Sharing your fishing spot: Be careful with that "little secret"

Most anglers probably have a fishing spot or two that they’ve found on their own that they would be really disappointed about if it were discovered by other fishermen.

It’s not that most folks necessarily have anything against other anglers catching fish, it’s just that there are so many other fishermen on this planet and we all know what can happen when a good fishing spot is discovered — it can get pounded to death and ruined before you even knew the word was out about it.

And therein lies the dilemma.

Let’s say you’ve found a spot that is absolutely “killer” for a certain type of fish and you want in the worst way to share the news with your friends and family. But wait a minute, you’d better think this through!

Say you take your “best friend in the world” out to the spot — and of course swear him to secrecy. So he swears he’ll never tell anyone else about it, but a few weeks later he’s out fishing with a brother of his and decides to hit that spot.

Of course he’ll tell his brother “never-ever tell anyone about this place”! But later the brother will return in his boat with a best friend of his own. Before long everyone is sworn to secrecy, but everyone knows about it.

Then one day you return to your spot and find more fishermen than fish! What happened? No matter who you show or tell about your secret places, you’ve got to keep in mind that everyone has a friend or relative who they’re going to let in on the “little secret.”

Down in Florida I’ve got a really good friend who is also a backcountry guide. Throughout the winter months, he and I talk almost daily and share advice and details about our fishing exploits, but both of us respect and follow a sort of unspoken rule that we never tell each other exactly where we catch fish.

The dialogue has nothing to do us competing with one another, but everything to do with us respecting our friendship and actually hoping the other guy does well.

For instance, if I tell my friend I’ve been catching fish on the falling tide at a certain place then I’ve just shut him out of fishing that location, because out of respect for me he’ll consider that “my spot” and won’t fish it.

On the other hand, if he just stumbles upon that place and discovers good fishing on his own then it’s no more “my” place than it is “his,” and we’re both free to fish it whenever we want.

The unspoken protocols here on Delmarva are similar. A real friend won’t put you on the spot by asking specifically where you were when you caught that bunch of tuna, but they might ask a general question like, “How deep?” Or, “Did you get them out on the Hotdog?” 

That allows you the opportunity to be as precise as you want — or as vague. “Yea we got ’em on the Hotdog.” Or, “We got’em on the northeast side of the Hotdog in 142-feet of water.” 

When someone asks me for a precise location where we’ve been fishing, my answer is likely going to be somewhat vague, not because I don’t want the other guy to catch fish, but because I interpret his question this way: “I’d like to know where have you been catching fish so I can go and fish the in the same place, and by the way, I’ll probably tell my friends and they will probably tell their friends about your spot as well so we can all fish where you’ve been fishing”.   

If wherever it is I’ve been fishing allows for “group fishing,” I’ll be happy to provide exact GPS coordinates to where I’ve found the best action.

But I can’t imagine a scenario these days when I would look forward to having a bunch of other fishermen plying the same waters at the same time as I. I’m always happy to direct anglers toward fish, but not necessarily the exact same fish I hope to catch in the same place I hope to catch them.