Unsportsman like conduct

[ragincajun]

Never have I ever experienced such unsportsman like conduct on black lake...as I did tonight. I took my son with me, and only wanted to fish a few hours before dark as to make sure the boat is ready for Saturday. I was having electrical issues earlier in the day and spent the afternoon fixing them. So....we left the state launch and fished around Orchard Bay and Middle point bay, and then down to big bay. Tired of the weeds as we were using x rap 10's and big spoons for pike, we headed back north to finish our night fishing in less weedy waters between the state launch and the bridge.

After getting to our destination...we noticed a small bass tracker boat coming north at us from the center of the lake somewhere. Not more than 50 yards from land, this boat went between us and land, circled around us, and then headed all the way back south in the middle of the lake until we could no longer see them. WHY WOULD ANYONE DO SUCH A UNSPORTSMAN LIKE ACT!!!!!!!

[wildchild]

We see crap like that often on the river down here! I don't know what they are trying to prove, but I keep wishing that they will catch a rock and rip thier lower unit to shreds! I always leave as much room as possible between my boat and others, sadly there are some who find it fun to do these stupid stunts. My biggest problems have been with jet skiis running way too close for comfort.

[VReaction]

Ragincajun, my dad had a similar incident. We as a family would vacation for 2 weeks on Black Lake at Fisherman's Landing and must have ventured into someone’s fishing honey hole. A boat operator began circling our anchored rental boat purposely disturbing our fishing area, scaring the wits out of my mom (she was not a good swimmer). This continued until the boat operator decided he’d created enough wave action and mayhem to dissuade us from fishing “in his area”. He was correct he’d pretty much wrecked our family fishing fun for that day. But, that was not the end of it! Far from it, now my father didn't take kindly to some oaf laying claim to a certain area of the lake and especially, the way this boater tried to enforce his no fishing claim upon us. As the boat departed our area we all sat in astonishment as to what had just happened. My dad had a 1959 Evinrude 18 hp, a rental fiberglass 16ft boat and 4 occupants. Obviously he was not going to catch this much faster boat, but he did know the boat's departure direction. Dad was just seething with anger and took it upon himself to glass the lake morning, noon & night with his binoculars looking for this jerk. Sure enough his persistence paid off, he’d found the boat and eventually where it was moored. He and a friend covertly bass fished the area in a different boat getting nice and close to the dock checking out the boat in question comparing boat reg. numbers, boat color everything matched. When he was convinced that in fact this was the boat, he contacted DEC and the State Police telling them of the encounter, the location of the boat, and how everything matched. He explained the reluctance of my mom to venture back out onto the water, and the emanate danger placed upon his children in the boat even though we did have our life jackets on. The State Police showed great interest in the matter and said they would contact the registered owner. We don’t know what ever happened with the State Police or DEC but we never again had any problems fishing in that area.

[ragincajun]

I would like to think that your incident and mine are few and far between. Thanks for sharing your story. I wish they would have been civil and at least explained to me why they were upset or what the problem was. I sit here racking my brain about whether I passed them to fast causing waves that messed up there fishing, or whether they are just doing what happened to you. Protecting an area they consider their own. I do drive fast from point A to point B, but always stay in the middle and as far away from boats as possible. My son and I racked our brains about any boat we passed and came up blank. It is really bugging me why they intentionly did what they did. Oh well...as I said, we were fishing for pike but as soon as they stirred up the water, I caught a nice large mouth bass. So whatever their intentions, it didn't work. We put the bass back immediately and left as our day was done anyway.

[funtimesBL]

Ragin-
I have been fishing with you before and I think the problem is theirs, not yours. More importantly, did you send you son up into that tree to retrieve my lure from last summer?

[wildchild]

I told ya Funtimes, that thing was on Ebay about a week later! Didn't bring much as it only catches the little ones!

[funtimesBL]

Wildchild you were the highest bidder right?
I look at ragin's incident as something like this, there are idiots on the highway and I assume some of those same idiots own boats as well.

[tmutt]

Time for me to chime in. Even tough these incidences do happen fom time to time, they seldom occur on Black Lake. Agreed, once is too often but you will find more of this action on most other lakes.

Shame on the person who did it! Did you happen to get the registration number of that Bass Tracker? Not that it would be a good place to publish that information here but if you got it you should report it to somebody.

BLACK LAKE FISH & GAME ASSOCIATION, INC.
c/o Phil Trivilino, Treasurer
315-393-3543

Our community at the lake doesn't want to accept that kind of action.

[492VS]

If you spend any time near water you will always encounter a WTF moment that just makes you wonder what people are thinking. The boat launch is another area if I had the spare time I would put a chair out by one and watch the comedy. Went to launch the boat at a free launch last wednesday around 2 PM, some idiot tied his pontoon boat up at the launch dock basically preventing any launching or retrieving. Waited around for 20 minutes looking to see if I can spot any person out in the parking lot coming to get the boat. I give up and go next door to a marina and pay 10 bucks to launch the boat. Go out and do some fishing and come back in around 8PM and that boat is still there! Mind you that dock has 4 other places to tie up to so you don't impede the launch and retrieve area. For a second I thought about un tying the boat and pushing it out into the bay. Cottage owners are not excuded either. One example I thought was funny is these particular cottages are separated by 4 feet and pretty close to the water front. On their dock is one of those rolling portable hot tubs. I come down the shoreline fishing in 8-10 feet of water about 50 feet from the tips of the dock. Fishing the deep weedline when all of a sudden this owner starts yelling at me cause I'm invading his privacy while the family is in the hot tub. Startled the crap out of me cause I really did not see them till he shouted. I didn't say a word and just kept moving fishing down the shoreline then all of a sudden he starts throwing rocks in the water around me. I look back and se he has a pile of them by the tub and must do this all the time. I would hate to by the cottage adjacent to that owner that must be a nightmare. These didn't happen at black Lake, but the state launch there can be very interesting when it has a crosswind with the small dock it has.

[HappyCamper]

Sound like you encountered a real bass-hole, as I like to call them.

[ragincajun]

Thanks Tmutt. You are right. It doesn't happen as often as this story would suggest. I didn't get any information as I was soooo stumped by the action. Now that I might expect it....I will next time. Let's hope there isn't a next time.

For the hot tub story....too funny....sorry it happened, but as you suggest..this guy was ready and never going to change. For the state launch at black lake...I had someone fishing there once, look at me and say..." your boat just cut my line"....um...you know this is a LAUNCH...FIRST RIGHT? .....people will never cease to amaze us.