Where's the on the water etiquette ?

[Ice Cream Bill]

Was fishing Friday am offshore on a NS boat when I see a 38 ft Henriques
6 pack charter (Serenity Now out of Howell, NJ) speeding directly toward us. He continues to circle us (a much larger vessel) two times like a shark before setting up right off our bow. Did you get the coordinates you wanted???

Most of our boat limited out on big black sea bass, huge porgies and bluefish. Hope you were able to fill the coolers for your patrons.

[Billy223]

I feel your pain. I had to deal with a lot of inconsiderate boaters out there inshore. I really had thought boaters were helpful considerate people on the same team but they are no different then the next driver on the parkway. All about themselves.
Trying to boat my first Bass of the year and I pull away from the fleet to find my own empty section of birds, bait, and bass breaking surface to only find myself swarmed by other boats in seconds. Like magic, they appeared out of nowhere. Others plowing right through bass breaking the surface knocking everything down and making them scatter. I say nothing and just shake my head but the last guy in a bigger boat heading home seemed to ddeliberately plow through the pod I was working with tons of room arouns all sides of me. All I could do was hold out my arms and say thanks!
I know it isn't all boaters, there are so many helpful cool boaters out there but the JO's that are all about themselves make it less desirable to even be near other boats.

[Capt Joe]

A plastic urinal mugging a party boat............. nah....do ya think?????

[rockbottom]

We had a similar situation Friday morning inshore. Seems like the etiquette decreases year after year

[Madcrab]

its time boaters record these incidents and report them to the coast guard.

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by Madcrab

its time boaters record these incidents and report them to the coast guard.

Most of these incidents are nasty and miserable, but I doubt the CG wants anything to do with them, unless it was seriously dangerous, and could be verified.. even then, by the time they were on the scene the perp would be home watching the football game..

Stealing GPS coordinates is a shitty thing to do, and deserves scorn and ridicule, but isn't illegal I would imagine.. if the guy wasn't throwing a big dangerous wake, or close enough to cause a crash, he probably wasn't doing anything really illegal.. He was just being a p#%&ck... bob

[Capt Joe]

Originally Posted by madcrab

its time boaters record these incidents and report them to the coast guard.

Now THATS funny.

[Reel Class]

Originally Posted by Madcrab

its time boaters record these incidents and report them to the coast guard.

That would be the equivalent of calling the police telling them about cars speeding down your block.

[Capt. Mike]

Originally Posted by Ice Cream Bill

Was fishing Friday am offshore on a NS boat when I see a 38 ft Henriques
6 pack charter (Serenity Now out of Howell, NJ) speeding directly toward us. He continues to circle us (a much larger vessel) two times like a shark before setting up right off our bow. Did you get the coordinates you wanted???

Most of our boat limited out on big black sea bass, huge porgies and bluefish. Hope you were able to fill the coolers for your patrons.

I was out Friday on my boat and drove by you guys on that wreck earlier as well as the other one right there. I know Chris got out later and was looking for a spot when I guess he came up on you guys. I can assure you that Serenity Now is not a charter boat, wasn't carrying any patrons and definitely wasn't stealing numbers for that wreck. It's a large, well known wreck that everybody has. Depending on the wind direction you can usually fit 2 boats on there which I'm sure he was looking to do. Friday was tough with not much wind and current from a different direction so we had to keep resetting. There are only a handful of wrecks in that area so if you travel 50-60 miles and there's someone already there you can't really just hop over to another piece like inshore...

If you plan on wreck fishing get used to this situation. The best you can do is try getting to your piece as early as possible and still that won't prevent someone else from mugging you. Like it or not you don't own the wreck and while common courtesy should factor into other boater's decisions when someone else is already on a piece it rarely does. As others have already pointed out, the further offshore you go the worse it gets because there's less options. There's not a fishery this doesn't happen with. Try trolling 100 square when there's a hot big eye bite, it's like a demolition derby. No different with fluke or any fish when they're concentrated in tight areas, other boaters will mug you in a blink. Wrecks are worse simply because there's no such thing as "close enough", you're either on the piece and catching or off the piece and just soaking your bait.

Unfortunately there's more than a few who just don't give a crap and truthfully shouldn't operate a boat. BUT they do. I remember years ago being on an offshore giant sea bass trip on one of the big party boats where you leave at 11:00 the night before. So I have to think we were probably 50 - 60 miles off shore. We're on a piece and about an hour later here comes a private boat who drops his anchor no more than 30 feet off our stern. Thought the Captain was going to have a hemorrhage! Captain of the private boat could care less, he didn't move until we did. Again if the wreck can accommodate two or three boats go for it but creating an unsafe situation or restricting fishing for the boat who was there first is never right. I can only imagine at that time of year in waters that cold if the party boat anchor slipped and drifter back into the private boat getting their screws caught in his anchor line it would have been a completely different situation altogether. The world we live in, same people who show no common sense or consideration on the roads unfortunately own boats too!