Don't spud me in.

[reelbigfish]

  I thought it might be a good idea to mention "ice edicate" to some of the new
ice guys out there.  I am a seasoned veteran and most of the time catch a
nice mess of quality fish.  When other anglers see me outfishing them they think
that I've got a "magic hole" and start drilling closer and closer trying to get in on
the action.  This usually spooks the fish and nobody catches any.  I'm just saying
give me some space.  How close is too close?  I've even sold a hole to some young
bucks before who were convinced that all of the fish in the lake were under that
one hot hole. LOL  Any stories about getting "spudded in"  ?



Ted

[slabcrab]

Excellent thread; It drives me absolutely CRAZY when guys pretty much set their gear in between mine or right next to my traps; like 15 feet away because they see me getting flags.  If they;re good dudes I will say to them "hey why dont you set up over here with me?" Thats no problem; or if I strike up a conversation with a fisherman who is all set up in the area I had intended to set up in; I will politely ask him "do you mind if I set up in this area?""   If he says yes, I will but definately keep my distance.  But when I'm sitting out there and guys start drilling holes 20 feet from my stuff, I think its rude and uncalled for.  So, what I'm getting at is give icefisherman some distance if you want to fish the same area like a 100 feet or so.   Then again, when I see someone set up in the area I intended to, I will say to myself, oh well, and set up in some other area, and ya know what, I usually discover a new honey hole that way.

[Little Brown Dog]

I was fishing a well fished lake one sunday.  There were a ton of holes all around from Saturday but no one else was out there.  I set up a line of tipups and one of them was near one of the old holes.  Well about 10:00 some guy come out and "reclaims" "HIS" spot on the lake and sets a tip-up two feet from mine.
I go over and ask what the problem was and he replies he was there first!   I said, there was no one out here this morning.  He says I was here yesterday, and this is my spot.   Well I'm not a fighter, so I calmly walk back to my seat and the guy goes 100 yards back to a shanty.  The snow was perfect that day for snowballs, so I get an idea.   My friend and I start throwing.  His flag goes up,   he comes out, checks it...nothing, goes back inside...we start throwing...flag goes up,   he comes back out...nothing...back inside, we throw...flag goes up  ... checks again nothing... but this time he notices the pile of about a dozen snowballs on the ice and gets the clue that he won't be catching anything out of that hole today.  

[cstolp]

Unfortunately we have those types, not just in ice fishing but soft-water and hunting.  "Do onto others as you would have them do unto you".  I remember a particular piece of private land that I thought I had exclusive use of.  I invited a couple of friends out to do some goose hunting with me.  When we got there someone was already set up.  I parked my truck and walked out to his spread.  I told him I was sorry that I was disturbing his hunt but I wanted to make sure he had permission.  I explained to him that I thought I was the only one with permission.  He didn't mind and gave me the name of the landowner and told me that he had told him of my permission and to look for me.  Anyway he invited my friends and I to hunt with him.  Turned out he worked out of the local DNR offices and was a fish biologist.  Needless to say I got some good inside information and we shared some really nice stories. Another thing I have learned is to remain polite and courteous even if the other party is not reciprocating.  Sometimes it rubs off and you can sway the person away from being a slob to being a sportsman.

Chris

[adkRoy]

I have had people drill holes right next to (less than 5') a hot tip up hole they have seen go off many times and then I catch nothing from it the rest of the day. A good rule of thumb is don't fish any closer to a person than the distance between his/her tip-ups unless you ask "excuse me, can I fish right next to you" Sometimes these people have good food to share.

[MikePike]

I usually just throw trebles at their jugular vein.

[camo_fish]

A good rule of thumb is don't fish any closer to a person than the distance between his/her tip-ups unless you ask "excuse me, can I fish right next to you" Sometimes these people have good food to share.

very true, very true. What would it hurt to just talk to the people and 99% of the time you guys wound end up sharing some great stories too.  I know, I will always ask to fish next to someone, and not yet have I been turned down, but also, have had people set up next to me and not say a word, how rude. 

[can_of_worms]

If you give people the respect of just asking many will gladly welcome the company, so long as you don't over do it. There was another stated point in a previous post, what is an excepted distance between tip ups (Your own) lets say if you are fishing for a longer running fish such as pike. We will set ours, I would say about  30' apart, give or take.

[C.C.]

