It’s a stage at a vessel ramp anywhere. a man is cleaning a great locate and a meddlesome nearby resident walks up and asks, “Nice fish … where did you locate them?” the angler turns slowly, obviously angry at the intrusion, and responds, “In the mouth.”

Fishing has an phonetic culture or formula of control which forbids you to hold where and how you held your fish. the closest you can come to spilling the beans might be something like “offshore.” you unequivocally consider that’s the proceed it’s been since the days of Isaac Walton.

But there still exists the fundamentalists which consider which report belongs to everyone … “I have as subsequent to a right to those fish as you do.”

Not so. it takes prolonged hours of scrutiny and investigation to find a great fishing spot. either backwater or offshore. Knowing the great fishing spots doesn’t come by accident, it comes from hours of tough work. Why upon earth would you give them divided to a sum stranger?

You wouldn’t!

But the seekers never give up and they come after you with assorted techniques all with the same goal to constraint and use your information.

Got a integrate of their many appropriate techniques which I’d like to share with you this week.

The peekers

These folks usually show just as the snowbird advance takes to full strength. they arrive with trailered Lundcraft or Bass Trackers launched at the ramps and for the first integrate of weeks are entertainment “intelligence.” they will secretly shade backwater licence boats or in isolation boats which look like they know the waters. as you set up upon a symbol you’ll simply symbol them peeking around a dilemma of a rivulet and creation a symbol upon their chart.

You’ll get to know them fairly well as they will be hunkered down right pound upon your symbol the very subsequent time you return.

So, it’s everyman’s water, so what’s wrong with that? But’s it’s still a cheesy proceed in an honest game.

Some years back, you had a snowbird which shadowed me every day for a week. On a open day, you purposely made a outing in to their domain and set up upon spots which had never constructed a fish. you saw them energetically creation records around a dark hook of the creek. Touché!

The swoopers

You’re set up upon an nearshore symbol which you worked for years to know the correct point of view of proceed upon either waves and upon which side of the have up would be the many appropriate for each situation. In the stretch you see a “go-fast” Cigarette sort vessel shutting upon your position. they get tighten and you see three of four guys huddled around the fishfinder getting a celebration of the mass upon your spot.

They pass 50 yards off at first and then spin back and pass tighten enough which you could suggest them a soothing drink, all the while the vessel user is busily pulling GPS buttons recording your upon all sides in electronic memory.

Nice, huh? You’ll substantially see this vessel again operative the symbol you grown earlier than you expect.

The stealers

Let me start with a story here about a comparison captain which worked out of Goodland a few years back. Seems he had a licence down in to the reaches south of Everglades City with a organisation of guys from Chicago which was going quite well, though every time they changed to a new spot, a single man kept excusing himself to use the facilities. This great captain suspected something and went next to find the patron recording the GPS coordinates of every symbol they fished. the following movement was very succinct; the captain asked for the GPS and threw it overboard.

It’s not as viewable these days. almost everyone has a “smart phone” with a mapping capacity and can jot down GPS coordinates. so you can reply to email, have a phone call, or take the fishing symbol coordinates with a single device.

We had a genuine hold up knowledge with the eventuality here just a integrate weeks back. it was a single of those sparse days where the breeze abated and you had a possibility to go nearshore, comfortably. There were three present era guys hosted by their trainer who lived in Naples; all in the commercial operation of monetary consultation. We had conditions which authorised us to get nearshore and you were operative my spots from Keeywadin south to Caxambas. doing well upon mackerel upon many every symbol and additionally having a little fitness upon great distance mangrove snapper.

Every time we’d get in to fish the “boss” would palliate to the front of the vessel and break out his “smart phone” and then be scribbling things in a notepad.

Curious and yet unsuspecting, you approached him and asked what he was recording. he pale and have a little diseased forgive like “to do items” and you asked if you could see them. In the cover were the coordinates of our last three fishing spots.

I told him the outing was over unless he surrendered the scribblings in the cover and incited off the intelligent phone. Embarrassed in front of his employees, he agreed.

There are hundreds of published embankment spots all prolonged the seashore of Lee and Collier Counties and they all furnish fish. Why anyone would try to bandit the spots which tough operative licence folks have grown over the years is over me.

Maybe it’s which they just don’t respect particular freedoms; maybe it’s whatever you have should be ours and you can widespread it around. Sound informed in today’s sourroundings ?

Think so …

Capt. Bill Walsh owns an determined Marco Island licence fishing commercial operation and binds a stream U.S. Coast Guard license. Send comments or questions to

dawnpatrolcharters@compuserve.com.