Hold Onto Your Britches, 'Cause Another Summer Is Upon Us

So yesterday, mid-morning, I found myself tooling down the ever-winding West Neck Road when I suddenly detected a pickup towing a pleasure boat in the line of vehicles ahead of me. As the line approached the turnoff for what used to be West Landing Marina, which, of course, is closed now, I saw the pickup with the pleasure boat take that turn.

My immediate thought was, "Self, take a memo. At all costs, do not, under any circumstances, consider venturing onto the water this 4th of July weekend because, as usual, it will be filled with people who don't have a clue--or, more importantly--don't care what they're doing, or where they're going."

And, just as I also had predicted in my thoughts, that same vehicle I had seen on the road earlier arrived at West Neck Marina soon after I had pulled in and parked. "Hmmm..." I mused. "Didn't know West Landing had closed, and it very well may be the boat's maiden voyage this season. Wonder if it has been serviced recently. Or, will this be a case where the ramp gets tied up from a boat with a dead battery or that otherwise won't start?"

And those concerns don't even begin to address another priority: the effects of pleasure boating on fishing during a holiday. Through a little Internet research, I learned there are a fair number who share this take on the situation: The increased boat traffic affects the bass fishermen a lot more than it does the bass.

Said one angler, "It gets to irritating us and gets into our head so bad that we stop fishing and start worrying about who's going too fast, or who isn't going what we think is slow enough in a no-wake zone."

That same angler, who fishes one of the busiest lakes around, went on to note that, on one 4th of July, he and his wife got back in "party cove" and threw crankbaits into the mudlines from all the boat wakes hitting the banks.

"We just killed 'em," he said, adding, "we were less than a half-mile from all the mayhem, and the bass had their feed bags on. Even catching all those fish, though, I got tired of fighting the waves, and we moved to the backs of a couple protected coves and creeks. We scratched out a couple more fish but worked a lot harder for them. If I wouldn't have let the waves bother me, I probably could have kept catching fish."

Another angler faced with his own share of "village idiots who don't even slow down for no-wake zones," as he described them, had this question: "What can you do to hold your concentration in situations like these and still manage to catch fish?" He went on to add, "With the water being so rough and the traffic being so heavy, I can't help but sometimes wonder if maybe you always need two people in a boat, with only one fishing and the other watching out for what other boaters are doing in the vicinity."

The 4th of July, along with Memorial Day and Labor Day, typically account for more than one-third of all boating-related accidents and fatalities each year. Accordingly, the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary is urging all boaters to use extra caution while boating during the 4th of July holiday. In light of these dangers, the Auxiliary also offers seven tips to help you stay safe while boating throughout this busy summer. Read all the tips at this link: https://americanboating.org/safety-danger-ahead.asp.