There isn't anything any better than someone moving in on you and you still catch fish and they don't. This happened to me several times last year and it made my day to see them storm off after an hour or so. I do agree that you should be respectful of the other people out fishing and give them plenty of space unless they invite you over.
        Jim

[madporider]

ive hadd a guy drill a hole right outside of my shack me and my buddy were inside but he didnt know it he thought we left in my truck when actually my other friends made a beer and bait run. This guy was actually sitting on the tire of my shack me and my buddy were laughing quitely when i decided to whip the door open and shout what the f___k are you doing the good fishing is on the other side of the shack. the guy was so surprised and scared when i whipped that door open he didnt say a word pulled his line up grabbed his auger and just walked back to his shack.  Oh did we laugh   

[Saulsa]

Usually the difference is not where you are fishing but how you are fishing.  If I see someone next to me on the ice and they're catching a lot of fish I'll sometimes ask them what they are using.

But I've also sat in the same house with my brother and watched him catch limits for the both of us all out of one hole.  Sometimes it's location, sometimes it presentation, but it's never fun getting crowded out.

[iceman_4432]

I agree completely.   Alot of times i get out and someone has already or is in the process of setting up where i wanted to ... ahhh such is life ... so i will setup in another spot and yes, alot of times that spot becomes a new favorite  

ICe fishing tends to be more of a social than open water.  Once the gear is set up a walk over to the next guy fishing and some socializing.  But please be aware of where you are setting up and have the decency to setup not directly next to them.  By the end of the day you guyz might be jigging holes next to each other  

Excellent thread; It drives me absolutely CRAZY when guys pretty much set their gear in between mine or right next to my traps; like 15 feet away because they see me getting flags.  If they;re good dudes I will say to them "hey why dont you set up over here with me?" Thats no problem; or if I strike up a conversation with a fisherman who is all set up in the area I had intended to set up in; I will politely ask him "do you mind if I set up in this area?""   If he says yes, I will but definately keep my distance.  But when I'm sitting out there and guys start drilling holes 20 feet from my stuff, I think its rude and uncalled for.  So, what I'm getting at is give icefisherman some distance if you want to fish the same area like a 100 feet or so.   Then again, when I see someone set up in the area I intended to, I will say to myself, oh well, and set up in some other area, and ya know what, I usually discover a new honey hole that way.

[IceReaver]

When I was about 10 years old, I was an associate member at my father's Rod & Gun Club (provided through his work).  There were two kinds of members, the serious fisherman and the "party" fisherman.  During a contest at a relatively small lake, I had a tip-up that flagged twice and I caught two keeper LMB in the span of 15 minutes.  It had been a relatively bad day for fishing, so two of the partiers actually drilled multiple holes with 5ft. of my tip-up.  After fishing for 10 minutes and catching nothing, they left their dead sticks in the water and headed off to the local bar.  

On a different note, what would be considered fishing manners for fishing drilled holes of other people in a large communal area fished by multiple guys.  I only ask because last year I would head out late in the afternoon when most people had left and fish pre-cut holes (don't want to scare the fish with my drilling).  A few times, some guy would come running over to a hole near where I was fishing to set a "boundary" of what holes were still his, even though he was fishing about 70-100 yrds away.

[Waubay Fisher]

I seem to experience more of this problem on the open water in the boat than I do on the ice.  Usually though I try and venture away from the crowds and do my own thing.  I don't like to be crowded, but if someone where to get close to me to the point of intruding they've always asked beforehand if it's okay to setup by me... I could see though in areas where there is a more concentrated population (like all you Eastern boys in NY) where this could be a larger problem....

[ice dawg]

A buddy heard someone drilling close to his shack and didn't think much about it. When he tried to go outside to his pickup a guy had drilled a hole right outside his door and was using the door for a backrest. Out of the wind ya know. He asked him if he would mind fishing somewhere else, got what he wanted from the pickup and went back inside. He heard more drilling and later went outside and the guy had drilled holes again and was using the sidewall of his shack for a backrest. The thing that bothered him most was having to step around a 10 inch hole right outside his door for the rest of the day. Some people seem a lot of dead brain cells and the ones that aren't dead are on crutches.

[cstolp]

right outside his door and was using the door for a backrest. Out of the wind ya know. He asked him if he would mind fishing somewhere else, got what he wanted from the pickup and went back inside. He heard more drilling and later went outside and the guy had drilled holes again and was using the sidewall of his shack for a backrest.

