Fishermen

[Cyclist2]

No doubt a lot of you OTW rowers row on lakes/rivers/reservoirs/etc. that are shared by others. I was reminded today about fishermen in boats.

I was out on Hood Canal, a huge body of water - Navy ships ply it routinely. It was pretty quiet today. I saw a few small boats out, but far away, no wakes. I was into my workout, checking my mirror frequently for buoys, debris, and boats. But I missed one trolling quietly. Two square miles of water and I almost hit a guy! I saw some wake bubbles to my port and looked around just in the nick of time. Another stroke and I'd have hit the big outboard motor staring me in the face! I bit the oars in deep to stop and then carefully maneuvered to avoid tangling my oars in his fishing lines. I was that close. I woke up the dog on the boat while I was yelling at them but until then they were absolutely silent. Maybe they were asleep too, the boat on autopilot.

What is it about boaters that they don't holler when they see some guy pulling hard backwards heading straight for them? This isn't the first time this has happened. When I have the opportunity, I nicely tell boaters to SPEAK UP if I get too close, I won't be offended. Maybe it's just the deer-in-the-headlights syndrome that keeps them from saying something, I have no clue.

So, keep your head on a swivel, check your mirror (if you use one) often, and remember they are silent, but mobile obstacles.

[PaulG]

With mirrors, sometimes object directly ahead of you go unseen. Good think you saw the wake. I always turn my head around to either side and take a look.

[DavidA]

No doubt a lot of you OTW rowers row on lakes/rivers/reservoirs/etc. that are shared by others. I was reminded today about fishermen in boats.

I was out on Hood Canal, a huge body of water - Navy ships ply it routinely. It was pretty quiet today. I saw a few small boats out, but far away, no wakes. I was into my workout, checking my mirror frequently for buoys, debris, and boats. But I missed one trolling quietly. Two square miles of water and I almost hit a guy! I saw some wake bubbles to my port and looked around just in the nick of time. Another stroke and I'd have hit the big outboard motor staring me in the face! I bit the oars in deep to stop and then carefully maneuvered to avoid tangling my oars in his fishing lines. I was that close. I woke up the dog on the boat while I was yelling at them but until then they were absolutely silent. Maybe they were asleep too, the boat on autopilot.

What is it about boaters that they don't holler when they see some guy pulling hard backwards heading straight for them? This isn't the first time this has happened. When I have the opportunity, I nicely tell boaters to SPEAK UP if I get too close, I won't be offended. Maybe it's just the deer-in-the-headlights syndrome that keeps them from saying something, I have no clue.

So, keep your head on a swivel, check your mirror (if you use one) often, and remember they are silent, but mobile obstacles.

I'm glad you did manage to avoid a serious issue.

[Lancer21]

Man, this is nightmare fuel! THat's literally the main reason why I mostly row at home and not on the water: I'm always afraid to hit someone/something when I'm not looking, which results in me spending half of my time bending myself to look what's happening in front of my boat every two minutes. And I decided to row inside after hurting my back a couple times because I did that when rowing

[cleister]

My nightmare is not about fishermen, it's about those long distance swimmers covered in neoprene trying to get from one side to the other side. And hitting one with the blade. They are invisible.

[Erik A]

Interesting thread. I do a lot of fishing but on a kayak. One thing about kayak fishing is most that do it are pretty succesfull. Due i think to the stealth factor. When boat fishos see that there is a yak fisho near by they pretty much always head over to see bow we are doing. This is really annoying as the wake etciii I was out one time... about 4km offshore and was sitting fishing nice and quiet. No one around .... or so i thought.... heard a funny noise and looked around and a sail boat under full sail was heading directly at me. ... had to ditch my anchor rope in a hurry and managed to get out of his way.... the guy sitting at the back was very surprised at the amount of abuse he got from me as he went past....its a big ocean and he still nearly got me...