3rd Degree Assault

^^^^ That is what a fisherman can get charged with when they cast a line on a skier/boarder and their is an injury. At least thats what you get here in AR.

I will try to keep the rant short. Kind of a rough start to the holiday weekend. I'm skiing behind our virtually wakeless PWC and a fisherman on the narrowest part of a lake decides to cast on to me. Of course I do not see him cast and just feel line ripping across my arms at 30MPH and fortunately the hook only gave me a grazing cut. The PWC was in the middle of the channel probably about 100 to 150 feet from the fishing boat but of course I (skier) came in range of his cast when I was cutting across on a 65 foot line. We idle up to him and offer him our thoughts and he is not the least bit apologetic, not that I was expecting contrition, and in the end the police are called and meet he and I at the only public boat ramp of the lake. The cops were handling the situation pretty good until the Lt supervisor shows up who tells me right off he is an avid fisherman and tries to convince me that it could have been an accident that his line was cast on me. It ended up that they took the report and all I have to do is call and press the charges and off to court we go. I doubt I will deal with the hassle of court though.

Well that was the start of our weekend. Thankfully the weekend turned out pretty good after that with decent riding conditions and good weather up until yesterday afternoon.

that is pretty crazy.. i wonder if we all packed our coolers with some fresh bass and then offered it to all the fisherman that were out on the lake, if they would move? think about it, go to your local fish market, pick up some delicious bass and then just give them a filet or two on the drive-by.. that way, they can have fresh bass to eat, will look like a king when they come home with a giant catch and will most likely be willing to move to different part of the lake, the part of the lake where you supposedly caught those giant bass.. works every time ..

On the delta those f@$%ers just cast the take off no ski boat can catch them its all bad

I WOULD PRESS CHARGES! I got casted on by a Muskey fisherman in MN And almost got in to a fist fight at the landing, the cops just made us go because there was no injury to me. But man there could have been! F- that shiat! Those guys need to respect what we are doing as much as they want us to respect them.

The only thing that I truly hate on Minnesota Lakes are fisherman (and the poh-poh's), sorry if any of you are fishermen but they have the worst attitude on earth. Worse than mine towards them.

definitely has happened to me, but didnt get hooked. I have also had a fisherman come up next to our boat while we were pulling a rider and wave his fillet knife at me.

On my little lake, we will be doin a circle circuit to hit our rail and while we are turning around fisherman will jump in right beside our rail and sit there until i have had enough and hit the rail anyways. not to mention the countless cuts on our vinyl of the mastercraft when we had it, and the time one caught onto my brother jacket right beside his neck.

Geez, I'm surprised there hasn't been some serious confrontations from this kind of stuff. I don't know what I would do if someone casted at me, or I saw it happen to a buddy.

I say press charges on the f***er, otherwise he'll just keep doing it if he keeps getting away with it. There is no excuse for blatantly trying to hurt someone that you don't know and thats done nothing to you. I used to work as a bouncer and have been blindsided and sucker punched many times and never pressed charges even though I could've, cause I knew it was just some drunk being retarded. But I think this is different and that ba$ta^d needs some F-ing punishment

That is completely unacceptable to me. That is definitely assault, and I would not hesitate to defend myself.

was it a rapala? buzz bait? popper plug? rubber worm?

Uh if you are boarding close enough to get hit with a fishing line then by definition you are illegally close to another vessel. If they were smart they could charge you since you admitted to illegally operating a vessel within 100ft of another at speed. If that is the case, then your fine may be more than his 3rd degree assault. You probably should just drop it. Trust me it would piss me off in a bad sort of way if he cast on me but you are equally wrong. He could easily say he did not see you or expect someone to perform an illegal act and get in his casting area. Your proof of an act is tough. You already admitted you were illegal. He most likely wins.

if i get casted at i would do another pass and spray them down.

Still haven't decided if I should call and press charges, but am thinking more about it. I was hoping 'justice' could be served right then and there and when I approached him I gave him every opportunity to 'assault' me again so I would clearly be in a position to defend myself with force but he didn't take the bait. If I throw the first punch, it is my butt in the pokey and that wouldn't be worth it.

