Lake Norman homeowners fed up with blinding lights beaming off water, into their windows

Some Lake Norman waterfront homeowners say intense bright lights are ricocheting off the water into their windows late at night, both spooking and angering them.

They blame bow-and-arrow fishermen who shine spotlights into the water and take aim at bottom-dwelling, shoreline-hugging catfish, gar and carp.

“It is very annoying,” a homeowner in the FernBrook community in Mooresville on the lake posted on Nextdoor in early April, when a debate flared about the late-night fishing. “The lights shine right into your house.”

Others fired back on the site, poking fun at the claims or contending the issue was overblown.

“Might be a UFO sighting!” a man posted.

“If there was ever a non-problem, this is it,” added Jake Bussolini, who lives on the lake in Mooresville and authored seven books about freshwater fishing.

Bussolini said bowfishermen leave a cove within minutes, and any lights shining into homes are merely a reflection off the water.

“Why don’t you complain about drivers that do not lower their high beams when they pass you?” he asked a homeowner who complained on Nextdoor about lights shining into her home.

A fisherman who responded to the complaints on Nextdoor said homeowners have turned hostile.

“People have threatened to shoot us, released dogs, and even sprayed us with a hose as we go by,” the fisherman from Denver, in eastern Lincoln County, said on the site.

Homeowners should understand that bowfishing “is a lawful activity” and that bowfishing targets non-native species that “damage the ecosystem,” said the fisherman, who didn’t reply this week to a request for comment from The Charlotte Observer.

One of the state’s pioneers in the sport, however, said he’s warned fellow bowfishermen that it might come back to bite them if they ignore the concerns of lakefront homeowners.

Sure, you can fish anywhere, but ...

Andy Thomas of Hudson in Caldwell County told the Observer he has bowfished 45 of his 58 years. He helped found the statewide bowfishing association Tarheel Fish Stickers about 20 years ago and its tournaments that attracted up to 70 enthusiasts at lakes throughout North Carolina, he said.

Tournament organizers respected homeowners, creating a no-fishing “black zone” where too many homes hugged the shoreline, he said.

Thomas was last active in the group several years ago and believes the association has dissolved. Yet he knows of younger bowfishermen who remain defiant, saying no one can tell them where to fish.

Sure, you have a right to fish in any cove or nook or cranny of Lake Norman, the state’s largest manmade lake, he said.

Still, he cautioned: “There’s big money on Lake Norman, and you don’t know if the guy whose home you’re fishing in front of is a judge or a senator or a congressman.”

All it takes is one person with influence before the sport is regulated, including restrictions on how close to shore you can bowfish, he warned.

Bowfishing popularity

Lake Norman has long been known for its nationally broadcast bass tournaments that attract anglers from across the Southeast and beyond — but bowfishing?

Bowfishing has been around since ancient times, but only in more recent years has the sport increased in popularity across the country, including in North Carolina, Wake County-based N.C. wildlife officer Hannah Shively wrote on the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission website in 2018. She also happens to be a bowfishing aficionado.

Bowfishermen target non-game fish, particularly gar, bowfin, carp and catfish, she said.

Such non-native fish also are called “trash fish,” said Jessie Smith, owner of Barefoot Archery on Old Pineville Road in Charlotte.

Smith, who lives on Lake Norman, sells the equipment bowfishermen use to pierce their catch. “It’s really a nice, fun sport if you like to shoot,” he said.

Morris Sample, executive director of the Lake Norman Marine Commission, said he’s seen more bow-and-arrow fishermen on the lake in the past five or six years, and “99%” or more keep their lights downward at all times, he said.

Typically, four or five bowfishermen gather on their pontoon boats in a cove, “but they’re only there a minute at most” before moving on, Sample said. He and his family have lived on the lake 45 years.

Bowfishermen have every right to ply the waters, as we all do, Sample explained. “The lake is everyone’s place to be,” he said.

Referring to homeowners who don’t want fishermen in their coves, he said, the water “is not their private property.”

In the bowfishing world, however, Lake Norman “is not really popular,” Smith said, because it’s too deep.

The Santee River in South Carolina is far more popular with the bow-and-arrow set, Smith said.

Understanding the other side

The Lake Norman flare-up on Nextdoor started innocently enough on March 31 when a woman asked if the lights on the water outside her home were a police patrol boat’s or a fisherman’s.

“We’ve seen them many times,” a woman from another lakefront subdivision replied. “It’s a little freaky when you first see them. The lights we’ve seen have a greenish-yellow hue to them.”

The conversation soon devolved, with some residents among the more than 300 people who responded to the post accusing others of self-privilege and snobbery.

Sgt. William Layton of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission said the rise in popularity of bowfishing the past five or six years has led to such occasional flare-ups.

The sport is legal, he said, just a form of fishing that requires a different skill set, i.e., archery.

Layton at the same said he has urged the statewide bowfishing group to be mindful of lights inadvertently reflecting or otherwise shining into homes. Each side just needs to respect the other, he said.

“That’s our No. 1 goal,” Layton said. “We just want everyone to get along.”