My Rules Of Boating and Fishing!

Things have changed a lot since I first crossed the river in a boat. It was a kinder, gentler world of fun on the water. Now it is a war zone and it's your navy against my navy!

Such behavior used to be reserved for a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon on one of our lakes or along the Tennessee River. Not so today! On just about any given day in the summer, you're apt to get run over by a speeding motor boat or a racing jet ski.

Because there are not as many boaters on the water on a Tuesday, you have a better chance of surviving a speeding boat heading toward you like a surface torpedo. If you like to fish, pick some secluded cove away from the noisy crowd of boaters found on most lakes.

Maybe I'm getting old but here are some unwritten rules of conduct which will be forever etched in my brain. I don't believe they are official rules, but they are my rules.

Let's pretend you're in a secret fishing hole, you have a fish on the line when some dolt in a high powered boat slices through the water making every fish in the area head for calmer waters. The boater doesn't turn his head, wave or make any acknowledgement that he has almost run over you. Anyone with any common sense knows that this something you don't do! It's easy to see they have never taken a boating safety course.

If a boater sees other fishermen in a boat dropping their lines in a tree top a few yards from the bank, they should reduce their speed to no wake. Not only could speeding be dangerous, it could also scare the fish away!

This is one of my special gripes! If someone else is catching a fish in a certain spot, you don't crowd your way in and start fishing in the hole where the fish are biting. That's just rude!

If you are waste deep in a calm, peaceful lake in the spring, wading just outside a huge Bream or Shellcracker bed, the last thing you want to see is someone else moving toward your spot. First of all they will probably make noise and scare off the fish. Secondly, it's just not right to horn in on another man's fishing spot. That kind of a person probably cheats at golf and beats his wife!

This one has nothing to do with a boat. If you happen to be fishing from the bank with your pre-teen son, don't leave him alone to kill time by himself. If you do he will probably end up terrorizing the other fishermen casting from shore. Kids are experts when it comes to annoying fishermen who are seriously trying to catch fish.

Never invite anyone to go fishing with you in a boat that is afraid of spiders. Once I took my next door neighbor fishing with me in an aluminum boat. Drifting under a canopy of willows, a teensy, weency spider fell onto one of the seats. My neighbor went berserk.

Flailing away at the bug with a wooden paddle, he almost capsized us. The insect calmly hid under the seat until the commotion was over and then jumped overboard and was swimming to safety when a fish ate him.

When fishing on the beach, with miles of waterfront empty beside you, why do kids and sometimes adults, truly believe that they won't get tangled in a mess of hooks if they swim across your fishing lines?

With summer rapidly approaching it is time to get serious about rules and regulations on the water or on the beach. It really doesn't matter whether it is your rules or someone else's, just as long as they are observed.