Tim - It was a catfish rig. Big sinkers, big hooks, long poles, and stinky bait. I was lucky I came away with only scratches.

deltahossier - I try to leave the fishing men their space and generally try not to push the legal limits which in AR means that your CRAFT must be at least 100' from an anchored fishing boat. Unfortunately where this all happened is on one particularly narrow point on the lake where it is only about 300' +/-wide. Before and after that point the lake is much wider and the entire pass is locally known as wakeboard alley. Of course it is impossible to know exactly how far apart we were and without evidence equally impossible to proove in a court, but we were riding near the middle of the channel and I would estimate that our PWC was 150' from his boat, well outside the 100' requirement. Legally the crafts must be 100' feet away and there is no requirement on the distance a towed person must be from an anchored boat other than they can not be towed so as to strike an object such as a pier or other boat. Your supposition that because a skier came within casting range of a fishing boat holds no legal merit. A few facts. A catfish rig with a 1oz weight can be easily cast 100'+ and when you factor in that I was skiing on a 65' or 70' line and was 'hooked' while cutting to their side, the skier can legally come within 30' or 35' of their boat, well within casting range. I would guess that I (skier) was somewhere around 80' from their boat when they hooked me which would put out craft well outside the legal limit.

I know it is agravating to the fishermen when we ride and I try to leave them space but this guy picked the narrowest part of the lake to fish. I don't understand the logic of this retaliation and being equally wrong delthosier. Even if we were illegally operating our craft (which is not the case) and posing no danger to him, I do not understand the legal or ethical justification for casting a line that can rip through someones face, eye, or wrap around their neck. Totaly unjustified in my mind and can't believe you see some sort of *** for tat going on here.

P.S. The man that cast on to me was not blind or deaf and estimated that me the skier came within 150' of him so he already told the cops that he saw me.

i like to crank the stereo all the way up and slow down and give the fisherman a tripple up roller when rolling by the ones that are ********s, which is pretty rare for my outings on the delta. i do have a quite a few friends that fish the pro tour though so i dont have too many probs. back when i was in socal they used to sit at this point where the cove is narrow in the ski club private cove. they casted a few times at us but we got wise and started ollying on there lines and snapping them off. i guess they werent too good at timing their cast

I have thought about and like the triple up idea Jason and agree it should be used sparingly. Keep your boat a legal 100' away outside casting range and swamp-um.

AtTheLake you need to press charges and go to court, so this dumb a$$ learns his lessons and dosent hurt someone really bad.
Not only that but then he will tell all his fisherman buddies about how the got charged with a 3rd degree assault for casting at a skier and then maybe they wont make the same mistake he did.
If you let it go, he will do it again.

yea think about it. what if he hooked your neck with a big hook. nothin like a hook to the jugular

^^YAY DEATH!! (sarcasm if you didn't get that )

It is easy for me to say " I would have done this or that" but you don't know till you are in that situation. But, I think I would be going to jail on this one. I get mad just reading this. I think Steve(misteve) pretty much said everything I was thinking. This guy has never had his eyes beat out of his head or he would think before he did dumb crap. I hold back a lot of the dumb crap I have the urge to do for this very reason.

atthelake, I would press charges, I had 2 guys in a fishing boat come right at me then cast there lines at my son. I immediately stopped the boat and turned around to pick him up then proceded to the fishing boat. I was trying to get close enough to jump in when the lake patrol pulled up and told me to go chill while they took them into custody. evidently they saw the whole thing go down and charge with reckless endangerment and operating too close to another vessel and dui. the driver spent the night in the pokey and both were fined over 2 grand. I still haven't seen that boat and it has been about 3 years now. most of us have video cameras or regular cameras on board . If you are in Oklahoma all you have to do is have the evidence and report the boat #s and they will track them down and charge them. I'm an old man so i wouldn't mind a few days in jail for beating the shiznet out of some dumba$$.