Right of way - Fishing etiquette

Okay I had my first negative encounter on the water and it was from another kayaker! 

So I am sitting literally in the middle of the Ocean.  A group of 5 or 6 paddlers goes by me and one lady is lagging a couple of hundred yards behind the group.  At least I think she was part of the group. 

The group goes by, I have my gear out trolling and so I head behind the group out to deep water.  The loner comes by and I cross in front of her by maybe 30 yards or so.   She paddles by me and starts giving me grief about "right of way" and though I am not a commercial fisherman, she has the right of way and so on.  I look at her, I look around and literally within half mile all around us it is just our two kayaks in the water.  I stare back and ask "You are giving me grief over a right of way here?!?!  Look around you!  I have gear deployed, you have NOTHING but open space and you decide to cut directly at me then give me grief??  Are you nuts???" 

My death look and me looking around acting like I was counting the boats around us...which was hard since there were  zero boats/kayaks around us....must have been enough as she sighs in disgust and says enjoy the sun and paddles off.

So...  what is the right of way rule?  Common sense says I have gear deployed traveling in a straight line.  Another vessels comes up on me from a distance, decides she needs to cross right near me.  I have to change directions? 

Well I really don't care in this particular case about "technicalities"  I wouldn't change anything under this scenario anyways but if she is wrong about right of way, and I see her again, well I plan on fully educating her up close.  That kind of effort to simply try to put down other people when there is there is no need for it is absolutely a pet peeve of mine.

I bet she's from Seattle.

I'm sitting here with a smile on my face waiting for a reply from the Jade!   

-Allen

Well, the short answer, as I remember it is, If the other vessel is not under sail, or limited by draft, the vessel comming from the right has right away, if head to head, vessels should pass on the right, unless vessel with right of way, changes course or speed, then they forfeit right of way.
think of the bow lights, imagine every one has one, rite side is green & left side is red, if you would be looking at red, they have right of way, if you would be looking at green, its you.
sail has right of way over paddle or motor & the person with the biggest boat can take the right of way, if they really want it.

Oh Oh...I  hope I didn't open a can of worms polepole.

Thanks Snow Plow.  I suppose technical I had the red light as I was crossing from her right to left.  But after re-reading the maritime rules, its a little hazy when two kayaks meet in the middle of the ocean with visibility of several miles. 

Let's say the rules definitively stated that she technically had the right of way.  It's one thing to educate which I suppose she maybe thought that's what she was doing, but to go out of your way to "put down" someone when there is absolutely no need to is what just pisses me off.  What a negative attitude...or just real super lazy that she can't take two strokes on one side of her kayak to make way...heck, had she just farted once to either port or starboard it would have been enough to deviate her course to miss me...well, she was in one of those SINK kayaks so maybe not...lol.    For me, I was crossing in front so no amount of course correction other than a dead stop or 180 turn would have avoided her since I am 100% sure she wasn't tracking in a straight line and generally just headed into Miller's Landing area from the South.   I crossed right behind the main group and she was at minimum a 100 yards or more behind the group. 

Ok...need to stop thinking about it...Why it bothers me this much, I don't know.   But it just infuriates me thinking about it....

but to go out of your way to "put down" someone when there is absolutely no need to is what just pisses me off.  What a negative attitude...

That right there is how the vocal minority, and more and more, the american public in general, thinks.  Pisses me off too.

The sad absence of common sense is frustrating bro.

I think Most people would have just gone around, & not even thought twice about who had the right of way, considering you had a fishing line out.
Here's me opening a can of worms, she's probably one of those self righteous, tree huggin hippy hypocrites, who complains about traffic, & rides her bike down the middle of the road at 10 in a 35, to cut down on traffic congestion, slowing other cars, creating even more emissions, just to do her part to save the planet. She was probably mad that you were trying to harm fish for "sport" knowing that a fuzzy bear, or Orca was possably going to go hungry, for your selfish pleasure.
or she may have been just had a bad day & wanted to take it out on you, instead of her "friends" that left her behind.

Sounds like she was struggling to keep up with her friends and took it out on you because you "got in the way".

From BoatUS's Rules of the Road

The Pecking Order

There is a "pecking order" that can be used as a simplified memory aid to determine right of way for vessels
of different types. Get very familiar with this list, as it is important to understand it thoroughly. The lower most
vessel on the list is the give way vessel, and must stay out of the way of vessels that are higher on the list:

Overtaken vessel (top priority)

    Vessels not under command
    Vessels restricted in their ability to maneuver
    Vessels constrained by draft
    Fishing vessels engaged in fishing, with gear deployed
    Vessels restricted in their ability to maneuver
    Sailing vessels
    Power driven vessels

Now if you're a vessel engaged in fishing you shall exhibit:

        two all-round lights in a vertical line, the upper being red and the lower white, or a shape consisting of two cones with their apexes together in a vertical line one above the other;

        when there is outlying gear extending more than 150 meters horizontally from the vessel, an all-round white light or a cone apex upwards in the direction of the gear.

        when making way through the water, in addition to the lights prescribed in this paragraph, sidelights and a sternlight.

All that said, you not actually considered "fishing":

Vessels engaged in fishing - Means any vessel fishing with nets, lines, trawls or other fishing apparatus which restrict maneuverability, but does not include a vessel fishing with trolling lines or other fishing gear which doesn't restrict maneuverability

and she sounds like she was not in command of her vessel. So maybe she did have the right-of-way.


 

In this scenario, I think the best thing to remember is to keep your paint balls in a dry place until needed (like right after she opened her pie hole) and make sure you have lots of CO2 so you can crank up the velocity. You wouldn't want to wast more valuable fishing time and lob them in when you could just take a couple of well place shots and be done with it.  Right of way this....bioch.

Sounds like she was struggling to keep up with her friends and took it out on you because you "got in the way".

Same thing I thought when I read this.

You had two good options: 

A) Offer her an apology and some encouragement

B) Make endless fun of her inability to paddle effectively

I'd like to think that I'd choose A)......

Sounds like she was struggling to keep up with her friends and took it out on you because you "got in the way".

Same thing I thought when I read this.

You had two good options: 

A) Offer her an apology and some encouragement

B) Make endless fun of her inability to paddle effectively

I'd like to think that I'd choose A)......

That is an awesome answer Spot.  Well put!!!

-Allen

Can we keep the political BS out of this?  She might have been a dreaded and demonized liberal, or might have worshipped Michele Bachman---bottom line she was an ignorant weenie, and the best approach is to let her spoutings go in one ear, and out the other.  Don't get all bent out of shape, life is too short for obsessing on other people's stupidity. 

This thread has turned out to be as funny as it was enlightening.  But back to a slightly more serious note.  I just got done fishing Valdez, AK.  This town is CRAZY fishing friendly.  Free Launch, parking, fish cleaning tables everywhere....

Then I noticed this commercial kayak policy for the harbor.  It all makes sense in many ways except for this paragraph that I saw:

"Kayaks enjoy no privileges under the US Coast Guard navigation
rules. Kayaks are to yield to any powerboat they encounter.
Operations should be planned to avoid placing kayaks into the path of
powerboats. Combined with the problem of kayak visibility, you can
see that operation of kayaks within a boat harbor basin is problematic.
Under the rules of the road, it must be stressed that when a kayak
comes into contact with a powerboat, the kayak is responsible to avoid
any risk of collision."

Really?  I would thought that an unmotorized vessel does have the right of way.  Maybe not...

Here's the whole doc:
http://www.alaskaharbors.org/documents/ValdezKayakPolicy.PDF