StarvinMarvin, I do respect you and your opinions, but, without the intent of hijacking this thread too much more, I am going disagree to an extent with most of what you just said, and feel I should clarify. I apologize if you or anyone feels offended by my remark, it was meant to be a joke, and I am sorry for the situation you encountered, snagging is wrong and we should do everything in our power to stop it. In addition, I am sure there are plenty of great, wonderful, helpful people who frequent FishErie, but it really doesn't give off that impression, when I see a newbie politely ask a reasonable question, only to get 10 smart @ss, arrogant responses back for every one helpful one. I mean, its one thing to tell someone to use the search button if they ask something that has been answered, or is blatantly obvious (ie what's sucker spawn, what's the Manchester hole, etc.), but get real. I don't think someone who has to drive several hours to fish, asking about conditions, is unreasonable, you don't have to tell them to every detail, rather than launching into a tirade about how pathetic they are for wanting to be "spoon fed," you can just say "I fished so and so on this date, conditions were so and so, caught this many fish." Takes about five seconds. If you don't want to talk about fishing in Erie, on a forum called FishErie, you are probably in the wrong place. Pretty simple common sense.
As for the whole whining, and upsetting people, you're right, I will be quiet about the FishErie crowd on here in the future. However, to speak to my defense, first of all, I find it somewhat ironic that there are people over there who complain day in and day out about the fishing, and when I simply make this observation, I AM SUDDENLY THE WHINER? Secondly, I am a practice what you preach type of person, and I like to be respectful and polite, and try approach each person I know with the mindset that they are a good person. This helps in Erie, 90% of the time, if I feel someone is crowding me, my first idea is attempt to strike up a conversation, and keep out of the defensive "this person is intentionally being rude and trying to ruin my fishing" mindset, and I usually find that the person is really a good person, and in their excitement, they just didn't realize they were getting a little too close. However, I didn't exactly feel respected, and was a bit upset (as I had every right to be), when I posted that report, excited and proud about the fish I caught and attempting to help people out, willing to answer any questions, and the first thing someone was said was some nose stuck in the air "way to gill blast that brown trout" remark. Not to sound like I'm giving baby talk, but it woulda been a little more courteous to say something along the lines of "nice fish, but be careful not to damage the gills with your hand, that can cause delayed mortality." And, afterwards, I essentially apologized for doing that, and explained myself (I don't know about you, but I find steelhead and Erie browns very slick and hard to hold, and I didn't even realize that I had my hand in the gill slit until after I saw the photo, I now take extra effort to avoid the gill area when removing a fish or getting a photo). Now, everytime I try to make a helpful post, I gotta deal with some wise guy annoyingly rehashing the same old "you gill blasted that brown trout A MONTH ago" for the gazillionth time, like that particular fish was holy or something. It's fishing, crap is going to happen, and sometimes a fish will get killed, even if the angler doesn't mean for it to happen.
Again, I apologize, but I hope this settles it.
