The Worst Thing About Fishermen

[CrankFate]

The guy that fish 1/10th as often as you do, for 1/10 the species you fish for, but then go and act like they taught you everything you know.

 

OK, I’m done.

[huZZah]

Not that you come to fish and they’re already there? Shucks. 

[bulldog1935]

I've heard people talk about mentors, but I was always the tough to mentor type - I've been trying to teach my dad to fish since I was 12.  

My friends range from natural-born to just happy to be out.  A couple who can over-think themselves out of fish in any situation.  

But the fish are always gravy.  The good times with friends are most important.  

 

 

[Bluebasser86]

Guys that follow the "bent rod" pattern.

 

Ones that blow up your spot because they recognize something in a picture. Just because you recognize that one tree or rock in the background doesn't mean announce to the whole world where I'm at, didn't mention the location for a reason ? The smart thing to do would keep your trap shut and get on that hot bite too while it last ?‍♂️

[Bluegillslayer]

16 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Ones that blow up your spot because they recognize something in a picture. Just because you recognize that one tree or rock in the background doesn't mean announce to the whole world where I'm at

When I take a picture of a fish I purposely angle the camera so people cant tell where I caught it. A lot of the pictures on social media with me and a fish do not even include the body of water I caught the fish from. 

[slonezp]

17 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Guys that follow the "bent rod" pattern.

 

Ones that blow up your spot because they recognize something in a picture. Just because you recognize that one tree or rock in the background doesn't mean announce to the whole world where I'm at, didn't mention the location for a reason ? The smart thing to do would keep your trap shut and get on that hot bite too while it last ?‍♂️

Snitches get stiches.

My home water has no secret spots. Multiple tournaments held every weekend and if you don't run into at least half the competitors during an 8 hour day, then it's YOU that is fishing in the wrong spots. First come first serve and the right cast at the right time, come to mind.

 

Now, my panfish lakes....if word got out to the bucketheads, the lakes would be decimated. In 25 years of fishing them, I have only told 3 people about the lakes and believe me it was difficult to even do that. If you look at my past panfish reports, the pics are of the livewell and/or the sink. If I mentioned where I caught them, it was always my home water, never Lake Menderchuck. 

[DitchPanda]

18 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

Guys that follow the "bent rod" pattern.

 

Ones that blow up your spot because they recognize something in a picture. Just because you recognize that one tree or rock in the background doesn't mean announce to the whole world where I'm at, didn't mention the location for a reason ? The smart thing to do would keep your trap shut and get on that hot bite too while it last ?‍♂️

I've mentioned on here before I had a run in with a guy and his lady last year where I was on a solid bite and these two roll up and stand back to back with me. The annoyance of this coupled with the covid stress at the time really wore on me until I said a few things I'm not proud of to them and walked away. I was mad how I handled it but also thought about how much worse it could have been. If I was 20 I woulda pushed harder and had the guy gotten riled up I woulda swung on him. Glad that I'm grown up enough now to realize that a fishing spot ain't worth a ride in a cop car.

[gim]

1 hour ago, slonezp said:

Now, my panfish lakes....if word got out to the bucketheads, the lakes would be decimated.

That happens here a lot. Some bonehead gets on a good winter or spring crappie bite, posts about it publicly, and the next thing you know there is a shanty town of meat hunting ice anglers parked there for days on end.

[Columbia Craw]

Fishing would be awesome if ..... oh I’ll leave it alone.

[Hammer 4]

Some years ago, there were a couple of local So. Cali fishing forums, and any time one of us caught either good numbers or a good size bass that we posted pic's of, we would always photoshop the back ground out as not to give away the spot we fished. See my avatar, notice the background is all white clouds. Otherwise the pond/lake would get blown up by non locals that would usually trash the place, hence why did the photoshoping.

Nowadays, I hardly ever post pic's.

