Snagged line, angry fisherman: What would you do?

I still want to know what the guy expected to happen to his rod and reel if he hooked a fish.

To get right of way becouse you are hindered by fishing equipment, you need to show the proper day signals as you do at night with lanterns. In this case, it was not obvious that they was fishing, did not fly any signals, and thus can not claim that the cat should have understood that they was fishing (might be some vessel size limitations on this). The least they could have done was to shout a warning and show their fishing-rods.

Routing this to the insurance companies is probably the best answer. De-fuses the situation and leaves it to a third party to decide what should be done. If the fisherman dont accept that, call the cops and ask for help.

Exactly what I was going to say

He probably would have sued the fish or national lake management for the US$ 250 rod and reel.

Wouter

Good lord, not another government bureaucracy!

I'm not on the fisherman's side on this. Just because you have some invisible lines coming off the back of your boat doesn't give you right of way. (or the right to be a jackass)

Didn't some W1000 sailor one time get a fisherman arrested for casting a lure into his spinnaker? I seem to remember that happening.

That guy got his fishing license jacked for life at Hattaras.

It was during the Worrell 1000 and the fleet was approaching Cape Hatteras. We (ground crew, media, etc) had jumped on local SUVs and had made it out to the point. There were hundreds of fishermen there.
One of the event officials notified everyone that the boats would be coming soon and they pass very close to shore.

One particular fisherman muttered,

OK Boys, Target practice!

I was video taping Randy Smyth as he came close by the point with his spinnaker up. Suddenly, from the side of my camera a casting rod flicked, the line spun out and a huge lead sinker (pointed and with a hook right below flew out, went across the kite and ripped the sail in two."

A bunch of sailors jumped the guy and held him. Soon the Ranger showed up and tried to sort it all out. He was not sure what had happened and the fisherman denied anything.

I politely asked the Ranger to look at the video I had just taken. The Ranger grabbed the guy and arrested him on the spot. He has since been banned from fishing on Hatteras and had to pay for the sail.
They talked about jail time, but I don't believe that happened.., too bad!

Had that sinker hit one of the sailors it would have killed them. It was big and heavy and sharp.
Rick

A couple of stories happened at the Dam Regatta at a reservoir in Columbus, Ohio.

Mary and I were on a Hobie 18 and there almost no wind (pretty typical) and we stayed right on the line. With about a minute to go a fisherman buzzed up and sat there right in the middle of the line.
The RC was yelling at him to get out of the way and he stubbornly replied,

This is MY fishing hole!

The next year Tom Tannert's son was leading a Hobie 18 race, rounded the leeward mark and headed up wind. Somehow he caught a fisherman line and broke it (nothing lost, just a lure.., or perhaps only a hook and a worm)
The next lap around the guy jumped in the water and grabbed his rudder and would not let go.

They do seem to mark to a different drum. <img src=

alt=

/>
Rick

Hey All,

I was at the event, though I heard of the incident 2nd hand as well…
That Pete drove over this fisherman’s essentially invisible line and maybe pulled a pole from THE BOTTOM of his boat , is distantly secondary to the violent, irrational reaction that he

provoked

.Why are we so willing to pound insane , violent and purely cathartic behavior, into an entirely false context of establishing fault ?! The is a world class example of the increasingly pervasive

on the edge / social pathology

that will eventually visit all of us…This guy was certain to explode at someone that morning.If the guys on Rhino hadn’t provided a conduit for that violence, I suspect the victim would have been much younger, more proximal and would have addressed this poor nut as Daddy…
Rhino, your $250 likely bought an eight year old girl her front teeth and delayed the reception of a memory that’ll wound her long after the damage is repaired…

Paul

2005 Hobie 16 North Americans, Ventura, CA - the upwind legs were very one-sided. Start on stbd., tack as soon as you could, then bang the right corner (if you could clear the Ventura Pier).

In the first race, one of the Puerto Rican teams was leading us into the weather mark when I noticed a fishing line zipping through the water behind him - he had snagged it on his sail. He evenually did two laps around the course and made it to the beach with it still attached. Never heard what the fisherman said - they were 50 ft over our heads on the pier. <img src=

alt=

/>

8 marks, central Cal location...they must have been racing at Huntington Lake in the western Sierras. It is one of the premier sailing venues in the western US. I've had similar situations with fishermen at Huntington over the years. It's best to give them a wide berth. They don't know the rules so stay away and avoid them. What they don't realize is how nicely a rudder or daggerboard will cause them to part with their favorite lure or rod. Just stay clear. I would have taken it up with the local authorities and let the insurance company handle it. Was he displaying a trolling flag as required on inland CA lakes?

I

spooled

a kid fishing off the beach on Cape Cod while sailing a couple of years ago. The kid's lure caught my rudder and hooked in solidly as I sailed by on a reach at a high speed. The kid thought he had caught a whale. Later on, when I landed on the beach, Dad came walking up, looked at me with an annoyed look as I handed him his kid's lure.

I'll never forget the sight of the kid with his rod bent over and the sound of the drag as all of his line was stripped.

Good times.

Tell Your Buddy to Stop Payment on the Check ASAP and when the idiot comes looking for the money that he extorted with his anger, tell him you have been advised to contact either your insurance company, or the police, you choose.

$250.00 ! ? ! ?
Wow - I would want to see his receipt for that rod and reel, it must be a nice one. I suppose you just wanted to shut the lunatic up but $250.00 !!! I agree with CraigO ... Stop payment.

