My brother was taking a leak this weekend about 5 feet from the river when some guy got upset. It was early morning at the boat launch and nobody was fishing around that area. The guy was just mad that he was pissing near the river. My dad used to always teach us to just piss when we had to, so I didn't see a problem with what my brother was doing.

What is the standard etiquette for taking a leak? I see people pissing on, near, in, and around the water all the time and it's never bothered me. If people seem to have a problem with pissing near rivers, I won't piss near the river any more. What do you'll think?

I always say that it's better to be pissed off than pissed on. Nature calls, what are you to do? I say what comes naturally, can't please everyone.

I JUST HAVE TO TELL THIS TRUE STORY THAT HAPPENED TO MY BUDDY.
we were fishing for steelhead on the quinalt river about 5 miles downstream from lake quinalt. i have to take a leak, so i go up to the bow and let fly. a few minutes later,my buddy in the back of the boat ( he has a hell of a hangover and is still half lit)decides he needs a drink. he takes a cup out and scoops a drink out of the river. after taking a drink, he turns around and asks the guide ( inky charlie) are we in tide water?
inky, laughing his ass off,says hell no we are 25 miles upstream, you drunken fool you just had a cup of pee water.
( no joke, this is a true story. i will leave out my buddies name, so he wont kill me.)

Pee is sterile and unless you got somethin' nasty from your last one night stand, feel free to water anywhere. #2, on the other hand(and if you got it on the other hand, learn to wipe with paper), should be handled as a biohazard (can you say fecal coloform bacteria). Burry at least 1 foot deep and 100' from the water, 200' is better.

When we were kids, we always caught fish AFTER peeing in the water. Go figure?

Andy

DOOD!!! Pee where you want!!! I don't know what that guys' problem was, maybe it's wasn't the fact of him peeing, but the size of the utensil he was pissin out of...(I think they call that penis envy)

I guess I sould share my recent pissing story.
We were floating the Rogue a couple weeks ago, and I was a the back of the boat getting rid of some coffee when I looked around to see my buddy washing his hands on the same side of the boat. We had just boated a fish and he was getting the slime off. I told him to wait a couple of minutes and wash agian!
I think it's Ok to take a leak close to the water or in it if you want. But look around first and try not to offend anyone.

Science spoils the party. Contrary to Andy's allegation, pee is not sterile. Like sh!t, it is a bodily waste product. It is high in nitrogen, and turns to ammonia if left sitting around a while. It also carries pathogens (disease causing germs) from your last one night stand or other kinds as well, like the common cold and flu. Added to water, pee is a pollutant - or a form of fertilizer, if you will. Generally speaking, it isn't gonna' kill anybody, at least in small doses. But when a city the size of Portland or Seattle, or even a smaller one like Olympia, pees in a river, it's very bad news for the aquatic life therein. That would include salmon and steelhead.

You may find that peeing in the river is convenient, but ask yourself if doing so is consistent with your personal environmental values. And if you choose to pee in rivers, please don't complain about rivers too polluted to support fish populations.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

If that was me i would have told that guy to f/off.. thats unbelivable! The only time iam concerned is if there are split tails nearby (females) just out of respect. I swear some people just like to start trouble.

Great topic for Pis-catorial Pursuits

I have a small boat - no room for a port-a-potty. I also get thirsty while fishing - well, maybe it's the quart of coffee on the drive down, the obligatory toasts to the fish gods, etc. - but anyway, the bailing bucket frequently gets utilized - small tippy boat and generally cold and windy conditions do not favor over-the-side attempts. I'm quite discrete, but the bucket gets dumped over the side, sorry. I do not condone pollution, and I know that non-point pollution is probably the most damaging to the environment today. I also know that in high perk soils - like the gravel beds underlaying the flood plains of rivers or the glacial till that most of western Washington sits on - it takes 3.85 acres per septic system to treat human waste for viruses and nutrients. In the Puget Sound basin the density of drainfields is many times that in most areas. So if you piss at home, piss up on the bank a couple hundred feet, or piss in the crick, it still gets there all the same.

I would have kept pissin away!!
I was fishing the Nisqually this last fall and there was a couple kids about 30-35 yards upriver from me, basically kickin back drinkin beer more that fishing. Pretty soon I look up and one of them is glancing down at me, I then notice the other one pissin in the river. The one glancin at me starts giggling. They packed there stuff up and left.
I figure what little he pissed mixed in with that river worked out to be parts per billion by the time it washed down to me.
I wasn't catching anything, the only water I was coming in contact with was off my line. Oh no, I may have gotten one molecule of his piss on me

I've heard Dr Drew on Loveline mention that urine IS sterile. Did a quick search on the web and it does appear to be sterile. Couple sites claimed it was purer than distilled water. Now if exposed to air for a time, airborne bacteria grows on it.

I'd rather rinse my hands off in a river that was pissed in by a couple guys than some of the meatholes with all the stinky fish guts.

what are you guys doing drinking river water in the first place?? you never know what is going on upstream from you...

Small correction to Dogfish: Bury #2 very shallow, maybe just put a rock on top. No oxygen gets down one foot in the soil so it takes a very long time to decompose.

As far as pee, I agree with the posts stating it shouldn't be a problem. However, I do know of someone that got a ticket for littering when they were spotted peeing in what he thought was a deserted area. Personally I try to show discretion and not show other men their inadaquacies.

