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Video: Fed-Up Fisherman Hooks Annoying Drone Flying By Pier
We've seen an increasing battle between people who hate drones and the folks who fly them. While the drones are able to capture cool aerial videos, some people aren't so enthused with someone filming them without their permission. One fisherman who seems like he's just about had it with drones decided to hook one midair at a San Diego beach.
The whole thing was captured on video, actually from the drone's perspective as it was flown over Pacific Beach pier last Thursday. In the clip, which was recorded by Tice Ledbetter, we see a fisherman on the pier eying the drone as he's fishing. He turns around and decides to cast his reel and hook the drone. He lands it on the first try and we see the drone struggling a bit as the fishing line hangs from it.
Ledbetter later had to untangle the fishing line from one of the quadcopter's roters about a half mile away from the pier, Gizmodo reports.
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Although Ledbetter gave the fisherman kudos for his spot-on casting, at the end of the footage, Ledbetter zoomed into an image of the fisherman and wrote the words, "Wanted for being an asshole."
Commenters quickly took to YouTube to argue who really was the jerk in this situation, some saying the fisherman was right to be upset since Ledbetter was spying on people with his drone.
It's not clear if Ledbetter actually broke any laws. San Diego County Sheriff's Department told Fox 5 San Diego in May that there aren't any laws that say it's illegal to fly a drone, though new regulations are in the works. However, the fisherman may be in the wrong since San Diego's Municipal Code says it's illegal to "cast any fishing line or pole overhead or allow any lure or hook to pass inboard of the pier railing while casting," Gizmodo reports.
Fishermen aren't the only ones unhappy with drone operators. Last month, San Bernardino County supervisors offered a total of $75,000 in reward money to find the drone operators who ended up grounding firefighting aircraft during three major wildfires. While the drone operators probably wanted some cool footage, firefighters basically had to halt their aircrafts for much-needed water drops because of safety concerns that the drones could get in the way. Not cool, bro.
There was also the angry, shirtless man in Huntington Beach this summer who swatted a drone with his t-shirt and knocked it to the ground, effectively smashing the propellers.
As for Ledbetter, this was the video he was shooting that day, which we have to say, was actually beautiful:
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