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Combat Fishing
Imagine if you would, three guys heading out for a weekend of fishing and fun, towing the boat much farther than normal, only to find chaos, bedlam, and a general lack of fishing and boating etiquette.
We arrived at a friend's house and after handshakes and small talk we unloaded and stashed our gear. Unhooking the boat, the talk turned to the restaurant my friend was dying for us to try, and with that we headed out for some late supper.
Here's where things start to get weird.
According to my friend there are multiple tournaments the following day and all have huge numbers of boats entered. They're being held at three of the local marinas and, as luck would have it, all three launch points were being given consideration by our group for getting underway the next morning. I commented that we could probably launch early enough to beat the crowd and then run to our wading spot with the help of my GPS and Q-Beam. He looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.
"You're not seriously considering wading are you?" he asked.
Surprised, I replied that we were and he asked if we had brought our orange safety vests or picked up some wading flags on the way down. Orange vests and wading flags?
According to my friend who lives and fishes amongst the hoards down there, "the burn boats," as he called them, "with their imitation tuna towers," would surely run us over making reference to those who run shorelines and flats searching for redfish schools. With this he went into a rant.
"Those guys are horrible. They run all over us when we stay in the boat and I wouldn't even think of wading, not without an orange vest and a bicycle flag in my wade belt."
So I'm listening to all this, grinning, thinking that surely he was embellishing mightily.
"You think I'm joking?" he interjected rather curtly, "It's true I tell ya, it's really gotten bad down here!"
Still doubting, I asked if this was a daily thing or maybe just on weekends, or maybe an isolated incident on a busy tournament weekend.
"It's not quite as bad during the week but weekends and tournament days are horrible. If you leave your boat you had better be wearing orange and have a flag flying if you don't want to get run over," he insisted.
He told me that only the day before he was fishing a school of redfish and had a boat, the owner who was obviously overcompensating for some personal issue, had a huge burn tower up high and saw my buddy bowed up on a nice red. The boat immediately changed course, leaving the shoreline and headed straight for my friend. The boat driver, can't really call him a captain by these actions, stayed just out of casting range and punched a button on his GPS as he passed the school.
So I'm ignorant I guess, but I had to ask, "What was that all about?"
Well it seems that some tournament folks pre-fish and burn the shorelines in search of schools of redfish. When they find a school they hit the MOB (man overboard) button on their GPS, recording the location in hopes that the school will be there or in the general area during the tournament.
Now my buddy did say that it's not just tournament anglers but that it gets worse when redfish tournaments are being held in the area. He went on to say that when the tournaments are packed up and gone the local "burners" simply continue doing it. It would sound as though the technique must be effective although this was the first I ever heard of it.
"I'm telling you it's almost viral in nature," my friend said with wide eyes and drool running down his chin. "Those flat bottom boats are being produced at an alarming rate and some owners simply will not run in open water due to their design. It's just a better ride up shallow and woe be the poor wade fishermen who's knee deep on the shoreline when they come by."
I was trying to enjoy a drink while waiting on my dinner but as my attitude changed I found it easier to guzzle the bourbon in my glass and order another. Was all of this for real? Much to my dismay the stories became even darker and more sinister.
I ordered another drink.
My friend related that a few days prior he had been fishing an out-of-the-way location, he having the desire to get away from the masses and enjoy a day of drifting the far-away flats. After poling his boat for about a half-hour he spotted a school of redfish rooting up the bottom and generally moving at a sharp downwind angle. Using the wind, he poled to a position to intercept the school and moved to the bow of the boat with his rod and reel. He heard the boat first, the high-pitched whine of the engine jacked way up, and he turned to see where it was and which direction it was going.
"That guy watched me stow my pole and grab a rod and he just veered straight toward me. Then when I hooked up he made a circle around me and came in upwind and set the boat down right on top of the fish, which of course scattered them. I looked at him with my arms raised in exasperation and he just glared at me and hammered the throttle from up there on his perch. I figured he'd probably keep running around until he found another school and pull the same trick on somebody else."
Undaunted, my friend cranked his outboard and took off to another location to begin poling again. He couldn't believe his ears. It hadn't been ten minutes and that same high-pitched whine was ringing across the flat. Sure enough, same guy, still up there driving from the nosebleed section, headed straight for him.
"I just gave up and headed back to the ramp," my friend said.
My son and another fishing buddy were listening to all of this and by now their grins of disbelief had changed into something more akin to a grimace. My esteemed editor forbids the expletives they were using but, suffice to say they were not pleased.
"So are you guys getting TX numbers and turning these guys in?" my son asked. "Have you tried following one of these morons and confronting them?"
The answer to both questions was, "Nah, it's not worth it. There is no law against what they're doing. Until someone gets hurt or killed I doubt anything will be done unless somebody goes berserk, which is always a possibility."
The conversation continued with more reports of grossly unsportsmanlike conduct by my friend and predictable reactions of dismay and disbelief from those of us listening. And so, over the absolute best lasagna dinner I've ever been served, but hardly in the mood to appreciate, we decided it just wasn't worth our time or energy to subject ourselves to any of the shenanigans my friend was describing.
The next morning at 5:00, with our gear all packed and the boat hooked up, we decided against going fishing and headed home. The talk was all about the previous evening's conversation, and while we were pretty involved in our discussion, we didn't fail to notice the seeming endless line of headlights at the ramps as we passed by.
