I was wandering back to one of my "secret" holes, one I’d discovered as a teenager and had never, ever seen another angler or trace of another human at since the early 1980s. Posted on 09/23/2019 5:16:40 AM PDT by w1n1
I was wandering back to one of my "secret" holes, one I’d discovered as a teenager and had never, ever seen another angler or trace of another human at since the early 1980s.
I was 20 minutes into the usual 30-minute hike on animal trails when a person appeared from nowhere. I literally almost jumped out of my waders.
The dude, who looked strung out and definitely not a fellow fisherman, asked, "Hey, you got some smokes?"
"Nope, I don't smoke," I said.
"Do you have any money?"
"Nope, I'm fishing."
"I need some money!"
"Sorry, I can't help you."
"Dude, you don’t understand, I need money."
"Sorry, can't help you,” I said, and walked by him.
Was I scared? Yes, sh*tless!
I reached my fishing hole but couldn't get the thought that he was stalking me out of my mind, or that I would meet up with him again on the way back to my vehicle. Neither scenario materialized, but afterwards I drove straight to a gun shop and purchased my first self-defense weapon. Now, if I’d been packing and ran into the guy, would I have drawn my weapon? No – I did not feel my life was threatened.
Would I have felt more comfortable? Hell, yes! Should my life have become threatened, I would have had the tools and knowledge available to use them. From that point on I realized that the outdoors aren’t just filled with friendly fellow anglers and hunters.
Here's another one - Once, while on the Calawah River in Forks, I’d been fishing with a buddy and we decided to split up. I fished from the mouth up, while he went from the ponds down. Only about a quarter mile up the river I watched two anglers drift fishing a hole. To me, the hole was meant for a float and jig. I watched and conversed with the pair for about 10 minutes, then decided to ask if I could throw my float out.
First cast and it was “Fish on!” The dude who had been fishing the hardest was pissed off, to say the least.
"WTF … You SOB, come into my hole and steal my fish! I oughta kick your ass!"
Not wanting to cause any problems, I told the guy to take my rod. "Here, you reel it in," I said. The guy was furious, though his buddy was cracking up, saying, "Dude, you got freaking schooled!" Read the rest of armed while fishing.
The scariest, most deadly animal in the forest?
The hu-man.
“I am almost always armed.”
*
Yup, agree. But, if the guy in the pic is the author of the article he needs schooling on how to pack a 1911. It’s not hammer down. Proper way is cocked and locked...
I’ve run into bums in the woods. Not a big deal. But this guy fishes in a place where there are a lot of angry people. Most people fishing are happy dudes.
While I understand the solution of personal protection to handle one of the symptoms of this problem, it ignores the actual problem.
Squatters are denying access to public spaces. If this was a company doing it, there’d be a million lawsuits forcing them out of business for denying access.
Tell me why squatters can get away doing this and a pathway to putting an end to it... That's what we really need. Oh, and more constitutional carry.
“I once saw John Wick kill 3 men in a bar with a fishing rod. A fishing rod! Who the fk does that?”
Always. I often fish “off grid” in remote areas of the Catskill Mountains where some of the best trout streams on not even on a map. I carry a .357 revolver, not so much to protect against other people; but to protect against black bears, coyotes and coy-dogs, and rabid raccoons, skunks, and foxes, etc.
“ Have had snakes try to get in the boat
...
PRO TIP: never fire toward the floor of your boat.
Fill in the blank with just about anything and the answer for me will most likely always be the same.
And NOT in a Serpa.
If you’re fishing for Halibut you are . The only way to get them in the boat is shoot them first ,LOL
We have a dog that’s half Corgi, and he has a major ‘tude. I didn’t realize it was a breed characteristic, so thanks for that. It explains a lot.
Yes - I too would like to know about the squat.
What’s your objection to a Serpa holster?
Last night I heard what I thought sounded like gun fire coming from our neighbors house. He is heavily armed and the person who I would vote most likely to snap and kill his family.
I never heard any screaming or loud arguments as we sometimes do. I tried to nose around a little bit in the dark to see if I could detect anything that would confirm that there had been a problem. But saw and heard nothing that indicated there was a problem. I wasn’t sure what I thought that I had heard wasn’t something else. So I dropped what I was doing and went inside and pushed a few shells of buckshot into the old pump action 22 guage, and made sure the revolver was fully loaded. If the guy was on a rampage I wanted to make sure that we could protect ourselves if he tried to break into our house.
The last gunfight that I heard was when I used to work in a gang infested area. I had been sleeping and got up to tell the other guys to turn the TV down. It sounded like they were watching some kind of war movie. But they were all laying on the floor in the dayroom and told me to get down because there was shooting going on in front of the station. We heard one guy scream out that he had been hit. And then they all took off.
A few minutes later we were helping the police look for brass outside the fire station. The guy who got shot had been dropped off at the hospital by his buddies. He had been shot in the buttocks and it wasn’t life threatening.
So far, nothing this morning from the neighbors house indicating that there had been a problem.
Thanks Android autocorrect for changing 12 to 22.
Might have been a good question for Fredo to ask.
In all my training, I've never had an instructor recommend them. In fact, just the opposite.
'Friends Don't Let Friends Use Serpas'
Now, if it was a Pocket Fisherman, I'd be impressed:
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