendous navigational helps, but they’re not a substitute for careful boating.

“Using your GPS unit for navigation at night is obviously very important, but you need to be careful,” Hite said. “Your GPS might tell you you’re out in the middle of the lake, but it won’t tell you if there’s somebody in front of you in a boat with no lights no, so slow down and be careful.”

Aside from navigation, Hite, who has three Humminbird units on his Phoenix bass boat — an 1198 up front and an 1198 and 998 on his console — said that keeping up with the movement of baitfish is foremost in his summer fishing.

“It’s really important at night to keep track of where the baitfish are, because they tend to move more at night during the summer because the temperature is changing,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to keep up with them.”