So I am curious, and have a question for the guides on here, what is a respectable distance for a boat to come by when you are anchored over fish if they are trolling using the big motor? What about just the trolling motor? Is it 100 ft? 200ft? I agree that i think the guides on Texoma are worse by far, but they have been through a couple of rough years with the droughts so maybe a bit cranky because of it.

All good feedback, good input and answers, it is much appreciated.

I agree that it is definitely situational and I think that in the situation I was in Sunday, I probably should have passed on that rotation. It was one boat working a limited area, specifically, a line of permanent buoys, and I can kind of understand why he didn't want to share. It wasn't like both sides of the buoys could be worked.... Bad judgement on my part. If it was a hump in open water, different deal all together. To his credit, he didn't go ape$%@#, just a some arm gestures and a confrontational statement, minus any profanity. No harm, no foul, time to move on.

Thanks gents! Hopefully next trip to Texoma will be more successful! Cheers!

When I get pushed out of my trolling line is when I get screaming mad or if the new boat dead stops on a crossing ledge right in front of me. At that point, I tend to pull a Crazy Ivan crank up the Katy Perry and watch for the whites of their eyes. Run up the jolly roger, fire the cannons as a warning shot across their bow send up flairs. Then I go to ramming speed and drop my anchor on the left to make a hard left into their boat attempting to sink them and take the captives as my slaves. (In my mind)LOL

I usually just wave and help make sure they have room. We have plenty of fish.

Greensprit casting distance is a good distance.
I probally should not comment since I never troll. I also know that the regular guides on Eagle Mountain also never troll. acouple of guides that fish Eagle Mountain a couple times a year troll.
I fish structure all the time with slabs and 99 percent I fish straight down after finding fish on electronics. Since there is so many people cannot find fish except to troll. I am amazed how close many people will troll a circle around me while I am spot locked on a hump or a ridge. They will be so close we carry on a conversation in a normal voice. After catching a couple of fish and scaring them off they will go troll somewhere else . I always try to talk people into setting up on the fish and slabbing them up and offering to give them slabs. Most people I run into trolling refuse to fish any other way which I don't understand. I just move and go find another batch of fish. I cannot get in a shouting match with trollers since I have customers

I agree. I normally try to stay away from other boats by distances that can be measured in football fields rather than feet. But there are jerks on every lake in every profession. I have had guides run through a school I was fishing on lakes as small as Navarro Mills or as big as Whitney. In fact, I can tell you there is one guide boat on Whitney, I don't know which one but know it's not Randy Routh or Mike Acosta because I know their boats, that has on multiple occasions saw us spot locked and catching fish come trolling withing feet of us with down riggers out and a boat full of people pulling several baits. Kathy and I laugh and bet on how long it will take them to come trolling past once we start catching fish. My favorite time is when I am on the road bed by the state park on the shallow side of it and watch them fight the tangles when the down riggers hit the water less than 10 feet. This one will be on different structures that I will be on, but you can bet as soon we start putting fish in the boat pretty regularly, he will be by pretty soon. If I was a paying client of his, it would tick me off that my guide could only find fish by seeing what everyone else was doing. He got close enough one time I asked if he wanted me to give him some slabs like we were using.
So yeah, it is just fishing. I do it for fun and relaxation, so instead of letting them get me mad, I just laugh and will go find more fish. We do troll some, but will make sure there are no other boats around when we do.

It's kinda funny comparing trolling etiquette on our lakes to my experiences up in Alaska. Up there, you may have a couple dozen boats all working around the same point, running close enough to have conversations while you fish, and there's no problems as long as you don't cut someone off.

But, those fish don't tend to get spooked by big motors, lots of noise, and so on.

Down here if I'm trolling, I try to stay out of casting distance of boats that are jigging. But I don't mind someone else trolling close to me.

"Common Courtesy"

It is sort of like the "Left lane is for passing only rule".
Some don't know what it is ..... A lot don't care what it is....

common courtesy would be if someone was trolling a certain hump or spot would be go an find another area to fish.

"Common Courtesy" left years ago and I seen all the gripes a few weeks ago on Texoma . I would move away and damn here they came. I am dropping baits have 4 people trolling around me like a shark looking for a meal.

When you moved away were you moving back to working birds?

It's really simple for me. If other people are trolling where I like to fish, I just get away from them. I have other places to troll. I like to stay away from other people that are fishing/trolling. The fish move around and so do I. It's not worth getting all worked up about!

No birds were going east I headed west .

Timmy You are Hilarious!!

As I rule I think you should always stay at least the distance a person can cast a slab/rattletrap. I have never hit anyone with a lure but I have landed a rattletrap near a boat as it eased closer with trolling motor to where I was anchored. Seemed to to work as they changed coarse.

The problem with all this is that most of know what and what not to do, just like launching and recovering at the ramp, but there are always a few "fisherman" who do not care about anyone but themselves. It's human nature, the worst species on the planet.