Had a few situations come up while fun fishing summer, where who had the "right" to a spot. Being summer and not caring, I gave up first rights on a spot.

Situation 1 Small lake

I am fishing a section of bank in a cove, up to a long point, I cannot see the other side which is another cove created by the point. There is grass encompassing both coves and sides of the point and the grass goes out to deeper water. This is a good spot but it is not well known or fished a lot by other anglers.

I fish up to the point, catching a few small fish and now am coming out of the cove, out onto the point and surprise, there is another fisherman coming out of the other cove fishing the same point I want to fish. We are both equal distance from the actual point. I am in a float tube, he's in a plastic pelican type boat with a trolling motor. The way the point is laid out we fished up to it with seeing or hearing the each other.

I pick up my bait and back off to where I do not move up to the point and do not cross the point, basically I go backwards but out to deep water and go fish another spot, and went back to this spot after dark.

Whose spot was that? I have no problem giving it up since I know I am going to fish for a long time today/tonight and will have another shot at it but what if it was a tournament? Call out to do odds or evens?

Situation 2 Medium sized lake

There is a stretch of bank next to a tiny cove, with a little mouth. This stretch has a ton of falling trees, brush, logs, and other wood. This is a real good but well known spot, and a lot of people fish it.

I come in from the main lake to fish it, on the other side of the stretch is a guy in a 14ft aluminum fishing the mouth of the cove but his boat is pointing to the woody stretch, he is not on the stretch and has not casted to it and his boat is slightly moving towards the stretch. I know he is planning to fish that stretch from the other side out to the main lake.

I back off again wait til he fished half way through the stretch, and approach the stretch from the cove, the same way he did. I call out if it was ok if I fished behind him, he happily said of course, I fished half way through the stretch, saw that he was really taking his time with the last bit of stretch which has a few sunken bushes next to a long log.

I do not continue along the stretch, I back off again and head off to fish a down lake spot.

Could I have fished that spot from the mainlake side? He was at one end, I was at the other, the stretch is pretty long 80ish yards.

What is interesting is in Situation 1 We fished up to each other pretty close with out knowing about the other, Now here I see the other angler but could begin fishing the stretch ith out encroaching or crowding. I would stay on one side of it and not cross the half way mark, basically splitting it with him, is that right? Also does the type of boat matter in these situations?

I know in boating right of way, wind or non power craft have right of way over powered craft, but does that apply to fishing?

I have a few more situations I might ask about but these two I think are interesting and related.

Those are both my spots :)

For me it pretty much boils down to

1. Whoever got there first has "rights" to the spot
2. When in doubt, use the Golden Rule
3. When still in doubt, go fish somewhere else

It's sometimes difficult to know how to apply the golden rule if you don't know the intentions of the other guy. Which means a large amount of the time I end up just leaving and coming back later.

I'd really prefer to fish a spot by myself being able to line up casts without distraction anyway.

Could always just talk to the guy in situation 1.

Hey how's it going?
How do you want to do this?
Launch a swimbait at his head and yell "MY POINT!!!"

I always just leave the spot and think this is the best option, but was curious to see the answers and if there was some accepted standards.

I said hey to the first guy and he did not respond, haha, but to be fair I fish too long and for too many days in a row, so I look and sound pretty rough, when I am on the water.

I think this thread would be cool if some tournament situations were posted about whose spot it is and of course it would be funny to hear some of the "encroachment" stories we all have.

I got one for ya. Turned out to be the worst tournament of my life for many reasons.

I had a point i'd been getting lots of hudd bites on in prefishing and made it my first spot to hit come t-day. They had just lifted the 100yard limit rule between boats if i remember correctly. I made my run and was the only one there. I stopped 100 yards shy of the point so I could work my way to the perfect cast. After about a minute, I was within casting distance of the point (though not quite within reach of the deep shelf 50ft off the point), a boat came blasting in and came off plane real close to me, dropped the trolling motor and cut me off. They pulled out their dropshots and proceeded to dissect the point for some time. I was young, and poor, and just spent 150 bucks to gamble on that point basically, and felt like those assholes just robbed me in the literal sense. I was fishing solo that day because my partner flaked on me, so they must have thought I was just fun fishing. Thats totally unacceptable.


Being young and foolish, I retaliated by trimming up the motor and punching it right passed them and over the point. That was low of me, and I know an eye for an eye makes the world blind, but back then, damn I was pissed.

Later, I lost an 8lber at the boat. Then my steering column went out and had to get towed in :(

That was a blatant case of disrespect. Less obvious and perhaps unintentional conflicts I've encountered a lot is when you have semi-barni trout fishermen soaking powerbait on a point you really want to fish. Sometimes, I just ask if they mind if I cast my bass lures around their lines. Other times, I use my best judgement to see if they even understand whats going on - they might be fishing a 1" grub tipped with a marshmallow and a splitshot - in which case...sorry dude, Im gunna work the same point as you. haha.

How about if your on the shore and your walking to a point and a boat comes up obviously seeing you and puts the trolling motor in and casting right at the bank in front of you....I threw my line in front of him. Nothing was said but I sure wanted to say you have the whole bleeping lake and you pull up to a spot im confined to....

Fishing should be fun. Been mad plenty of times about people not showing deference to the unspoken rules of fishing, but continuing to try and not let those things get in the way of having a good time at the lake. If you're not having a good time at the lake, what's the point in going out there? Not everything will be in your control, but more of these kind of situations is in your control than not.

PS, paddleboats rule.

I pretty much agree with Rob here. I don't fish tournaments so that may also contribute to my "whatever" attitude. Fishing for me is fun. An escape.

I've had people troll over a point after I anchored up shallow to fish uphill even though they saw where I was casting to. 5 minutes later a different boat came from the other direction. I just shake my head and laugh.

Then again I am not completely blind and have more than likely done something that made someone else shake their head too.

That is an awesome story, Mountain Bass, it has every fishing story type rolled into one, big fish lost, gambling/tournaments while on a budget(we've all been there), and being cut off on your best spot, boat break down. Sorry that day sucked though.

Swimbait, It seems like most people on here get a massive amount of enjoyment from fishing and discussing fishing, and have very good etiquette, especially compared to most anglers. The people that frequently cut people off, I always assume get a lot less enjoyment out of fishing.

I mean here we are discussing/dissecting/reminiscing about a relatively small aspect of fishing. I have wanted to scratch my own skin off in a "real" ethics class, but here I am discussing fishing ethics.

The average jerk probably just cuts someone off without questioning why, most likely to fish what they think is the best water, catch some fish, complain that the fishing is not as good as the glory days, then go home and watch sports.

In terms of a boater cutting off someone bankfishing, I definitely think some people justify being jerks by what type of water craft your using. I have had 22fters come off plane less than thirty yards away to cut me off, while I am in a tube.

This baffles me, from an etiquette stand point but also safety, I can handle big waves/swells and also wear a lifejacket but if that was a canoe, or a small jon with some beefy barni's do they get swamped and probably die because they don't wear life jackets?