When there’s too many other flyfishermen

rrt said:
What do you do when someone knowingly cuts you off, especially on a small stream?
Click to expand...
I've only had that happen on one occasion. One early morning on a small Class A, I was already fishing my way upstream, when two guys showed up on a trail near the mouth of this stream. They saw me and quickly went upstream of me. This stream is too rough to be leap frogging, so I just left. Thankfully, I almost never encounter another fisherman in my travels.
 
Mike said:
Good point. In lake situations bait angling groups often sit close to each other based upon the locations of “cut-outs” in the vegetation/shrubs. When lure fishing in lakes and on the move, the same approach is used; the anglers just move right past each other and keep fishing. There is no obvious attempt to establish great distances between anglers, although depending upon fishing speed and direction of travel, the lure anglers usually eventually separate anyway. The protocol that generally limits the distance between anglers is simply the desire to not cross each other’s lines.
Click to expand...

Last summer was fishing at Scott's Run Lake for sunfish from the bank, sitting comfortably sitting in my "fishing" chair with two other anglers nearby.

Far to my right about 15 or so yards away was a guy sitting on a 5 gallon bucket doing the same thing. In between us was a wading angler...

That happened to be a Great Blue Heron.

The three of us fished for several hours without hassling each other even though the heron got there first and caught the most fish.

Nobody was fly fishing either so maybe that had something to do with it... 😉
 
With 86.000 miles of rivers and streams in this state, there is PLENTY of water to fish. So much so in fact that it would take many lifetimes to cover it all. Sure, most of it isn't "blue ribbon" trout water or even trout water for that matter, but there is a metric shi* ton of fishable water in this state. There are some streams I visit where I expect to run into other anglers (Penns, Spring, etc.). When I embark on angling trip my attitude and expectations are predicated on when and where I'm fishing. I'd have to say that if I hit a stream and there were too many fly anglers there, I'd move on to my next destination. As a general rule, I fish alone and enjoy not seeing another angler. My stream time is mental therapy and a time to "reset", not have social hour.
 
wildtrout2 said:
I've only had that happen on one occasion. One early morning on a small Class A, I was already fishing my way upstream, when two guys showed up on a trail near the mouth of this stream. They saw me and quickly went upstream of me. This stream is too rough to be leap frogging, so I just left. Thankfully, I almost never encounter another fisherman in my travels.
Click to expand...
My Dad and I hiked in a little over a mile to brookie fish a little creek that’s an trib to a stocked section about 4 years ago. We start fishing and after about 100 yards of walking upstream we hear this rustling in the brush behind us. This guy comes sprinting out of the woods, cuts right between the two of us fishing and continues running untill he is about 50 yards ahead of us. He then starts casting and fishing his way up stream. Never says a word to us. Ran past us at full speed maybe 15 feet away from us. Full sprint carrying his fly rod. We both started laughing out loud. We turned around and headed home for the day. I’ve never seen anything like it since.
~5footfenwick
 
5footfenwick said:
My Dad and I hiked in a little over a mile to brookie fish a little creek that’s an trib to a stocked section about 4 years ago. We start fishing and after about 100 yards of walking upstream we hear this rustling in the brush behind us. This guy comes sprinting out of the woods, cuts right between the two of us fishing and continues running untill he is about 50 yards ahead of us. He then starts casting and fishing his way up stream. Never says a word to us. Ran past us at full speed maybe 15 feet away from us. Full sprint carrying his fly rod. We both started laughing out loud. We turned around and headed home for the day. I’ve never seen anything like it since.
~5footfenwick
Click to expand...
That's funny, kind of. My encounter was similar, because I too had hiked a bit over a mile to get to the stream I intended on fishing. These guys were very aware of the consequences of being downstream of another fisherman, so they all but ran to get upstream of me. I was bummed. That's only happened to me that one time.
 
Last edited:
I don’t mind at all when I see a bunch of fly fishermen because it lets me know exactly where not to go. I also don’t plan any trips around any famous waters, Penns is the exception and even then I only do it one a year or so and I seek solitude.

In a couple of weeks Jifigz and I will be in Colorado and I have planned for us to fish exactly 0 famous waters. I won’t spend money and time just so I can fish next to someone else. I’d be happy if we didn’t see a single other fisherman during the entire trip but I’m a different breed. It’s also never been my thing to sit around and listen to stories from the days escapades but again there is nothing wrong with that, Just one of my idiosyncrasies.
 
It's starting into salmon season on Puget Sound. This is a "Pink Year" with an estimated 7.8 million Pink Salmon expected to show up.

That means everyone and their sister will be throwing buzz bombs, spoons, jigs, flies and anything else Pink, orange, or one of several other colors from every square foot of public access to the waters there, including the public fishing piers.
It's known as extreme combat fishing on several levels.