Earlier in this post I maintained that a person should always be courteous in these situations but I thank God that this didn't happen to me.  I would have blown a gasket.  I think I would have hooked onto the shack and pulled it out at a high rate of speed just to see that joker go a$$ over tea kettle.  Boy the nerve!!!

[FishDaddy09]

It always amazes me when people think they own holes that they are not anywhere near there can be 20-30 hole in an area and they think because they drilled 10 of them 3 hours ago they belong to them. If you are fishing several holes other people should give you some room but if you leave them there fair game. It's no different then if you were fishing open water and you go across the lake and then come back to the same spot and someone else is fishing there.

[Haywood]

Last year, we had a week in the upper 40's and someone drilled 4 holes right beside my permanent, because apparently they heard I had been doing pretty good.  By right beside, I mean 4 to 5 inches away.  Anyway, at 48 degrees, a 10 inch hole becomes a 14 inch hole in several hours and after 2 days, I had to move my house because it was going to go through. 

I always throw garbage from other, unrespectables, in the back of my truck and at the end of the year last year, after I took out all of the recyclables, I filled our 50 gallon garbage can.  About 1/2 of it was from a group of guys who decided to have a New Years party on the ice, but forgot to bring all of their bottles, 1lb propane tanks, and such off of the ice with them. 

[NorthwoodsIce]

I fish a lake in Downtown Madison, Wisconsin; on a nice weekend day there can be as many as 100 people on the ice.  It isn't my favorite spot to go because of all the people but you do usually catch some nice gills and so you put up with the people.  Last year I was sitting in my clam 2000 and I had just moved the shack over about 4 feet to get off of some floating weeds, so I am all set up again and fish for a while and I want to get out to stretch my legs and I look out the shack and there sits a guy on my two old holes.  I don't usually mind when someone is close but this guy was tapping his foot on the ice, bugged the heck out of me, so I dug around in the tackle box found one of those flying lures, tied it on and boy did I have fun messing with his jig stick. I mean come on not only are we competing for the same fish but then you make noise so neither of us catch anything.  Like I said I don't go there to often just nice to stay close to home but I sure do miss being up north where there are only 1 maybe 2 people out on a busy day.

[IceGeek]

I usually venture away from the crowds....I've also had some good luck a few hundred yards from the edge of the crowds....sometimes I think all the noise and commotion moves a good majority of the fish away from the crowds and towards the fringes.  Generally though you'll find me a long ways from the next guy......some days this doesn't pay off, but many times I've got good fishing all to myself.

[PIKEGUY]

If everyone did we'd never have to listen to stories about this A-hole or that Jacka$$ and what a crappy weekend people had putting up with them. The Grumpy old men shanty could practically be removed

[iceman_4432]

I do this alot when fishing for perch .. ill wait till the afternoon and then just venture out with a pail, jigging gear, and a hand auger to clear holes and then jig in previously jigged holes.  

No reason anyone should bother you .... your not making any noise or annoying anyone or getting too close to anyone.  And if some guy came up to me that was fishing 100 yds away and said i cant fish that hole because its his ... id apologize and say im sorry .. i didnt see the name tag there by that abandoned hole and ask if those holes across the lake were his too LMAO

When I was about 10 years old, I was an associate member at my father's Rod & Gun Club (provided through his work).  There were two kinds of members, the serious fisherman and the "party" fisherman.  During a contest at a relatively small lake, I had a tip-up that flagged twice and I caught two keeper LMB in the span of 15 minutes.  It had been a relatively bad day for fishing, so two of the partiers actually drilled multiple holes with 5ft. of my tip-up.  After fishing for 10 minutes and catching nothing, they left their dead sticks in the water and headed off to the local bar.  

On a different note, what would be considered fishing manners for fishing drilled holes of other people in a large communal area fished by multiple guys.  I only ask because last year I would head out late in the afternoon when most people had left and fish pre-cut holes (don't want to scare the fish with my drilling).  A few times, some guy would come running over to a hole near where I was fishing to set a "boundary" of what holes were still his, even though he was fishing about 70-100 yrds away.

[CaughtYa]

I've had most of my "bad experiences" with snowmobile and ATV operators. It seems no matter how much safe ice they have to ride on, they've got to buzz the only shack on the lake. Even that would'nt be so bad if they did it at a reasonable speed, but its always balls to the wall fast. It's no different with the jet-ski idiots on open water. I guess they've just got to prove to themselves how cool they are.    

