Full_Monte
Well-known member
My wife and I were fishing at Huntington Lake, CA last week.
We were top-lining, trolling parallel to shore at about a stone's throw distance. My wife said "fish on", just as a sailboat on a starboard tack crossed our stern about 25 yards away and snagged both of our lines. The boat then changed directions to head back across the lake, dragging our lines and my wife's fish. We were quickly going to be spooled as the wind was strong and the sailboat was moving fast. We yelled and screamed at the sailors with no luck. I turned up the engine and gave chase, reeling in line as fast as we could. When we caught up with them, they said "Sorry". We asked them to head into the wind or drop their sails so we could untangle our lines. Instead, they made a couple laps around our boat, wrapping my line around my lower engine unit. About that time, my wife got her line free, and the woman on the sailboat said "Look, you've got a fish"! Finally, I got untangled, lost my lure and they took off across the lake again. We had quite a bit of adrenalin going by then and were visibly shaking from the experience. We got the number off the sail, and decided to report the incident. After trying the marine radio with no luck, we made several cell phone calls before we got Sheriff dispatch. The sheriff we talked to said he couldn't issue a ticket unless he saw the incident personally, but he would talk to them. We got a message on our phone later that he had talked with them and that they were apologetic. It's a good thing I didn't have a machine gun on board, or there might have been one sailboat at the bottom of the lake. Grrrr!
We were top-lining, trolling parallel to shore at about a stone's throw distance. My wife said "fish on", just as a sailboat on a starboard tack crossed our stern about 25 yards away and snagged both of our lines. The boat then changed directions to head back across the lake, dragging our lines and my wife's fish. We were quickly going to be spooled as the wind was strong and the sailboat was moving fast. We yelled and screamed at the sailors with no luck. I turned up the engine and gave chase, reeling in line as fast as we could. When we caught up with them, they said "Sorry". We asked them to head into the wind or drop their sails so we could untangle our lines. Instead, they made a couple laps around our boat, wrapping my line around my lower engine unit. About that time, my wife got her line free, and the woman on the sailboat said "Look, you've got a fish"! Finally, I got untangled, lost my lure and they took off across the lake again. We had quite a bit of adrenalin going by then and were visibly shaking from the experience. We got the number off the sail, and decided to report the incident. After trying the marine radio with no luck, we made several cell phone calls before we got Sheriff dispatch. The sheriff we talked to said he couldn't issue a ticket unless he saw the incident personally, but he would talk to them. We got a message on our phone later that he had talked with them and that they were apologetic. It's a good thing I didn't have a machine gun on board, or there might have been one sailboat at the bottom of the lake. Grrrr!
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