We arrived at a friend's house and after handshakes and small talk we unloaded and stashed our gear. Unhooking the boat, the talk turned to the restaurant my friend was dying for us to try, and with that we headed out for some late supper.
Here's where things start to get weird.
According to my friend there are multiple tournaments the following day and all have huge numbers of boats entered. They're being held at three of the local marinas and, as luck would have it, all three launch points were being given consideration by our group for getting underway the next morning. I commented that we could probably launch early enough to beat the crowd and then run to our wading spot with the help of my GPS and Q-Beam. He looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.
"You're not seriously considering wading are you?" he asked.
Surprised, I replied that we were and he asked if we had brought our orange safety vests or picked up some wading flags on the way down. Orange vests and wading flags?
According to my friend who lives and fishes amongst the hoards down there, "the burn boats," as he called them, "with their imitation tuna towers," would surely run us over making reference to those who run shorelines and flats searching for redfish schools. With this he went into a rant.
"Those guys are horrible. They run all over us when we stay in the boat and I wouldn't even think of wading, not without an orange vest and a bicycle flag in my wade belt."
So I'm listening to all this, grinning, thinking that surely he was embellishing mightily.
"You think I'm joking?" he interjected rather curtly, "It's true I tell ya, it's really gotten bad down here!"
Still doubting, I asked if this was a daily thing or maybe just on weekends, or maybe an isolated incident on a busy tournament weekend.
"It's not quite as bad during the week but weekends and tournament days are horrible. If you leave your boat you had better be wearing orange and have a flag flying if you don't want to get run over," he insisted.
He told me that only the day before he was fishing a school of redfish and had a boat, the owner who was obviously overcompensating for some personal issue, had a huge burn tower up high and saw my buddy bowed up on a nice red. The boat immediately changed course, leaving the shoreline and headed straight for my friend. The boat driver, can't really call him a captain by these actions, stayed just out of casting range and punched a button on his GPS as he passed the school.
So I'm ignorant I guess, but I had to ask, "What was that all about?"
Well it seems that some tournament folks pre-fish and burn the shorelines in search of schools of redfish. When they find a school they hit the MOB (man overboard) button on their GPS, recording the location in hopes that the school will be there or in the general area during the tournament.
Now my buddy did say that it's not just tournament anglers but that it gets worse when redfish tournaments are being held in the area. He went on to say that when the tournaments are packed up and gone the local "burners" simply continue doing it. It would sound as though the technique must be effective although this was the first I ever heard of it.
"I'm telling you it's almost viral in nature," my friend said with wide eyes and drool running down his chin. "Those flat bottom boats are being produced at an alarming rate and some owners simply will not run in open water due to their design. It's just a better ride up shallow and woe be the poor wade fishermen who's knee deep on the shoreline when they come by."
I was trying to enjoy a drink while waiting on my dinner but as my attitude changed I found it easier to guzzle the bourbon in my glass and order another. Was all of this for real? Much to my dismay the stories became even darker and more sinister.
I ordered another drink.
My friend related that a few days prior he had been fishing an out-of-the-way location, he having the desire to get away from the masses and enjoy a day of drifting the far-away flats. After poling his boat for about a half-hour he spotted a school of redfish rooting up the bottom and generally moving at a sharp downwind angle. Using the wind, he poled to a position to intercept the school and moved to the bow of the boat with his rod and reel. He heard the boat first, the high-pitched whine of the engine jacked way up, and he turned to see where it was and which direction it was going.
"That guy watched me stow my pole and grab a rod and he just veered straight toward me. Then when I hooked up he made a circle around me and came in upwind and set the boat down right on top of the fish, which of course scattered them. I looked at him with my arms raised in exasperation and he just glared at me and hammered the throttle from up there on his perch. I figured he'd probably keep running around until he found another school and pull the same trick on somebody else."
Undaunted, my friend cranked his outboard and took off to another location to begin poling again. He couldn't believe his ears. It hadn't been ten minutes and that same high-pitched whine was ringing across the flat. Sure enough, same guy, still up there driving from the nosebleed section, headed straight for him.
"I just gave up and headed back to the ramp," my friend said.
My son and another fishing buddy were listening to all of this and by now their grins of disbelief had changed into something more akin to a grimace. My esteemed editor forbids the expletives they were using but, suffice to say they were not pleased.
"So are you guys getting TX numbers and turning these guys in?" my son asked. "Have you tried following one of these morons and confronting them?"
The answer to both questions was, "Nah, it's not worth it. There is no law against what they're doing. Until someone gets hurt or killed I doubt anything will be done unless somebody goes berserk, which is always a possibility."
The conversation continued with more reports of grossly unsportsmanlike conduct by my friend and predictable reactions of dismay and disbelief from those of us listening. And so, over the absolute best lasagna dinner I've ever been served, but hardly in the mood to appreciate, we decided it just wasn't worth our time or energy to subject ourselves to any of the shenanigans my friend was describing.
The next morning at 5:00, with our gear all packed and the boat hooked up, we decided against going fishing and headed home. The talk was all about the previous evening's conversation, and while we were pretty involved in our discussion, we didn't fail to notice the seeming endless line of headlights at the ramps as we passed by.