04/20/2025
Little rant today. Spent yesterday at the lake. Fishing a small fish off with a couple guys from work. My buddy and I were fishing in an area of the lake that has no wake zone markers at the entrance to the area. While we were there, there were no less than 8 boats that completely disregarded the No Wake markers, 1 of which stayed on plane even past the area that is marked letting people know there are stumps throughout the area. One of the boats we had seen earlier in another location where we saw them disregard tournament rules by taking off their pfd's while the outboard was running.
What has happened to respecting the rules? All of the boats we saw blow the No Wake Zone were all younger fishermen. Is it that their parents did not educate them on how to follow rules or face the consequences of not following the rules? Have they seen that at the professional level, blowing No Wake Zones is not punished as severely as it should be? Maybe the high school coaches and boat captains are negligent and don't respect the lake rules?
Whatever it is, it needs to change. Lake rules, No Wake Zones/ stump warnings, are there for a reason. It is not up to us and fishermen to decide if we want to obey these. There were two boat accidents this past week that resulted in 3 deaths. As tournament anglers, we ALL need to do better. We should be representing the sport in a positive way. Breaking lake rules does not make tournament organizations look good.
Rant over. Thanks for letting me vent. If I had the cameras in the boat, I would have taken the video of them to their tournament director and tried to get them all dq'd. Unfortunately, i didn't take the cameras yesterday. Next time.
