Fishing etiquette

[DRH1175]

How close is too close on mille Lacs these days? There are thousands of spots that hold fish on this lake. Maybe you like to fish in the groups may be not. I don't when looking for a spot I use my lakemaster and find something where I can fish alone. There was still close to 1/4 mile of this structure to the south of that had no one fishing. Yesterday right at prime time of 4:15 PM this group of 5 trucks and 12 people pull up, surround me and drill about 50 holes some within 30 feet of my shack. They all had their Ice Armor gear and strikemasters drilling like mad. I suspect that maybe it was a guide maybe not but to me, it really frustrated me. We were in one of the hottest streaks of the day that started right at 3pm. It stopped imediatly as soon as the 3 augers started drilling holes all over the place. Funny thing is the hole group of 12 only caught 1 walleye and used only about a 5th of the holes they drilled. and only fished for 45 minutes.

[tfin]

I don't know that the I would say they were too close but they didn't have much sense. I was out yesterday and had people drilling holes around 4pm also. Not the best time to be going to a spot when the bites have been shutting down around 5pm. All in all I would agree that it's poor ettiquete to be drilling a ton of holes around a person right in the middle of the hot bite.

[dvd]

We were there as well. Man that was quite a large group and drilled a great deal of holes right at primetime. I think it was a guide as well since he seemed to be drilling all of the holes.

[hart0670]

This is a curious question for me, in all honesty, what do people think is "too close?" Does it depend on how big of a group is already fishing a spot? Does it depend on what time it is? Does it depend on how many holes they drill? There certainly are tons of spots on Mille Lacs, but there also seem to be large groups on the majority of them.

50 holes (even more like 15 or 20) seems way excessive to drill that close to someone, but generally I would feel that 30+ feet would be far enough away if you are on structure where there are already other fishermen.

[crappiekid]

yes this sux and perfectly legal. 10 feet is the rule / reg. When this happened to me one time i went outside started to bang stuff around hit my shovel on the ice / crank the stereo / smash the chisel and drill more holes my self once they were set up.. I fiqured what goes around comes around.. i sent a message to the group. They probably will do it again some time but i sure made my point. it did not matter to me if i caught fish that night or not.... Some people are plain rude.

[mixxedbagg]

That's horrendous! Few animals are stupider than loud fishermen. I wish the obnoxious a-holes that do stuff like this would just frickin' quit!

There's something about access to gasoline powered engines that turns some guys into flippin' idiots in the 3rd degree. Just because you CAN drill a [badWordUsage] of holes doesn't mean you SHOULD. Have some basic consideration for others, people!

[BradB]

We had the attack of the wheel houses yesterday. 5 or 6 of them drove in and surrounded us. I know it's legal, but come on guys. We parked our trucks 100 yards away from our houses, and ran a generator cable in another direction to keep them from getting so close. I hate wheel house people who drive around my house (probably looking at their gps) finding spots. Go away jerks.

[gonecribbin]

This post reminds me of the spring pool 4 bumper boat posts that come up every spring.

Mille lacs is the busiest lake there is in the winter... Your going to have all kinds of people to deal with and you cant fix it... Smart, dumb, experienced, inexperienced, considerate, inconsiderate, sober, drunk, reverends, felons, you name it they're out there!!

No matter where you set up, eventually you will have company. It sucks, but its Mille lacs....

[Chef]

Do you think they were trying to PYO to get you to not come back? These Guides know exactly what they're doing--they consider you a nuisance to their paying guests and want you O.U.T. of their spots. What better way to legally get your Goat than this?

I've had this happen to me on LOTW and Mille Lacs...

I'm sure I'll catch it for pointing it out too...

[chris63]

Just buy some caution tape at the store put it up in random patterns with signs that say "caution thin ice"they'll read that and high tail it out of there.c63

[mixxedbagg]

Quote:

No matter where you set up, eventually you will have company. It sucks, but its Mille lacs....

Company, I welcome. Heavy-metal-concert-arriving-by-freight-train-with-fireworks-decibel-company...dirtbags.