Fishing manners

[Zachary]

So I was fishing a pier at Jupiter, Florida (actually called Juno beach).  The pier wasn't packed, but when there were fish, the schools were only in certain spots, so you would have about 15 or 20 people crammed shoulder-to-shoulder within minutes to try and catch the school.  When this happens, you can imagine how frantic things can get.  Virtually everyone is casting and jigging with artificials - the main way to catch the blue fish.

Well, every once and a while, you get a clown who decides that he is going to do both, cast and jig, and also put a bottom line in the water.  When he does this, the wind and current pull the line across and always get tangled up with the other fisherman who are casting and jigging.  And I'm not just talking about a tangle with 2 people, I'm talking about 5 or 6.  When this happens, a lot of people get man in a hurry, and tempers flare.

This older gentleman next to me told the Vietnamese man with the bottom rig to kindly pull his bottom rig out of the water because it was causing many tangles.  The Vietnamese man should have done it on his own, but instead started yelling at the older man and said "Do you own the beach?"  Then, the old man was calm and tried to explain what was going on, but the Vietnamese man then started to cuss all sorts of profanities.  That's where I stepped in.  I told the Vietnamese man that he the old man does not own the beach or the pier, but that he doesn't either and that he should be courteous.  Then he started cussing at me.  So I told him that I was a lawyer and would report him for disturbing the peace unless he stopped.  Fortunately, he stopped cussing.  In fact, he stopped talking at all.

This isn't the first time that this has happened.  I've witnessed these cases on numerous piers and bridges all my life, and I am just disgusted by it.

Have any of you witnessed such circumstances?  If yes, what happened?

Zachary

[tneff]

Piers can be a royal pain in the backside , ethics are something that goes in the water as soon as fish start biting. If talking doesnt work, a cut line will get their attention. It's a last ditch effort to keep the peace , after getting hung a few times and trying to advise them to pay attention . I will cut their line if I get tangles again , not the nicest thing to do  but it does get their attention. Now days I try to stay away from piers unless I go during the week , to many folks with Zebco 202's in the way.  :-)

[halfbreed]

Zachary, I'm not calling names here. but I once knew a fella who carried a machate on the docks just for snakes. When the very same sort of thing happened. This young fella asked this other fella to be more careful, and the cussing began, well this one fella started to untangle his line again, and the first fella used his machate to cut the others line bout midway down the rod. After a little cheering from the others, we continued fishing with out any toubles. And everybody had a rather pleasant day fishing. Just like it should be.
 Halfbreed

[Zachary]

wow.

[WylieKy]

Some people don't believe in common courtesy.  It usually gets them in trouble.  For example, I grew up on Lake Cumberland, in Ky. I spent 2.5 months of the 3 month Summer with my Grandparents who lived on the lake.
One night, Grandpa had the pontoon tied up off of Wolf Creek point and we were doing pretty well.  A big bass boat came up and they started bouncing lures off of the pontoons (at about 1-2am) trying to get us to move off of our spot (it is a well known spot.)  Well after doing this for a few minuites, my grandfather tied on a 3 oz egg sinker we used for fishing the dam.  He bounced that off of their boat a couple of times and they started cussing and tore off up the lake.  Now I need to give some background.  When you fish off of a pontoon at night on Lake Cumberland, you tie off on a rock or tree, back out to just past the deepest dropoff where you can reach bottom, and drop anchor.  Because the rocks are very sharp, you usually use a good climbing rope to tie off with, otherwise on a bumpy night you can wear through the rope.  The reason I explained this is because the aforementioned (censored word) went up the lake, turned around, and decided to buzz us between us and the shore about 25-30mph.  Hee hee. They must have thought we were just anchored.  It did not tear the motor off of the back of the boat, but it did some damage because the motor died and they never were able to get it started again.  We left them.  I wonder how far their trolling motor got them before they had to start paddling   If you are not familiar with Lake Cumberland, there is 1200 miles of shoreline, and not many ramps, especially 15 years ago.

[NONYA]

You start waving a knife around and cutting peoples lines around here and you could wind up shot REAL fast. :roll:

[corbanzo]

you think a group of 20-30 people is bad... you should come to the confluence of the russian and kenai river when the reds are running thick.  It's over a mile of people shoulder to shoulder, both side of the bank, just rediculous.





This is where the term "combat fishing" originated.  I've seen it all up there, fights, cut lines, five way tangles.  We always try and hike up away from all the people, or go at midnight.... and it's even still bad then.

need I say more?

[Zachary]

LOL.  I have seen the pier get that crowded (at least in certain sections) when schools of fish come in.  When that happens, I just leave.  It's not worth it.  Just pay a little money and get on a party boat.  Much less hassle and much better fishing.

Zachary

[rex6666]

i have been fishing with a guide out of Rockport,TX for years, many times we would be anchored off an oyster bed in the bay people would drive by and watch, if we were catching fish they will some times try to get between your boat and your anchor or the oyster bed, or anchor within 5 ft of you,
fish usually travel up and down these beds and we have ask them to move down 50yards or so, course they then accuse us of owning the bay or wanting to catch all the fish

[spinafish]

I grew up fishing below Wilson Dam in nw Alabama. There is an island below the dam that for years had a deep hole off the south side.  Certain times of the year, certain species of fish would just stack in there.  On one trip when I was quite young, my granddad and I were just wearing crappies out..one just about every cast..another fisherman saw our success and decided he wanted in on it..We were about 25 yards from shore, anchored, when this Bozo parks his boat between our boat and the shore..Granddad just kept casting as if he wasn't there.  Dragging a jig over one side of Bozo's boat through the boat and outta the near side. Bounced a few off his motor and ball cap..Once Granddad's jig snagged on somethink in the boat, he ripped back real hard on his rod and Bozo yelled hey!  Granddad just stated that he and the boy were fishing here first and would continue to do so!  After a few more minutes he cranked up and blasted outta the hole..we stopped and had a soda and some vinnea saugsages and crackers..In bout 15 minutes we started fishing again and was doing as well as we had been before Bozo showed up.

[corbanzo]

There was once on the russian river, and a tourist was down there fishing, and me and a buddy of mine came up to the hole he was fishing, people up and down the river, not like the pictures earlier, but still quite a few people there.  I throw a few flies upstream, they hit in front of him, dont cause him any both, and I hook a fish about five minutes from then, hes got nothing.  About two minutes later, he pipes up "I've been fishing this hole since 6am, quit casting over my line!"

I look at him, "oh really, crossing, did I tangle you?  I've been fishing this river for XX years, so I think I was here first."  He huffed and quieted down, we moved on cause i didnt really want to deal with him, but some people need to understand that the russian river is not your normal tiny stream in colorado.  If you dont want to be by people, you are gonna have to go and climb a mountain, and no, on the russian, you definitely dont own a hole.  I have seen days where I would guess from the falls to just below the power lines (about a 5 mile stretch) there were probably 2000 people fishing.  crazy.

My buddies told me a story years ago about fishing out in humpy cove in ressurection bay that they found a camera crew out looking for sharks, and the boat captain had some salmon sharks chummed up to the boat, they were fishing, just taking pictures, so my buddies decide that a good chumming shouldnt go to waste, and go start hooking the sharks they have chummed up.  The captain was mad, cause he lost his show, but the camera crew got a good show.