raycast hit not detecting && Nav mesh agent ai stealth

Hello, I'm trying to make patrol ai that detects a player within its field of view then moves to that players last known position and looses track of player once the player is out of sight. The script I have works fine in pathfinding the waypoints I set when it is searching for the player, but completely ignores the player. The sphere collider is marked trigger and proper public variables are set in the inspector, please help.

 using UnityEngine;
 using System.Collections;
 
 [RequireComponent(typeof(AudioSource))]
 public class StealthAI : MonoBehaviour {
 
     public float fieldOfViewAngle = 110f;           // Number of degrees, centred on forward, for the enemy see.
     public bool playerInSight = false;              // Whether or not the player is currently sighted.
     public Vector3 personalLastSighting;            // Last place this enemy spotted the player.
     public GameObject player;                        //Player Target
     public string tagofcollider = "Player";
     public Light lt;                                //Search Light Attatched to Object
     public float dirchangefrequency  =  Random.Range(3,14);            //How often the Ai finds new waypoint when wandering
     public Transform waypt1;                        //Waypoint 1
     public Transform waypt2;                        //Waypoint 2
     public Transform waypt3;                        //Waypoint 3
     public Transform waypt4;                        //Waypoint 4
     private NavMeshAgent agent;                       // Reference to the NavMeshAgent component.
     private SphereCollider col;                     // Reference to the sphere collider trigger component
     private float StoppingDistance = 3.5f;            //How close till faliure state
     private float timetillchange = 0;                //timer affected by time.deltatime DO NOT CHANGE VALUE FROM 0
     private bool changingdir = false;                //Is changedir being called?
     private Transform Waypoint;                        //Current wandering waypoint being set
     private float cooldowntime;
 
     void Start () {
         player = GameObject.FindWithTag ("Player");
         agent = GetComponent<NavMeshAgent> ();
         lt = GetComponent<Light> ();
         playerInSight = false;
         cooldowntime = dirchangefrequency;
     }
 
     
     void OnTriggerStay (Collider other){
         // If the player has entered the trigger sphere...
         if(other.gameObject.tag == tagofcollider){
             // By default the player is not in sight.
             playerInSight = false;
             // Create a vector from the enemy to the player and store the angle between it and forward.
             Vector3 direction = other.transform.position - transform.position;
             float angle = Vector3.Angle(direction, transform.forward);
             
             // If the angle between forward and where the player is, is less than half the angle of view...
             if(angle < fieldOfViewAngle * 0.5f){
                 RaycastHit hit;
 
                 // ... and if a raycast towards the player hits something...
                 if(Physics.Raycast(transform.position - transform.up, direction.normalized, out hit, col.radius)){
                     // ... and if the raycast hits the player...
                     if(hit.collider.gameObject.tag == tagofcollider){
                         // ... the player is in sight.
                         playerInSight = true;
                         agent.speed = 8;
                         // Set the last global sighting is the players current position.
                         personalLastSighting = player.transform.position;
                     }
                 }
             }
         }
     }
     
     
     void OnTriggerExit (Collider other){
         // If the player leaves the trigger zone...
         if(other.gameObject.tag == tagofcollider)
             // ... the player is not in sight.
             playerInSight = false;
     }
 
 
     void Update (){
         Vector3 forward = transform.TransformDirection(Vector3.forward) * 45;
         Debug.DrawRay(transform.position-transform.up, forward, Color.green);
         //check if changin Dir at the moment, if not add to timer
         if(!changingdir && playerInSight == false){
             timetillchange += Time.deltaTime;
         }
         //when timer reaches # seconds, call Dir Change function
         if(timetillchange >= dirchangefrequency){
             StartCoroutine(ChangeDir());
         }
 
 
         float dist = Vector3.Distance(player.transform.position, transform.position);
         if (playerInSight = true) {
             agent.SetDestination (personalLastSighting);
         }
 
         else if (dist < StoppingDistance) {
             agent.Stop();
             lt.intensity += 2;
             GetComponent<AudioSource> ().Play ();
             Invoke("Restart",1);
         }
         else if (dist > StoppingDistance)
             lt.intensity = 1;
     }
 
 
     void Restart (){
         Application.LoadLevel (Application.loadedLevel);
     }
 
 
     IEnumerator ChangeDir(){
         changingdir = true;
         timetillchange = 0;
         int randomPick = Random.Range(0,5);
 
         if(randomPick == 1)
             Waypoint = waypt1;
 
         else if(randomPick == 2)
             Waypoint = waypt2;
 
         else if(randomPick == 3)
             Waypoint = waypt3;
 
         else if(randomPick == 4)
             Waypoint = waypt4;
 
         yield return new WaitForSeconds (cooldowntime);
         agent.speed = 3;
         agent.SetDestination (Waypoint.position);
         changingdir = false;
     }
 
 }