Drift Boats Ethics

[rford]

After months of being passionate about being against the drift boat ban, and I still am, however I do think it may be time for some type of on line "mini test" or “read this" that must be done before one can get on the water with a drift boat or pontoon boat. This should be done at time of registration or rental.
I believe it should cover three areas.
1. Drift Boat Operation
2. Safety
3. Courtesy

You go on internet and it forces you to read each section and then prints out a little addendum you can carry around with like license. No more than 15 - 20 minutes in total.

Why the sudden change in heart, Its not really, I suggested this in my original rant about the ban, but I was fish jacked this weekend by a pontoon boat, and its certainly was not the first time, so I thought I would share the story.

We were in a drift boat at the head of an eddy. We had just spent about 45 minutes working some fish and even caught a couple. It was a Guide ( MarkM ), GBS and myself.

As we are contemplating our next move downstream a pontoon parks itself about 100 ft up stream of us on the same line. GBS notes that the guy looks familiar. Immediately downstream from us is the next pod of fish that we can hit and safely give the drift boat farther downstream plenty of room without crowding them.

As the pontoon with the familiar guy comes around us as we are just about to move. We say hello and recognize ourselves as fellow Pequesters from NJ.
Once you do the I know you thing, there is an immediate false sense of security that every one will play nice.

No sooner than we finish our 6 degrees of separation chat, when he moves into spot we were headed for. Annoyed but figuring he did not realize we were about to head there, we decide to head farther down stream..

Now our guide Mark is courteous to a fault. He gives a very wide berth to next drift boat and set us way outside the "Fishy" lane and we set our sites on next group of rising fish 500 ft downstream of that boat.

As we are sitting watching, Mr. Pequest comes around us on the outside, at light speed. Then he cuts in and head towards the fish we are moving on.

Now my guide is pissed, but holds his tongue as I have made a connection with this guy.

We shrug it off and head down to next pod of fish. Just as we are setting up on them, we see Mr. pequest zipping away from the fish he just hijacked from us. Now we are even more annoyed as that was a wasted opportunity for all.

As he starts coming around us again, I yell over " Hey man we are setting up on fish, give us some room " He barely avoids going through the new pod of fish, passes them, puts his boat right in the lane where all the fish are rising and runs all they way down to bottom of the eddy running over every rising fish and never stopping, never to be seen again that day.

It seems so simple to me. If the question even pops into your head, "will I in anyway disturb that other boat" than there is your answer, Yes, now stay away far away.

Ok that’s my rant on discourteous drifters.

Ralph