Fishing Etiquette

[Al Agnew]

My brother fishes on the amateur side of some pro-am tournaments, and has been lucky to have drawn decent pros to fish with, but he has some horror stories of friends that got the real jerks. Competition brings out the worst in a lot of people, which is why you'll see tournament anglers cutting in front of other fishermen and treating others like dirt. When I fished tournaments I sometimes caught myself starting to get too wrapped up in treating the fish as money rather than resource, but I never to my knowledge treated other anglers badly.

[Old plug]

Al that is the reason I cannot do it. It puts me in a place mentally I do not like to be. it is stressful and I do not fish to have stress.

[hank franklin]

I have never fished competitively and have no desire to. It is the exact opposite of what fishing is to me.

[Bird Watcher]

Personally, I just shift gears into a 'trout park' mentality. I usually fish on up close enough to them that we can each smell what the other had for lunch and keep fishing. Make small talk, start passing gas, cuss, throw fits if I miss a bite. Usually you can make yourself rude enough even the most oblivious will move on. You wanna fish close? Let's fish close then. I mean real close.

[MarkinKC]

^{I was fly-fishing one of the trout parks during C&R this winter. Picked out a spot and there were no anglers anywhere I could see. After about 30 minutes two guys waded in the water behind me. As they were wading past one said "Good Morning" and then proceeded to tell me that this area is usually fished more downstream and that I would be in the way of their backcasts. Of course it upset me that I was there first and it was rude to show up and inform me that I was in their way. I just said they better not hook me. Then of course they set up on my right and began fishing and every attempt involved 3-4 false casts and each time they hit the water right in front of me with their strike indicators. Several were say 3-4 feet from my position. I should have just found another spot but as I'm sure you can appreciate it irked me. I was trying not to let it ruin my day and kept fishing. But of course they continued to chirp and one of them eventually snagged my line. I asked him if he was surprised that happened since they kept slapping the water in front of me. We exchanged a few words, nothing profane or anything, and they packed up and moved. As they walked out of the water I told them I had heard of reports of bad behavior here but was surprised to see it occur during the C&R season. And it did kind of ruin my day. I tried to remember that the majority of my encounters with other anglers are pleasant. Exchanging a greeting, asking about their day so far, maybe even offering or receiving a fly or a tip. Like anything in life, always a few who misbehave, lack common courtesy, etc.}

[Quillback]

I have to remember that one - "Hey get out of here, you're in the way of my backcast!" Sheesh, that really takes the cake.

[MeatintheFreezer]

Here's one for you....

A few years back I was fishing on Stockton for crappie. I was bobber fishing over a shallow brush pile in about 12 feet of water, right off a pea gravel bank. I had 2 rods out & my son had 2 as well, so we had 4 bobbers floating over a brushpile that was roughly the size of our boat. We had picked a few nice fish out when another boat saw us catching fish. They slowly worked their way over, I assume to appear a little less abvious as to what they were doing. The ended up fishing on the same brush that we were! I had seen this coming since they started heading our way 5 minutes earlier, so I was already steamed by the time they made their first cast, which by the way, tangled in one of my lines. The guy untangled our lines and said he was sorry. I told him that it wasnt a big deal, but I was pretty sure my boy & I had this spot covered....maybe he should find another spot. He lurched back like I had just insulted his mother, and told me it was a public lake (explicatives removed). About this time, his buddy got hung in the brush and they trolling motored over to get it loose right in the middle of everything.

I was in rare form by this time. We reeled in all our lines and packed up to go to another spot since this one was ruined. When I fired up to leave I must have trimmed my motor up instead of down, because I showered water all over them...... I really need to pay more attention

[fshndoug]

One time many years ago,I was fishing the Rebar run on upper taneycomo when a man and woman in their little bass hunter boat and trolling motor came up the narrow channel between me and another angler opposite of me scrapping the rocks with their trolling motor. When the couple got between me and the other angler,I yelled across to him and said "our only hope is they are sterile and can't reproduce".The couple at that point turned around and left.everyone had a good laugh.