Jerks on the river

[Big Willie]

My bud and I slide the boat into the water at the 6th bridge and have the whole river to our selves for a few hours. Hooking (and releasing) a few steelhead...with our pliers not nets. I've got my plugs out and I notice a boat comming down river...ok now there are TWO boats on this stretch. What does this guy in his 17' Alumaweld with burgandy top paint do? He gets about 50' past me and his friend starts casting right on top of my plugs! Crowded river, slight problem but maybe a little further past me. Zero pressure? Problem. But I don't say anything. Further down the hole he hooks, and loses a fish. This isn't the best part. I'm coming into another hole that I wanted to plug and these bozo'z are 2/3 down it. They land a nice bright fish with the net. It's in the boat for a couple minutes and I'm thinking nice early summer run that they are going to bonk...nope, they throw the fish like a largemouth bass back in the river. So I pass them up and ask if they plan on killing any more wild fish and there response was that fish was not dead followed closely by 'go back to the valley you flatlanders'. Ignorant...very. Boat etiquete...none. Sorry for the long post I just had to vent a little. Btw, this was on the Nestucca between the 6th slide and 4th bridge. There are still some nice fish here and there but it is starting to slow down a little. Can't wait for the summers though! :grin:
-Gary

[baitslinger]

Hey Willie, your story brought back a similar sad encounter I had a few years back back down there. I was about the only person bankin it on the whole upper river in mid April. One guy shows up and decides he is going to follow me and fish ten feet from me at the next three spots, tryin desperately to impress/outfish me, he knew Nick Amato, & Blah blah blah!! At first I was upset, but then I took a break. I finally broke free of this leach and got what I had hoped for, some solitude and a few steelies. I hope they didn't ruin your trip, and good job for not sinking to their level.

[RichH]

Sometimes you just have to let 'em know about it. A couple of weeks ago I put in at Farmers creek for a short float. After I got my boat in a couple of other guys came down and dropped theirs in to. After pleasentries we pulled across the river and started plugging while they were still getting rigged up. As we are slowly working our way through the slot they pull down about 50 feet below our plugs and plug through the tailout. I felt the old BP rise and we finished through the hole. When I got down where they were plugging through the next hole I said
"I'll assume that you fellas low-holing me was a mistake, right?" to which I got a positive response. They passed us one more time and we never saw them again. Had a very pleasant day on the crick.

[Flatfish]

We low holed you two.We put in at 5-1/2 :tongue: .Heard that ya got a couple.Too bad bout those fellas in the red one.Theres one in every crowd.No matter how small the crowd.We are the folks in the black Chev that Garrett knows.
Good Luck.
Mark n Dawn.

[Big Willie]

I just comes down to common sense. I've met some really nice people on the river, so I guess every once in a while your gonna run into one of those types.
Flatfish, I saw your rig at the 1st bridge when we were leaving. How did it go? Kinda funny, my indian tracking skills are still up to snuff, it looked like someone put a boat in at 5 1/2.
-Gary