Over the past several years I’ve been disappointed with the number of people complaining about people getting too close to them while they are fishing, but growing up here and remembering Saturday mornings when you only saw 3 or 4 other boats I kind of understand people’s frustration. In many cases it is not really an issue of others being too close, but more about finding a place where you can have some peace. We spend the entire week in workplaces full of people. We spend even more time than ever sitting in traffic with large numbers of people, many who cannot drive, with the exception of driving up our blood pressure and we fish to get away from it all, so naturally when the crowd finds you in your favorite fishing spot your first reaction is one of negativity.
Last Friday my brother, son, and I took a morning to go fishing and spend some time on the water. My brother took us to an area he has been fishing that I’ve never been before. After some scouting he has developed some fishing spots that very few people know about. I was surprised at how few boats we encountered on the water. Some of the spots he knew and some of the spots we fished just looked good and while we did not catch a million fish, we had 4 really nice fish and a fun, quiet morning with very little noise from other boats and jet skis. Could we have caught more fish in a well known area, probably, but we would have had to deal with constant boat traffic and people constantly coming and going and it would have ruined the experience. I’ve not fished on the weekends much in the past few years primarily because I have two small children and the other reason is because of the crowds and the non-stop noise that comes with fishing on the weekends. As I was fishing Friday, I realized that there are still places you can go fishing and get away from the crowds if you are willing to sacrifice the well-known hot spots, get out of your comfort zone and find some new places to fish. By doing this you may actually find that your trip was much mo