Had a weird run in fishing a small creek this evening. I was fishing a small hole when a father and son came up to the same hole. Son, by my best guess about 11 years old or so, walked right up next to me. Probably about 5 feet away from me, and threw his line right on top of mine. He then proceeded to ask me what flies I was throwing, what pound test line, and gave me some wonderful and very wanted feedback about how I was fishing incorrectly. According to him I wasn't using light enough line, I wasn't drifting with the current enough and I wasn't fishing the way I think he believed I should be. Little did he know there was a method to my madness for how I was fishing tonight;
I just recently finished reading Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout and was inspired enough to try out throwing larger flies on a sink tip and fish them by stripping line across and downstream instead of just drifting my flies.
He then had the gall to suggest I go fish somewhere else. Dad stood 15 feet away just ignoring us and fishing away.
I can't make up my mind if this was a choreographed song and dance to chase me away from the hole I was fishing as it was loaded with fish or if these folks were just ignorant of common courtesy and stream etiquette. The boy could have just been very excited about fishing, wanting to share his excitement and fish the water where he caught fish before. I'm trying be optimistic and lean towards the latter but the interaction just felt so odd.
I was a bit shocked by the way he crowded me and threw his line practically right onto mine and then suggested I go somewhere else. I didn't feel like being confrontational so I just left it at that and moved on to different water after a couple casts. How would you have handled this differently?