Leo_N.
30-05-2006, 01:36 PM
Hi all.
I went out to West Point on Sunday chasing some doggie and spotted macks. We were one of three boats keen enough to brave the wet, cold conditions early in the morning. We pulled up at West Point and sounded around a bit for some bait and/or structure to pull up over and start burlying up. While doing this, I noticed one motoring up to another, doing a few circles around it, then anchoring almost next to it. In the space of the next two hours, more boats had arrived, and there were 4 or 5 boats all crowded around the same spot.
We boated an amberjack and lost an 80 cm spottie at the boat, before noticing a school of baitfish being worked by mack tuna and birds nearby. We pulled up anchor and motored near them, throwing slices into the school. Just before we stopped, I noticed another boat charging straight at us. As we had stopped, we were more concerned about the fish, but I started to worry when he was about 30 m away, travelling at speed and heading for us. He passed about 10 m away, trolling lures at about 15 knots, which were skipping along, spending about 1/3 of their time actually in the water. This guy circled us once, driving the fish down deep with his roaring 2-stroke, then followed the birds away. We followed the school when it re-surfaced and tried the same thing again, only to have him drive the school down again with the same "technique", contimually charging straight through the middle of the school and driving them deep.
We got sick of this very quickly and trolled off somewhere else, catching a big wolf herring for bait next trip.
I go fishing for a bit of solitude and to get away from the hustle and bustle. I an preferring to think that this guy was just ignorant rather than realising what he was doing, but surely there is more to boating etiquitte than this?
I went out to West Point on Sunday chasing some doggie and spotted macks. We were one of three boats keen enough to brave the wet, cold conditions early in the morning. We pulled up at West Point and sounded around a bit for some bait and/or structure to pull up over and start burlying up. While doing this, I noticed one motoring up to another, doing a few circles around it, then anchoring almost next to it. In the space of the next two hours, more boats had arrived, and there were 4 or 5 boats all crowded around the same spot.
We boated an amberjack and lost an 80 cm spottie at the boat, before noticing a school of baitfish being worked by mack tuna and birds nearby. We pulled up anchor and motored near them, throwing slices into the school. Just before we stopped, I noticed another boat charging straight at us. As we had stopped, we were more concerned about the fish, but I started to worry when he was about 30 m away, travelling at speed and heading for us. He passed about 10 m away, trolling lures at about 15 knots, which were skipping along, spending about 1/3 of their time actually in the water. This guy circled us once, driving the fish down deep with his roaring 2-stroke, then followed the birds away. We followed the school when it re-surfaced and tried the same thing again, only to have him drive the school down again with the same "technique", contimually charging straight through the middle of the school and driving them deep.
We got sick of this very quickly and trolled off somewhere else, catching a big wolf herring for bait next trip.
I go fishing for a bit of solitude and to get away from the hustle and bustle. I an preferring to think that this guy was just ignorant rather than realising what he was doing, but surely there is more to boating etiquitte than this?