Ah, the same discussion every yr. People its the Vedder! Do not expect any kind of respect or river ettiquette from anyone. Its every man for himself.
It's extremely unfortunate that it has to be this way! If I ever had a visiting angler from another country and mistakenly took him to the Vedder and he had to witness what was going on I'd be totally embarrassed for our province/country! I GUARANTEE you'd wouldn't see this anywhere else in the civilized fishing world.
But just giving up on educating the masses about river etiquette is a cop out in my opinion. That's like saying you can never teach a kid that stealing is wrong and that he will be a thief forever. Maybe a lousy example but you get my point. Blame it on the mentor of each guy learning how to fish. If he had done his job properly there wouldn't be any low-holing, throwing garbage on the ground, and in general.... respecting other anglers.
My dad taught me as a younster about river etiquette but what really cemented it into my head was a NEVER forgotten lesson he taught me when I was 12 years old. The ol' boy used to take me out of school every year for a week in the fall from the time I was ten to fish steelhead on the Thompson (mid sixties) plus several weekends through the season. On one of our weekends we were getting ready to fish one of our favourite runs. I was so amped up, as usual, that I left before my dad was ready.
When I was walking the tracks I saw a fish roll below a solitary guy on the run we were going to fish. I scrambled down the side of the hill, went down below this guy, and a couple of casts later I was into this fish. My dad witnessed this from the tracks and went down to the guy above me to do some damage control. My dad said the guy was plenty pissed off at me but ended up giving me a bit of slack because of my age . My dad told him that ws no excuse and that I should have known better. After my dad came down to me he walked me up to him to apoligize.
As we walked up river above the guy my dad also said to me, "BTW.....you just lost your chance at getting time off school to fish this year!" As much as I cried, pleaded, and begged him to take me over the next couple of weeks he stuck to his guns, the bastard.
Let's just say I didn't miss anymore trips after that~
BTW.....when they talk about rotational angling not working in all situations I would put my bottom dollar on it that they are referring to bar fishing....not drift fishing, chucking spoons, or flyfishing where it's in your best interest to cover more water.