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Vic - Having fished sand and sea ... sea more regularly until about the past four years or so ... but I have seen my share of numnutz out on the water ... and some of them were acting intentional ... never ends ...
I will always defer to the guys on the rocks/shore whenever possible - meaning that there have been a few instances where I set up on a drift along a stretch of rocky coastline to come upon a couple of guys plugging ... mind you, I have a long cast and am always out of range of the shore, and if I find myself in that situation, I will take my paddle and work the boat out of the area to give the guys on shore the benefit, since, yes, I do have the ability to move elsewhere more easily.
But Ross, not all fly guys are A-Hls ... rather I find it's the guys who are clueless ...not all guys throwing flies are clueless. But I also have had my share of incidences of nimrods on the water ...
Montauk Point, Columbus Day Weekend, I got out there driving over from CT and still was able to fish outside the surfcasters in the dark. The massive schools of bay anchovies were flushing out and false albacore, striped bass and bluefish were marauding schools over and over. Since I got out there early enough, the only incident at low light I had was a skisher out swimming the rip, I didn't see him and fortunately was able to cut my engine while I drifted by him. The fishing was excellent and by 8 a.m., the place had more than 300 boats. I am fighting a decent school size bass about 14 pounds on the fly, when a charter captain cuts me off, runs over my fly line and gets it tangled in his prop ... of course the curses and pliers go flying ... his comment was he had clients to serve ... later on, a 40-foot boat cuts off the crew from the shore on a big pod of fish working the bait, but no one, surprisingly did anything about it. A good day of fishing tainted with miserable attitudes.
Fast forward to another spot around the Fisher's Island/North Fork Long Island area ... working a rip, a boat sees me casting and zooms in between me and the rocks, fortunately he hit the rocks and my jig was able to land in his boat with a number of choice words from me. I was so happy that jerk hit the rock, but I was going two days with barely any sleep and lots of coffee ... so I revved my motor quite a bit ... next spot, on the Eastern shore of Fisher's Island, late October, I pull into a cove protected from the wind ... a cold, icy morning where I had been fishing all night immediately following a full day at work. Sneak into the cove to relax, eat a snack, have some coffee and enjoy the sunshine before heading in ... wasn't even casting and a 24-foot center console Mako with two guys who looked as if they just stepped out of an Orvis catalog come charging over to me full throttle with their fly rods ready to go ... when the pulled up and realized I wasn't fishing, I asked them if they wanted a cup of coffee ...
... the problem I think is that half the guys on the water leave their brains in their cars when they get on a boat ... it will never cease to amaze me.
Even on the flats in South Florida you get a lot of googans and even charter captains - many of whom are googans too and shouldn't be charter captains ... who have little idea of what to do, so they spy on others with binoculars. Case in point ... one captain off Islamorada was poling a bonefish flat when another captain came onto the same flat and disrupted the flat and sent the fishing running. the first captain got ticked and threw his push pole like a lance at the other boat. the second boat, and offender, gets ticked and throws his push pole like a lance at the other captain ... this is with charters on board their respective boats ... if I were one of the captains, I would grab the other guy's push pole and beat it ...
... boy I started this post trying to play a level headed guy and realized that I need to get away from this topic ... sheesh ...
... TT ... your right, there's no excuse.
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