On the Middle Fork of the Salmon (Idaho Wilderness) the forest service asks that you pee in the water. With several thousand people going down the river each summer, peeing on the bank would make the 100-mile corridor smell like one big urinal. On coastal streams it rains enough that urine probably ends up in the river either way. I feel that it is only good manners to go a decent way into the brush so that you are not visible from the river to do your business. Respect for each other is what distinguishes us from cattle.

salmo g.

You might want to re-research your info on urine. Aside from the nitrogen content concerns, the rest of your claims are on pretty shaky 'scientific' ground. While I agree that widespread urination in our waterways isn't desirable, I think you may have overplayed the threat.

Grandpa always said "ya have to warm the water up a bit to make the fish get out of bed" and it's always worked for me!

I read a pamphlet on camping that stated the depth and distance away from water for #2, so that's where I got my info on that. Go it from the WDFW. Did a search on ASK.COM asking "is urine sterile?" and it came back, "yes" but with some conditions.

Piss is better than Paint sorry just had to be said

baddawg-funny Grandpa

If I have to piss I PISS!! It's one thing to get all excited about litter but I would imagine that a little piss wouldnt hurt much unless you can piss 1500cfs

I dont pack urine out!!! :p

But if ya think ya gotta pack it out go ahead! Hope ya dont leave it in your truck to long Wife might not let ya put it in the toilet

If any of you can say you don't piss outside then more power to ya!!!!!!!!!

I thought standard procedure was to just "let er go" in your waders.
That way:
-No pollution
-Uninterrupted fishing
-Warms up your feet (at least for a while)

Back when I did a lot of SCUBA diving we would always pee in the wet suits. something about that cold water just created the need...and warmed the skin. The water moving through the suit would wash it out in time. Peeing in wader though is far to 'earthy' for me. I bet no one wants to sit next to SlabQuest when stopping for a beer on the way home.

Apologies all. Should have checked with my epidemiologist friend before posting last night. She confirmed what Andy said about urine being essentially sterile. However, that doesn't mean it's good for the river. It is a pollutant.

So, piss away. A guy's gonna' do what a guy's gotta' do.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

PISS AWAY!!!!!!!

What a pissin contest ! Salmo you are I hope familiar with the program up in B.C. where they are nutrifying upper watersheds with fertilizer pellets inorder to help inrease the food supply for young salmonids? In their current states many of our watersheds are definitely lacking in nutrients. So I say piss away...your doing your part to bring back the fish.

gooose

Gooose, and others...

I'm just about to start a new thread about fertilizing waters for smolt success...

Check it out.

Todd.

Sounds good Todd...got some thoughts on that.
Piss is good for the fish unless its PINK!

gooose

I took microbiology, environmental science, medical lab procedures and chemistry and you can drink your neighbors urine, and live to tell about it (in 99.9% of cases). It is absolutely sterile. Yes, it does act as a fertilizer, but so does that sand shrimp and so does fish urine.
Annnnnd....we aren't talking about 300,000 people all peeing in the river. If 300,000 FISH peed in the river, life wouldn't be pleasant from a fishes point of view, either.

And about that "rock" business....(pardon me while I strap myself into my seat, because I still fall down laughing when I think of this story....)
A bunch of us went to Potholes in early February to trout fish. We all pretty much felt like h***, given the night before. There is nothing to prop a rod up on, as sagebrush was considerably farther up the hillside. One guy, who we nicknamed Indian, went scouting for something to prop up his rod so hwe wouldn't have to hold it. This lake that we're fishing on is 3/4 frozen over, it's about 22 degrees out, and we're in this walled in depression with cliffs all around.

Indian finds this monster slab of a rock on the shoreline to pack back to the area we all have our plunking rods. He bends over, bear hugs it because it's so heavy, and takes about 3 steps. And off the canyon walls we hear this reverberating wail:
"EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!!"


Some evil soul did a heavy duty #2 and put that big rock on top of it. Indian had this "stuff" all over his hands, pasted to the chest of his fishing vest and ground into his sleeves.
He proceeded to take a vigourous dunking in ice water.

Ahhhh, Potholes.....the memories!

I have never laughed so hard in my life.....and still do to this day.
diana

When this issue comes up -- and I've yet to experience a day on the river when it doesn't -- I always recall the rationale offered by a whitewater outfitter in explaining how to handle nature's call.

"The solution to pollution is dilution."

Then again, you could always use Depends.

Actually that is an interesting point about adding nutrients to the water. I remember reading someplace about all the nutrients carried up river by the salmon and steelhead runs. The dead fish provided nutrients for the upper watersheds and now that the runs are severely reduced or eliminated, especially in Idaho, the lack of nutrients is hurting the fishery.

Of course I don't mean to suggest to drink a six-pack for mother nature, but I don't feel too guilty if I do add to the runoff.

Don't want to get in a pissing contest, but I usually have to stand on top of a bucket or way up high in the bow, because man can that water can get cold

I just feel sorry for the gals out there...they can't relieve themselves quite as easily.

If you have to go, you have to go. If you are on the bank, then maybe you can walk a little further away from the launch, but if you are in a boat, what choice do you have? I know I'm not going to pull the boat over so I can go in the woods! I agree with Timberman - I'm not packing out piss!

PEE FREELY and enjoy life!