That term “social distancing” seems to be getting a lot of attention these days; maybe another term is the “six-foot rule”. Apparently if you stay six feet away everything is ok but closer than that and you will make people sick or infringe or violate them in some way. You go into some stores now and there are lines on the floor at six foot intervals so you know where to stand; I suppose that beats the heck out of having to carry a tape measure and be constantly poking people with the end of it while you measure off the distance. Heaven forbid if you just tried to estimate the distance and you came up eight inches short!

So, what does all of this social distancing stuff have to do with fishing? Well, actually quite a bit. I have noticed some unsettling scenarios these past couple of months while pursuing my normal fishing activities. While trout fishing a local stream a couple of weeks ago, I began fishing in a spot where no others were in sight. Shortly after I arrived, I saw a young man and his little son coming down to the stream to fish as well; I thought that was great that dad was going to help the little tyke maybe catch a trout. There was plenty of stream up above me but for some reason this guy chose to get up close to me and began casting over top of my line. Clearly this is not what you should be teaching the youngster; my admiration quickly departed and so did I.

Every time I and some of my fishing companions have been out on a lake this spring, we have experienced other disturbing behavior by others utilizing the lake. My brother and I were sitting in my boat casting our lures towards the shoreline edge in hopes of picking up some panfish or pickerel-a very common practice that fishermen have been utilizing for years. To our disbelief a man in a kayak was paddling the shoreline and he passed right through the area we were trying to fish-big no, no! Several times this spring while fishing form my boat we have had groups of kayakers paddle right through the area we were trying to fish but it’s not just kayakers we have had some other people run their boats up close and begin fishing the same spot where we were casting our lures.

No doubt all this social distancing talk and the push to get people involved in some kind of outdoor activity has resulted in more people hitting the lakes and streams and likely many of them are not familiar with acceptable “social distancing” practices. Even the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is caught up in the “six-foot rule” as is apparent in their full page add in their last magazine issue. In that add they advocate a distance of six feet apart as a minimum distance while fishing. I don’t agree and that is why I and a lot of other serious trout fishermen will not take part in the first day of trout season on many of our small and medium sized trout streams.

When people are fishing it’s much more appropriate to allow at least a fair amount of casting distance between fishermen to avoid line tangles and casting interference; that could be at least 20 or so feet. It’s also not appropriate to plow through a piece of water that is being fished by others nor is it ok to pull up next to someone you don’t know and begin casting into the spot they were casting. I’m glad to see more interest in the outdoors but I think it’s equally important that we all understand appropriate behavior while on lakes and streams.

By the way, I wouldn’t recommend heading out in turkey season or deer season and walking up to within six feet of someone’s treestand that you don’t know and taking up your own stand-not good!