Other boats trolling thru your fishing spot

[blanked]

Recently moved from texas to idaho and never experienced this in texas.  I will be planted maybe 50 feet off shore casting toward the shore when multiple other boats troll along the shoreline thru the area i am casting to.   How do you handle this?  Blow a gasket?    Do nothing?   Or in between?

[looking45]

I’ve had the same thing happen to me a few times. Each time they were trolling for trout. I don’t think they knew they were encroaching as all the guys trolling for trout come  Lose to each other. It didn’t take Long for them to pass and I just ignored it. If I would have gotten upset, it would have ruined my morning,’not theirs. If it was a bass fisherman, I would have addressed it but I wouldn’t get upset. I’m on the water to relax and have a good day. I can stay home and get the confrontations. YMMV

[JbroBass]

Just yesterday I had a pontoon boat at speed pass between my kayak and the shoreline (which I was obviously casting to) like 75 feet away. They gave a polite wave though lol. 

[RDB]

I usually don’t like to use marker buoys because they show my spots to every fisherman that drives by.  Friday I had 2 out about 30 yards apart marking the bend of a roadbed and another boat drove right over one.  Thousands of acres and they couldn’t avoid my 30 yard offshore spot.  I guess he was too focused on the yip yap Pomeranian standing on his deck.  Some people are idiots.

[gim]

Although I don't encounter very many boats trolling where I bass fish, I do on rare occasion have this happen.  I often have my boat positioned on the deep edge of the weed line and I am clearly casting along it, or towards shore into pockets of cover.

 

I make myself very obvious to oncoming watercraft (whether they may be trolling or not).  98% of them realize that going inside of me is going to be a big mistake, so they loop out behind me.  Quite often, at close distance.  I personally think that if you can cast to another boat, they are too close.  But in the cases where boats troll past, I give them a pass because they purposefully went behind me.

 

In very rare cases when someone trolls in front of me where I'm clearly casting, I'd send a cast very close.  I think they would get the point and refrain from doing it again.

[Bankc]

Stuff like this happens all of the time to me.  I had a wake boat buzz by and swamp me in my kayak several times a few weeks ago.  I could tell they didn't know what they were doing, or that they were endangering me, because it was a brand new boat and they waved and smiled at me. Plus, they were pulling their kid in a tube in a cove which is not only against the law but dangerous because there are sand bars there and the lake is 10 feet below normal.  

 

Really, there's not much you can or should do.  Maybe if you get the chance, explain to them what you were doing and how their actions impacted you, without getting upset about it.  You don't want to start a fight, but a friendly education isn't a bad thing.  

 

Mostly though, just let it slide.  Some people are jerks.  Some people don't know any better.  Some people just aren't paying attention.  But getting angry won't fix the problem.  It will ruin your day, however.  And picking a fight could ruin the rest of your life.  And even if you were to win that fight and get away with it, it wouldn't change or fix anything.  They'll go back to being who they are.  

 

The best thing to do is focus on that next cast.  That's why you came.  Don't let them take you out of your game.  

[Bird]

Usually don't encounter this in the lakes I fish but on the rare occasion that I do....... not worth letting someone uneducated to simple ediqitte to ruin my day, seriously.

 

Those types simply won't change, nothing you can do.

Best to find other water.

[gim]

5 minutes ago, Bankc said:

I had a wake boat buzz by and swamp me in my kayak several times a few weeks ago.  I could tell they didn't know what they were doing, or that they were endangering me, because it was a brand new boat and they waved and smiled at me.

 

This thread isn't about recreational wake boats though.  It's about other boats trolling through the casting zone.  I see the connection, but I could post 100 times about recreational boats (especially wake boats) creating massive waves that cause problems.

[blanked]

I am tempted to move the boat directly in there path.  Then play dumb.  If they complain it will be a education for them

Quote

 

 

[Tennessee Boy]

It happens.   I know I can’t do anything about it so I put all of my effort into controlling my reaction when it happens.   

[Jmilburn76]

The area I usually kayak fish at has some spots so shallow that I have to lift my pedal drive up to keep from hitting, it needs around 18" of water. I like the area because the shallow water mainly keeps boats away.

 

I was out there a few weeks back and a bass boat came past me at every bit of 60 mph. I just shook my head and kept on fishing working my way back toward my truck for the next hour or so. As I came around a bend I saw the boat was off in the distance by a bridge.