This looks to me like positive reinforcement for obnoxious and outrageous behavior. The fisherman and his children have learned that if you throw a fit you’ll get what you want, even if it isn’t the “RIGHT” thing. I think the check should be canceled and if you have a way to contact him, tell you’re doing it and why!!!

while I side with you guys, I think he's asking for additional problems by canceling the check...especially now that the guy (obviously a jerk) has his home address.

With regards to the home address, I may have found an unexpected side-benefit to driving 8 hours to a regatta...

Shoot...he'd be out of beer and have to turn around after three hours in the car. You're way safe! <img src=

alt=

/>

Now that's looking on the bright side.

Around here the pecking order is by age of the activity.
Fishermen, both diving and pole, surfers, sailboards, then kite surfers. Cats rate near boards or kites. The smartest sailors and surfers stay well away from fishermen. i personally am constantly asking my crew to look for divers.
As Rick implies, fisherman are a strange breed. There have been stories of conspiracies to screw with sailors(and surfers of old) by fishermen. The guy could well have been out trolling for an accident the way some do in traffic. He obiviously wasn't planning on hooking a fish if his pole wasn't hooked to the boat.

Undoubtedly an interesting topic. Me and my dad sail a Taipan 5,7 in the inner Oslo fjord. Here, as in Norway and even Scandinavia in general, high tech beach cats and even h16s are quite rare. Therefore we tend to draw alot of attention from other boats on the water. Mostly this is quite nice as we do want publicity around cat sailing in Norway so that more sailors will get their head out of their a.. and start sailing cats.. However, when screaming down wind in 17-20 knots with the kite up trying to bear away as a gust hits us and motor boats starts lining up next to us 2 meters to leeward to get a better view and thus preventing us to bear off, you can get a bit annoyed. You simply have to keep in mind that few people on the water knows how fast things happen on cats and what the consequenses of a big cart wheel may be...

I find it interesting that alot of you said he should have called the cops when the guy became abusive. Would the cops have come out for that?

I doubt if they would in the UK.

Gareth

Here in Florida, we have a no retreat law. If you feel your life is in danger, you can just shoot the s.o.b. If the guy was really irate, I would have called 911 just to be on the record.

To my knowledge, the law has not been tested. The cops don't like it, so who knows how they would react.

I believe they would have come here in Norway, if the situation was reported as a fight about to commence or that someone felt threatened.

Rolf is making the point. The correct day-signal is the hour-glass, please find a drawing attached. I know we are talking about a smaller vessel here, but as long as the engine is larger than 5HP, the signal must be shown.
In my sailing-area (Baltic Sea, Germany) we have right next to our club a bunch of fishermen - and of course none of them is showing the signal. This is fine with me, but then it is their responsiblity to make me aware of their lines - in time.

If this would have happen to me, I would try to stop as soon as possible and return to the fisherman to solve the problem on the spot. May be I'd have offered him some money, but this offer would have been withdrawn as soon as he started insulting me.

Pete - check the news this morning. Some dude just used this law, effectively, I might add, in our area.

Some masked guy was in a homeowner's bushes at night allegedly trying to film the resident's kid (for the purpose of proving the kid was abusing the neighbor.

Homeowner

dropped a cap

(shot) in the masked man, killing him (if I read the news correctly).

The homeowner is using the

stand your ground

defense, and it appears to be holding water....

So let this be a message to anyone traveling in Florida. Lose your temper and you could lose your life! Road-rage tourists beware!

The crew cut the check so let him come and see how much more trouble he can create at thier address.The state will send him up the river and the kids will live the rest of their lives at a bunny farm because of the near death experiance. Thanks to the demand by the sail community carbon fibre/graphite rods have sky-rocket in cost add to that a No.3 Dale Earnhardt signature series open spool titanium geared reel and your talking mortgage. I think he threw the rod out of the boat. <img src=

alt=

/>

ahhh, maybe the rod/reel never actually left the boat ...

...simply found a nice hiding place to be accompanied later by the Titanium Signature Series Dale Earnhardt, Jr open spooled reel and the carbon fiber pole <img src=

alt=

/>

I live out in the desert, 8 miles from the nearest paved road and many more from the nearest town. I'm not under any obligation to treat hostile visitors delicately, and I wouldn't. I can't imagine that there's anybody who doesn't understand that screwing with folks who live in rural Nevada is a very bad idea.

Unfortunately he has my crew's address, not mine so he'll be the one to deal with any fall-out. I feel pretty bad about that, because I was the one at the helm making the decisions. Still, he's quite capable of taking care of himself.

Guys, this is a crazy thread. The fisherman could have easily lost a $250 rig. I own 7 freshwater setups valued way over $250 and saltwater rigs over $500. He's not required to fly any kind of flag when fishing or trolling. If the rods were in the boat he was most likely bottom fishing and drifting. 10 feet was not enough room to stay clear of his lines regardless. His attitude was unquestionably wrong, but the sailboat captain didn't even slow down to apologize. The hostility presented by several responders here is hard to swallow. I sail in the SE Atlantic where there are shrimp trawlers, parasail boats and tournament fishing boats everywhere. If you crossed any of these boats lines you would be at fault. The shrimper would damage your boat with his cables, the tournament fisherman would run you down and expect payment and probably attempt to kick your butt, the parasailer would report you to the authorities or worse. Motorboat operators are the most uninformed group on the water. They don't know the rules and most of them don't care until something happens. The fishermans technique was wrong, but he was in the right and the sailor was wrong. Also freshwater fishermen almost never fish under their boat so lines will always extend some distance in the water, keep clear. 10ft is not keeping clear of a fishing vessel.