I took the neighbor out yesterday, went over and was fishing the fishing barge. Now keep in mind was between the barge and the land, There was noone out front fishing. Had there been I wouldn't have gone over there. The old grey haired bearded guy comes out and starts cussing us, saying we cant fish here. I said yes we can its public water. Well this goes on for 30 minutes, even taking my picture ( while Im waiving with a big smile on my face). He says he's gonna call the game wardens, I say good if you don't I will.

Morale of the story dont go fish over there if your not ready for an argument.

The wardens never showed up and never returned my phone call.

But I did look it up when I got home and took a pic from tpwd website that clearly states that I can fish there, and that He can be given a ticket for trying to stop me.

Wow! Some people got the nerve. Maybe he was afraid you're going to take his fish. Why is is mostly grumpy old man being that way. Had one old man told me to get off his brushpile while I was fishing for 30 minutes on it. He said he put it there and it's his. I looked at him and said "Good morning to you too sir." He was so red in the face I thought he was going to jump from his boat into mine. I laughed and let him have it since I caught most of the crappie off of it. Don't let people like that ruin your day at the lake.

I would have threw my anchor in the the water, snagged "his" pile, and dragged it away just to tick him off if he'd said that to me.

what an SOB. Ive heard of people throwing fits at the barge...

THIS^^^^

I've seen people at the Joe Pool barge get upset at boats fishing close to the barge but most of the time that was due to the boats getting too close to the barge and running across their fishing lines. Or tossing their lures toward the barge and snagging their fishing lines.

But since nobody was fishing that area he shouldn't have cared about you fishing it.

But when you are fishing from a boat there are too many other places to fish to waste time arguing over whether you can fish a certain spot or not.

@AGSWON: Better hope a game warden doesn't see you doing that. Brush piles belong to the governing body of the water, not the person placing them in the water. And I was told by two game warden's I asked after an incident last year that they will ticket anybody they see destroying brush piles, as they consider that destruction of public property.

There is a history of this guy and others on the barge harrassing boaters. This is a problem that should be addressed. I used to fish on this barge when I did not want to take the boat out. Maybe someone should have a serious talk to the barge owner. As far as for the old grey haired bearded guy, the next time he does this, act first and call the game warden on him. I am sure a ticket for harrassement will change his actions.

interesting scenario .....
to bad some folks just don't get it ....
kuz in the end ...ITS JUST A FISH !

EZ,

If everyone would maintain a 1 cast distance the problem would be resolved. At Joe Pool, where I fish a lot, the wind blowing dictates a judicious distance.

So did you boat anything from that spot Stephen?

BB, at one time the rails on the sides of that fishing barge had "no casting" signs on them. Don't know if they still do but it doesn't matter, as very few barge fishermen paid any attention to any of the signage on the barge.

The problem is that the channels between the boat slips and the fishing barge are too narrow. So if somebody is fishing from the barge using a float their lines can be half way out with a minor cast.

And for some reason many of the boats going into the docking area for gas or to go to the store motor closer to the barge side of the channels than the slip side of the channels. Plus you must motor close to the barge to get into some of the boat slips if the wind is blowing very hard. So this causes the boats to tangle the lines of people fishing with floats from the barge.

And then there are those boaters who believe they have the right to cast anywhere they wish from their boats and cast their lures to the edge of the fishing barge. This often results in tangle lines with those fishing the barge and words exchanged.

My slip faces the fishing barge there so I saw this on a regular basis last year, especially on weekends.

But my real pet peeve is the idiots who do not believe the "no wake" signs apply to their boats. Either that or they are so ignorant they do not realize that if you can see waves behind their boats they are creating a wake.

And yes, sadly, I am very familiar with the Joe Pool wind and it's impact of fishing and boating.

yes!

Good reason to deal with that Jack Wagon then....Stay the course.

Yeah, being an old gray haired redneck Injun, I was always having to run them bigcrappie.com guys off my personal crappie hotels! They just kept stealing my fish and never did pay the rent they owed me! And than one morning, that guy named Chuck, even wanted to know what I was fixing for breakfast and when it would be ready and even if'n I'd bring it out to him and his customers!
There just ain't no repect for us old timers anymore...and after all, I did teach Chuck everything he knows about fishin......just sayin.....

And to top it all off, that Chuck feller, goes and hires two more guys, think he called them Lane and Chris, to take even more of MY crappie off MY hotel! The gall....
make me want to do a stompdance on his head.......

What I love about the barge is when I need to pick up something on the water (Slab Bandits, minnows, nature call, etc.), you have to use the south side of the barge. There is a place to tie up your boat with boat fenders, ropes and breaks in the rails which makes it obvious that it is for boats to dock. I have seen a lot of people get upset when I pull in the area to dock because they have a bunch of lines out in that area. I have yet to have a single person pull in their lines to let me in so I just try my best to ease on in. If they seem to start to get pissy about it, I guess it makes me nervous because I have to throw the 150 Merc in forward, then reverse, then forward, then reverse, then make a circle to the right, then a couple to the left, punch it, turn on the bilge, etc, etc. etc. Did I forget to mention that I take out my 'fish' clubber and set it on the seat during all this?

One day I was leaving after easing on in and doing my business when one guy starts complaining to his partner about the boats using that area and called those who used it a bunch of A Holes (or is it a gaggle, a herd, a flock??). Well that really got me ticked off because I tried real hard to ease in there without upsetting their fishing. I must of got nervous again and didn't even realize that I dropped the hammer down and was on full plane by the time I hit their last line.