FISHING ETIQUETTE
1) You’re fishing in a bay and catching one fish after another, a boat comes speeding up, shuts down and the two guys on that boat start slinging for Muskie. Their wake bonces your boat up and down and breaks your anchor loose. Then one is throwing a white Bull Dawg and the other a Black Crusader w/ red dots. Yes, they are so close you can see what lures they are using. This boat comes close to circling your boat and moves on to fish the rest of that bay.
2) You’re fishing shallow weeds 30 yards out in front of an island, when a boat appears from the other side of the island and is casting towards the shoreline. While still casting, probably for BASS, this boat passes between your boat and the island. Remember the distance between the boat and island was 30 yards?
3) You have been looking for that one fishing hot spot all day and you finally found a great location and you start catching the fish. A boat passes slowly, and they see you’re catching fish. The boat turns around, comes back and anchors. These anglers are now close enough to your boat that you can hear their whispering conversation. YEP, ALL OF THESE THINGS HAVE HAPPENED TO MANY PEOPLE.
There are unwritten rules every angler should know and If anglers don’t know these rules, how about common sense?
1st To the MUSKIE GUYS, if you see people catching panfish, that will tell me a Muskie is NOT in the area, because the fish will leave, and that area will not hold the panfish you were catching.
2nd To the BASS ANGLERS, DON’T go between a boat and an island if your boat has to come within 20 feet of another person’s boat to do so.
3rd To the BALLSY PEOPLE that can’t find fish on their own. If you do not know the people in the other boat or the other anglers do not invite you to fish with them, DON’T fish by them. Staying at least 75 yards away from other boat is not just common sense, but respectful.
If you are catching fish at one location or are leaving a spot and see a boat with children, I wouldn’t have a problem telling them to fish the area I just left or even invite them to come closer to me, so the kids can catch fish. That is a totally different situation then the things I mentioned above and there is something about the excitement of kids catching fish that I love. I believe most people would agree with me on that, because they are the future of fishing.
When I heard of these fishing instances happened, I knew I wanted to write about this subject.
We can all share the same water, be it, skiers, jet skiers, people just out for a boat ride or folks fishing. I’m just saying, please slow down, give anglers some space and use some common sense or what I call FISHING ETIQUETTE.
