I’m a bank fisherman. Only been in a boat on the river one time, which just happened to be this last weekend. You guys with the boats are lucky this was one of the most pleasurable fishing experiences I have had. Drifting down the river is totally cool and I will soon be getting a drift boat.

I have not really had any bad experience with the drift boaters. Usually they are nice and I try to talk to them a little as they go buy to keep up good relations. Sleds on the other hand have irritated me a couple of times. When wading into the middle of the river to fish the deep slot on the far bank, I have had sleds come up and beach their boat right were I was casting to start my drift. If I were to move down river and cast below the boat I would be out of the slot by the time my lead hit the bottom. Frustrating when I spent 20-50 minutes to walk into this hole.

As a banky I learned something knew by being in a boat this weekend. I have probably pissed a few drift boaters off before I learned some etiquette this weekend from the guy I drifted with. If a drift boat is pulling plugs and working his way slowly down river, as a banky just arriving to the river, I should not fish below the boats plugs until he has passed by me because he is slowly pushing the fish down river until the fish get ticked and strike the plug. Since I had never plugged fish until this weekend I admit my ignorance to this but will be more aware of the drift boats in the future.

Sometimes the bank fisherman get to easily upset by the boaters, and sometimes the boaters get to easily upset by the bank fisherman. This has been my experience on the Snohomish river system, which are basically the only rivers I fish.