[Captain Phil]

When bass tournaments first started back in the sixties, it became popular to paint your name on the sides of your boat.  Some angler's names were fairly large.  Like everyone else, I put my name on both sides along with a dozen decals and such.  When I began to win tournaments, a friend came to me and told me he knew every spot where I was fishing, all he had to do was look for my boat.  My next boat was all one color with no names or placards of any kind.  ?

[TnRiver46]

If someone is following my boat around they are highly confused and we won’t have to worry about them catching any bass 

[DitchPanda]

10 hours ago, Hammer 4 said:

Some years ago, there were a couple of local So. Cali fishing forums, and any time one of us caught either good numbers or a good size bass that we posted pic's of, we would always photoshop the back ground out as not to give away the spot we fished. See my avatar, notice the background is all white clouds. Otherwise the pond/lake would get blown up by non locals that would usually trash the place, hence why did the photoshoping.

Nowadays, I hardly ever post pic's.

I've never posted a picture anywhere and have no plans to. Ill take a pic on my phone and send it to my close fishing buddies(2 guys) and that's normally as far as it goes.

[Deplorable Fisherman]

13 hours ago, Hammer 4 said:

Some years ago, there were a couple of local So. Cali fishing forums, and any time one of us caught either good numbers or a good size bass that we posted pic's of, we would always photoshop the back ground out as not to give away the spot we fished. See my avatar, notice the background is all white clouds. Otherwise the pond/lake would get blown up by non locals that would usually trash the place, hence why did the photoshoping.

Nowadays, I hardly ever post pic's.

People would ask me where I caught a fish and I would tell them Lake Nunya. It was amazing how long that lasted with people saying they couldn't find it on a map or searching the web...eventually they caught on. 

[PhishLI]

I really despise spot burners. I became friendly with a local at one of my spots. If we bumped into each other we'd sometimes team up to wade sketchy places together at night. It turned out that he was friendly with a few of the guys I fish with and occasionally fished with them. Went to a fishing show with him once. A nice guy.

 

One day he told me he was thinking of moving closer to the yard where he keeps his business, but was hoping to find a spot very close to good water. He showed me several real estate listings on his phone that he saw as hopeful. Several months later he moved to one of them on a private lake and began hammering them and sent pics. While he never gave me his address, or the name of the lake, he did invite me out to fish there several times, but he always wanted it to be a bigger deal than I wanted: Bring the wife and dog for the weekend, yada, yada, so I never went. I think he was offended eventually. We lost touch.

 

Fast forward a few years later and he starts a FB fishing page. I don't do FB, but my brother does, and I have his login info for when I want to browse fishing sites. I checked out my old pal's page and one of the first things I see is him answering a "where to fish" question by directing total muckin strangers from the internet to one of our prime big fish spots. I'm angered. Amazed. Dude moved 70 miles away and he's doing "this".

 

I thought about it and remembered some of the listings he showed me back then and started narrowing things down. Did a google earth search and finally found a shot of his boat in his yard. I now have his address that he kept secret from me and everyone else in the circle of trust.

 

I texted this dude and asked him why in the world he'd be directing hordes of nobodies to my spot. He gave me some BS about nothing really being secret, it's a free country, he's just trying to help people, blah blah blah. I responded by texting his address to him, and wrote that I'd never dream of sending total strangers there. His only follow up was to promise to delete any posts where he'd recommended my spot. Turns out he did it several times over time. His FB posts specifying my places were deleted within the hour.

[TnRiver46]

Do any of you guys ever think “what if this thing I call “MY spot” is about 34 other people’s “MY spot” too??  
 

because it probably is. I have a dock on a lake and I don’t even consider that “my spot” because it isn’t. It’s available to the public for fishing 

[CrankFate]

Around where I live people will take pictures of fish caught elsewhere and post them to the internet in very recognizable areas to intentionally make certain areas overrun with people. That is worse than spot burning. 

[PhishLI]

15 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Do any of you guys ever think “what if this thing I call “MY spot” is about 34 other people’s “MY spot” too??

