911

[MathGeek]

I think all would do well to remember that the competition is with the fish, not with other anglers. I remember fishing the jetties down at belle pass last summer. We anchored about 50 yards from the next boat down. There were mullet everywhere and the bull reds were hitting them, so of course, we try and net some mullet. The next boat down had already caught a red or two on the mullet and when they saw what we were doing, they asked us to come alongside of them so they could give us some of their mullet. I thought the waves were too high for a safe exchange of that sort, so I thanked them and politely declined. But my point is that the boat next to us was incredibly friendly and wanted to help us catch fish more than they were worried about us intruding on their space.

We've fished jetties at belle pass on a number of occasions and it seems like 50 yards or so is the "polite" distance apart that the boats tend to anchor. If someone complained and wanted a bit more room, I'd certainly give it to them.

I've never had an issue with boats getting uncomfortably close in big lake, but we tend to fish the weekdays and find something else to do on the predictably busy days, or we fish the cameron jetties instead where we've never had a problem finding a good spot at least 100 yards away from the next boat. With the stiffer tides at the cameron jetties, I prefer to give other boats a lot more room, and there tends to be more room there for the boats to spread out.