 

As I was fishing a rocky ledge and fallen tree about 100 yards from him he started trolling in my direction and literally got to within 5' of me. I kept my cool even though I didnt want to, he simply said "Hey Bud" and went on. I continued working the ledge and got to the bridge and the same area he had just left and caught two within 15 minutes. 

 

I could have let him get me upset and started something but it would have messed us both up and I more than likely wouldn't have caught the two fish! It made my day catching what he had missed though.

[gim]

10 hours ago, blanked said:

I am tempted to move the boat directly in there path.  Then play dumb.  If they complain it will be a education for them

Not a bad idea.  Would be a passive-aggressive way of confronting it without the confrontation.

[NHBull]

Life is to short to loose any brain cells over this.

 

There are a ton of @ss’s out there, don’t let them ruin your day or live rent free in your mind

[TOXIC]

Actually trolling it only happens on Lake St Clair.  You can be anywhere and fishermen trolling with planer boards or straight back will actually do circles around you.  They are trolling for walleye and/or Muskie.  Happens so often we don’t give it a second thought. 

[Bankc]

11 hours ago, gimruis said:

 

This thread isn't about recreational wake boats though.  It's about other boats trolling through the casting zone.  I see the connection, but I could post 100 times about recreational boats (especially wake boats) creating massive waves that cause problems.

True.  And my apologies for veering off topic.  People don't troll much around here.  But my advice remains the same.  It might be a bit of a reductio ad absurdum, but either way, getting angry and making a big deal out of it won't help.  The only thing you can really control in this world is yourself.  

[J Francho]

For the OP, are we talking trolling with lines out? And that close to shore? What are they trolling for? Definitely not normal. The trout and salmon guy up here are out in 300+ feet of water sometimes miles off shore. 

[Darth-Baiter]

this one lake.  might be my imagination, but every time a boat came too close to me, I would cast into the wake.  I got a hit often.  I think the waves must dislodge food items off the bottom?  I'm finally experienced on my kayak enough to know which boat wakes are pushing the envelope of safety, and which ones I can ride safely and keep fishing.  

 

I rarely get one passing me on the inside.  that would suck if I already had a line out.  

[gim]

15 minutes ago, J Francho said:

For the OP, are we talking trolling with lines out?

Well I assume that they have lines out, since they're "trolling."  If they didn't have any lines out, they'd just be out there for a boat ride.  The whole concept of trolling is with lines out.

[J Francho]

Not everyone uses the same terminology, which is why I'm asking. I mean, we use a trolling motor all day, without trolling. 

[the reel ess]

I had a guy squeeze between me and the bank once and I was no more than 20 yards from the bank. I cast a worm right at his trolling motor prop and he had to lift it. Then he says to me "It's a big lake."?

Had another guy drive right up to the bank in front of me when I was clearly fishing that bank and let what looked to be his grandson out to take a leak. He left the motor running the whole time. 

 

I responded by buying a kayak and asking permission to fish local small, private places. Never looked back. I haven't fished a big public lake in 5 years or more.

[RDB]

22 minutes ago, Darth-Baiter said:

might be my imagination, but every time a boat came too close to me, I would cast into the wake.  I got a hit often.

If you watch Ott Defoe’s MLF win at Lake Athens a few years ago, he won by catching schooling bass near the ramp.  He was fishing next to a no wake bridge and when the bite would slow down, he would ask other boaters to run their big motors through his spot to stir up the bait.  If you can find the video, it was one of those dream situations.  I don’t remember the exact numbers but he caught something like 60 pounds in the last hour or so.

[WRB]

Public water you don’t have a right to fish anywhere and claim as your spot. The trollers have the same right to the water as you do.

Tom

[JbroBass]

30 minutes ago, WRB said:

Public water you don’t have a right to fish anywhere and claim as your spot. The trollers have the same right to the water as you do.

Tom

 

I guess that would make it ok to cut right across the stern of their boat as they pass by then? 

 

This isn't about rights to the water as much as just plain common courtesy. 

[gim]

2 minutes ago, JbroBass said:

This isn't about rights to the water as much as just plain common courtesy. 

 

X2

[Dwight Hottle]

41 minutes ago, WRB said:

Public water you don’t have a right to fish anywhere and claim as your spot. The trollers have the same right to the water as you do.

Tom

 

That same logic allows you the transgressed to cut across the trollers stern cutting their lines. Common sense must prevail otherwise someone's is going to get hurt.