Thread: Friendly Dock Owner

Originally Posted by greenhead1451

I happen to be the owner of a dock on Maddox Bay. I don't have a problem with anyone fishing my dock. I wish you the best of luck. Here's the rub I have. When fisherman(mostly bass) throw right in among my wife and daughters fishing for bream or crappie off of my dock. Then the same fisherman will yank his trolling motor up and take off leaving me to catch the girls before the fly off the dock from waves. Crappie fisherman tend to just troll around the dock and not even attempt to fish while we are fishing. Just my $.02.

I never even attempt to fish a dock if someone is on it, even if they aren't fishing. I may troll over and chat if they seem friendly but the poles stay in the floor of the boat. It's just common courtesy. Sometimes they will even tell you to go ahead and fish if you want. Now you have permission and are not likely to have problems from them in the future. As for the ones that will go out of their way to harass you, courtesy goes out the window.

Here's the other side- A lot of fishermen aren't as good at flipping or dock shooting as they'd like to be and their rigs wind up on top of the dock instead of under it. Then you wind up with hooks and bait on the dock. If you're lucky, it's a nuisance. If you're not lucky, you wind up with a hook in your foot. If you REALLY unlucky, you wind up with a dog that ate a baited hook and now needs surgery.

There was a fellow in Tampa who had a dandy dock on the edge of a channel. When the water was ripping through there, all of creation would stack up under his dock. A well-placed livebait would almost guarantee a fish. The man who owned the dock was a fisherman and a genuinely nice guy. He was supporting of local anglers and understood that his dock was in the middle of public domain. He became less friendly when his Golden kept taking trips to the Vet's office because he ate baited hooks. He did what he could to check the dock before he let the dog out, but a dog's sense of smell is much stronger than our sense of sight. Eventually, he strung ships rope between is pilings to discourage anglers. It just got to be too much.

Originally Posted by cmj

i never even attempt to fish a dock if someone is on it, even if they aren't fishing.

2xx

A lot of good options on this subject.... I have a pier on Martin and I've fished a lot of others pier. When some bodies fishing my pier I normally go out to greet them and see how there day is going.i try to fish other docks when the people are away usually avoiding sat and sun mornings to keep from disturbing others privacy. Jm2$

I've never had a problem with folks on thier docks. I respect thier privacy and most of the time they ask how I'm doing. I've even had alot of folks tell me to cast right under thier docks, cus' that's where they catch'em. Most folks see my fishing kayak and want to ask a million questions about it. Even had a few take pictures, once for a news paper.

Chris you're just a trouble maker. If I would have been that dock owner, I would have me a Snerd Net and every time you caught one I would dip it up before you got it to your boat.