About 20 years ago I fished the Wauna Pool on the slack to falling tide. At high slack, we're talking about maybe 90-100 fishermen on a 3 acre pool. At low tide its down to about 6 feet deep and 20 X 30 ft dimensionally. And there's still usually 20 or more people trying to fish that.

I like coming back to PA and fishing again. 🎣 For all the complaints I hear, most I've met have been pleasant helpful and considerate. And I don't have to worry about getting smacked in the face with a rod tip by some ancient granny who doesn't have a license
 
Typically if I go to a spot on a busier stream, I'll just go to another spot on the stream. I don't take my fishing time for granted. On some trips I've been on where we are fishing big name streams, you are bound to run into people in "your secret spot". Learning to fish new spots, and different types of water whether by choice or not makes you a better fisherman.

rrt said:
What do you do when someone knowingly cuts you off, especially on a small stream?
Click to expand...

For a small stream, that can be a day ender or pivot to a different creek. If I am fishing up stream, I might go back down using streamers, conditions provided.

I used to get upset by people either low holing or high holing me, on some streams it happens more often than not. I've realized that not everyone is using the same tactic, fly, tippet size, cast, etc, so if you know what your doing, you can catch fish in highly pressured areas more often than not.

This past fall I really wanted to fish a specific spot, so I fished downstream to it, and found guys fishing it with streamers and nymphs. I skipped the spot and went down a ways. I went back to that same spot maybe 30 minutes later on my hike back and pulled a 21" wild brown out nymphing, those guys happened to be walking by at the same exact time as I fighting it. They didn't seem too thrilled haha.
 
Can’t remember ever throwing in the towel because of the situation the OP describes. There’s always somewhere else you can go. But relaxing with cold ones isn’t a bad plan B.

Funny we went to Potter for our honeymoon end of May 2000. Stayed at Denton Hill. The next 2 years we went back early June and stayed at Rough Cut both times. Those were all weeklong trips and I honestly don’t remember seeing another fisherman at the places we stayed or on the water during the week.

Went back for 3 nights mid May this year (stayed somewhere else this time) for our 25th and it was totally different from my earlier experiences. There were fisherman everywhere. What really surprised me were the amount of out of state plates and not many from New York. Maybe because it was a little earlier this time around?

After being high holed twice on day one I changed plans for the next two days and we were able to find some solitude and ended up having a great 3 days of fishing.

Worth noting that Potter was preceded by 3 days fishing at camp in the ANF. Decent amount of fisherman there also so had to hike to find peace. According to my phone I covered about 54 miles in those 6 days which left me with a pretty sore right Achilles tendon which didn’t surface until walking back to the truck after the last stream we fished. Probably overdid it a bit but guess that’s the price you gotta pay sometimes.
 
Forestfishin said:
Can’t remember ever throwing in the towel because of the situation the OP describes. There’s always somewhere else you can go. But relaxing with cold ones isn’t a bad plan B.

Funny we went to Potter for our honeymoon end of May 2000. Stayed at Denton Hill. The next 2 years we went back early June and stayed at Rough Cut both times. Those were all weeklong trips and I honestly don’t remember seeing another fisherman at the places we stayed or on the water during the week.

Went back for 3 nights mid May this year (stayed somewhere else this time) for our 25th and it was totally different from my earlier experiences. There were fisherman everywhere. What really surprised me were the amount of out of state plates and not many from New York. Maybe because it was a little earlier this time around?

After being high holed twice on day one I changed plans for the next two days and we were able to find some solitude and ended up having a great 3 days of fishing.

Worth noting that Potter was preceded by 3 days fishing at camp in the ANF. Decent amount of fisherman there also so had to hike to find peace. According to my phone I covered about 54 miles in those 6 days which left me with a pretty sore right Achilles tendon which didn’t surface until walking back to the truck after the last stream we fished. Probably overdid it a bit but guess that’s the price you gotta pay sometimes.
Click to expand...
We don’t see a ton of NY summer traffic in Potter until late June.

NY public schools don’t end for the school year until late June.
 
Went out with an uncle on opening day in 67 or 68.. (i was about 9 or 10) walking down the trail, we get to a spot and this guy is just tossing false cast after false cast and blocking the trail. My uncle cleared his throat, the guy ignored him.. so my uncle makes it a bit louder the second time... still ignored.
Finally, my uncle sticks his rod up and the false cast gets wrapped around it. At the same time he swiped his barlow across the line and cut it off, and the dude never missed a beat. we went on our way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Montana Angler Fly Fishing
Montana Angler Fly Fishing
Harman's North Fork Cottages


Real Time Data From
the USGS Site

Share this page

Back
Top