Was at a reef recently with maybe 2 other boats several hundred yards apart . Plenty of good spots to fish fir many other boats . Along comes a boat that pulls up maybe 30 ft from us and starts circling our boat, then proceeds to set up camp 30 or do feet from us and actually drifted to within 15 feet of us .
My question is how close is too close . Sorry for typos,
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If you can hit them with a two ounce sinker using a 5000 series spinning reel and an 8 foot rod they are too close. ask me how I know, lol
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Been there done that…my youngen has literally had 5 boats re-anchor all around us to get on the hot bite that she was on that day. But if you don’t have the right bait they can even board our boat and ol’ girl will still put on a free clinic. I use to laugh when I took my youngens out there before that Biden Blend Premium kicked in and watch them net 30 fish before 10+ boats combined would MAYBE catch 3. You are bottom fishing not drift fishing or trolling so casting upstream only allows the bait a chance to get down straight beneath you which is what you want…so though it may not seem respectful, remember everyone that went to that reef probably just spent roughly $20 in fuel one way to attempt to bring a po boy sandwich or two back to the filet station. Wait until the bite is on, you cannot squeeze in without being on top of other boats…imagine how they feel towards a person that shows up mid morning
Nice to see you back!
I could have hit them with a Ronco pocket fisherman
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Good answer, sir, thanks for the post.
Too close is DEFINITELY a matter if opinion(s), but I have seen many situations like yours TROLLING on the move, so in this world we just have to co exist, whatever???
Ronco. Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in quite some time.
Some folks are just inconsiderate, and I’ll bet those folks are the same that tailgate, don’t use turn signals and don’t let others out in traffic.
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If you’re bottom fishing on a typical reef, say Chas nearshore, C60, Capers for example…the structure is 1) well known and 2) not super spread out (For the most part), therefore I think the acceptable space between boats could be closer. If you’re in an area of live bottom, and a boat pulls up 30 yards from you, that’s not cool. But when a boat pulls up 20-30 yards from you on a public reef, it’s likely because they punched in the exact same numbers you did at the dock. Similar to deep holing the popular spots, reef fishing is social event of sorts, if you pull up at a safe distance and ask politely if you can anchor on the same piece of structure, or get in line for the next run up to the shrimp hole, there’s a good chance you’ll be let in… just pull up late and act like you own the place, you’re likely to be dodging 2oz sinkers for a while : ) Being a member since I was 15yro, in 2000, I’ve learned a lot from the CF community…I’m going to try to be better about posting going forward. Have a great day everyone.
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What this guy said.
I’ve been in the Broad River at the “rip” cobia fishing and I believe I could have jumped from boat to boat for a 500 yards.
I’ve been anchored up at the Lawrence and actually let another boat tie to ours as we had a good anchor set and they were extremely courteous. Bottom line… it usually sucks pretty bad when you are out that far and have boats crowd in on ya. Get away from the Public reefs and finds some good live bottom.
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I used to do a lot of scuba. We were anchored on a good ledge out in the Gulf. We were displaying the diver down and the “alpha” flags. This boat load of stinkers pulled up right on top of us and proceeded to drop their anchor. I was cussing a blue streak and threating them with bodily injury. The SOB just looked at me and said “no compendia”. About that time the guys that were down surfaced and they were very angry (to say the least). The interlopers were only fishermen, no SCUBA. My buddy told me to just cool it and have a beer. Have a beer my rump! He just kept smiling and explained these folks are only fishermen, No scuba and their beautiful stainless anchor and 20 feet of stainless anchor chain were hopeless tangled in the rocks. We sat back for a half hour and watched them TRY to recover their anchor and chain.
LMAO
so I have to ask… did that beautiful anchor find it’s hold on it’s own, or did it have help? I’ve done a lot of snorkeling and a little shallow free diving… Just don’t think I have the stones to deep water dive. Although I’d love to get on some of our spiney lobsters.
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I would have cut his rope. Wouldn’t have thought of tangling it up to no return. Definitely would have been a better idea than cutting the rope.
I’ve had a guy pull up to me on a public reef, and ask me where the ship was(was fishing a 200 foot ship)… Obviously guy wasn’t good with his electronics and he spot locked about 50 foot from us…
Was kinda aggravating at first, but in no way was his presence a bother…
We left after about an hour, and went back and trailered the boat… Before we left the guy ask where we were going next, which i told him “home”…
In the boat landing parking lot, what do i see? The same guy flagging me down, to tell me i had left my VHF antenna up on my T-Top…
So my new found friend saved me from destroying my antenna and who knows what else.lol
So in this case i think my shadow was just due to lack of knowledge, comfort being 15 miles out alone, or possibly both…
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