[Spud_bar]

One other thing that peaves me is people who don't take care of pets while on the ice with other anglers. it's nice I'm sure to be able to bring your pooch with you fishing however please realize other people may be less than fond of your dog. I was bucket fishing with a friend for some perch and this guy came walking right up to us and he had a pretty fair sized black lab. the whole time I'm thinking I hope this dog is on a leash. turns out it wasn't and before my friend had a chance to grab his two lines the dog had knocked over his rod holder/rod and ended up pulling up the line and getting hooked and took off running. at the time it was a little humerous to see a dog running from my friend's pole which seemed to be chasing the dog; however his bail was all messed up and my friend had to catch the dog as the owner just sort of stood and laughed.

another time I was fishing with the same friend on the same lake I had two incidents which were on opposite ends of the ice fishing etiquette spectrum. I was sitting there next to my friend and a couple older guys in their sixties or seventies came up and asked if we were having any luck. after showing them our 7 or 8 perch they asked if we were using a couple holes about 10 feet away. these were holes we had used earlier and because the fish were biting well we decided to keep our 2 holes each closer. We told them they could use the wholes and offered our minnow bucket to them as they seemed like really nice guys. so the 4 of us sat there and were catching perch and some bozo came up in a blue coat and a pole in hand and was telling us exactly what we were doing wrong. after one of the older gentlemen caught a fish and needed a new minnow the dude in the blue coat literally says... gotta keep a line in that hole so they dont leave" and proceeds to put his line in the hole. the old guy was too nice to make him move so he had to find a new hole. I left shortly thereafter and let the old guys have our minnows cause I felt so bad. it's unbelievable that some people can be so oblivious to the way others feel.

[bigdave1018]

when im fishing i tell the crowders heres the rules and either go with it or get the f--k away from me. when i was younger , i brought out my own hole savers or markers. when i got done using a hole, id put 1 in the hole so that the jumpers didnt pull that its my hole from last year crap. they were makeshift tipups with no line, basicly an orange cross. hey it worked. being 6-7 425 lbs helps to at least ive never had to beat the crap out of anyone if you get my drift. ive even shared my setup just ask first or the answer is no and i dont like repeating myself. do unto others as you would have them do to you. tight lines be safe and have a super season big dave out.

[daffydone]

with all the bad experiences I had with people and their bad manners, I can remember one good experiance. A buddy and I were scouting the lake for panfish and we had drilled some holes and checked them with the fish finder. we set up with some sucess, a little while later, two guys walked up and politley asked if they could fish a hole we had drilled, we said sure, why not, we were not using it. about a half an hour later my buddie told me I had to come and see this. these two guys pulled an 11 and a half pound northern out of the hole on a tip up, it barley fit through an eight inch hole, they were good sportsman and released the fish.
 the moral of the story is DON'T LET ANYONE FISH YOUR HOLES, I'm just kidding, it was nice that they asked.

[The Clam]

We had a guy set up almost on top of us a couple years ago.   For some reason I happened to have a few M80's in my coat pocket that day.  After the first volley he called us @$$#oles.  The second volley progressed to F*%#ing @$$#oles.  After the third he packed up and signaled back to us we were number 1 as he walked away.  

[P.I.K.E.]

We had a guy set up almost on top of us a couple years ago.   For some reason I happened to have a few M80's in my coat pocket that day.  After the first volley he called us @$$#oles.  The second volley progressed to F*%#ing @$$#oles.  After the third he packed up and signaled back to us we were number 1 as he walked away.  

As wrong as it is for another guy to set up on top of you, throwing m80's at someone is just stupid.

[Lobo]

    I think we have all had some expreiences with these inconciderate types both on Ice and on Water. Moving in on someones spot is bad enough but it"s the Snow Mobilers in winter and the Jet Skiers and Water Skiers, as well as Hot Rod  Power Boaters that think it's cool to see how close to you or your Boat, Shanty, Tipup, Etc.that really get me riled !
 
Good Fishing !!!

Lobo

[adkRoy]

We had a guy set up almost on top of us a couple years ago.   For some reason I happened to have a few M80's in my coat pocket that day.  After the first volley he called us @$$#oles.  The second volley progressed to F*%#ing @$$#oles.  After the third he packed up and signaled back to us we were number 1 as he walked away.  

I think we all at one time or another wished we could do this.