Sure. That's always the case.

15 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

I have a dock on a lake and I don’t even consider that “my spot” because it isn’t. It’s available to the public for fishing 

If your neighbor and fishing buddy moved away, then proceeded to post your dock's location on a FB fishing group directing a bunch of strangers to fish there, would you be pleased? Would you thank him?

[TnRiver46]

25 minutes ago, PhishLI said:

Sure. That's always the case.

If your neighbor and fishing buddy moved away, then proceeded to post your dock's location on a FB fishing group directing a bunch of strangers to fish there, would you be pleased? Would you thank him?

I suppose I’d never see it. We have almost zero small public waters so I guess it’s a little different. Somebody in the 2019 bass master classic or a 2020 elite tournament could have fished my dock on Bass live so it doesn’t make a hill of beans if someone says it’s good on Facebook. I imagine someone fishes it almost everyday, sometimes I see several boats fish it. 
 

It has just never bothered me when people say or show spots online. Probably because everywhere I fish has been on TV for a fishing tournament since the mid-70s. I get excited watching pros fish in my area, some people get angry about it and wish they never come here. 

[PhishLI]

16 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

We have almost zero small public waters so I guess it’s a little different.

That's really the issue. These spots are 19 and 6 acres.  A few of us have spent time cutting paths through brush, making cuts to the water, and clearing overhead branches to areas that were previously unfishable. It's a hard pill to swallow when someone who's moved away is inviting new people to fish there. What makes things worse is that I'm pretty close to NYC. The red army bucket brigades find these spots through FB too. They strip the waters in my area. The fishing is brutally tough. Most new faces fade away quickly because they can't take it, especially if they happen to be targeting bass. 

[TnRiver46]

Just now, PhishLI said:

That's really the issue. These spots are 19 and 6 acres.  A few of us have spent time cutting paths through brush, making cuts to the water, and clearing overhead branches to areas that were previously unfishable. It's a hard pill to swallow when someone who's moved away is inviting new people to fish there. What makes things worse is that I'm pretty close to NYC. The red army bucket brigades find these spots through FB too. They strip the waters in my area. The fishing is brutally tough. Most new faces fade away quickly because they can't take it, especially if they happen to be targeting bass. 

I’d say a guy like you that fishes crazy baits during crazy hours has nothing to fear from people that look for fishing spots on Facebook 

[PhishLI]

3 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I’d say a guy like you that fishes crazy baits during crazy hours has nothing to fear from people that look for fishing spots on Facebook 

Yup. You're probably right! But that guy is still a Richard for doing what he did.

[TnRiver46]

2 minutes ago, PhishLI said:

Yup. You're probably right! But that guy is still a Richard for doing what he did.

Most folks like that don’t even realize what they’ve done is taboo. Yesterday I pulled up to a ramp off to the side to take loose the straps and everything. Three different boats pulled straight into the parking lot and directly onto the ramp, basically cutting me in line. All 3 of them had no clue, one even blocked me in after he launched and parked, got out of his truck and said “are you putting in?”

 

can’t wait til winter 

[Bird]

I like the term " spot burner " used above and had to laugh......every spot is getting BURNT today because everyone is fishing now.

 

I waited over 2 hrs last week to fish my favorite pre-spawn section of lake and this was on a Wednesday morning. Lol

[jbsoonerfan]

The lake that I fish a lot is only about 950 acres so it can get crowded but it is mostly full of guys chasing after Crappie. One day last fall I was out on the lake and a couple guys were working a bank as I was leaving a creek. One of them says, doing any good. I told him I had caught 5 and a couple decent ones. He tells me they haven't caught a thing. As he gets closer he says, aren't you the guy that posts the pictures on that fishing forum. I told him it was indeed me. He said, we only came here because of those pictures, I guess you know how to fish it though. He said they drove a little over an hour and probably wouldn't be back. LOL