Skiing Etiquette

Tuesday thru Thursday. Try next Saturday or Sunday, Before breakfast and at supper time 6:00 pm.

Nautiques weren't made for holiday week-ends on public lakes.

Very busy on Lauderdale Lakes in southeast Wisconsin on Sunday. But I commented to my wife that we hadn't seen one skier! Tubes, tubes and more tubes. What kind of skill must one hone to ride a tube? Where did all the skiers go?

The tubes were out in full force today. We only got a couple of runs in before everything was chopped up. No matter where we went there was either a tuber or a wake surfer.

Lake was a mess. Wound up just going to the sandbar and relaxing. Weather was perfect.

footed Saturday morning & took seascamper for a ride in the new to me boat. A couple of young girls came out in a center console boat with a tube but they waited till we were done! We rode over to thank them.


john

Overcast and cloudy Saturday and Monday with lots of wind. Sunday was perfect except for the wake boat pulling tubers 1st thing out at 830am

We had carb trouble with the SN so stayed on the pontoon while the kids played with a small speedboat. The lake was pretty busy at times, mostly tubers, one wakeboarder practicing inverts, and a single slalomer--big guy who did a nice deepwater start. I gave him a standing ovation. Skiing is just not as popular as when I was a kid.

jbear wrote: footed Saturday morning & took seascamper for a ride in the new to me boat. A couple of young girls came out in a center console boat with a tube but they waited till we were done! We rode over to thank them.

I'm sure you went over just to thank them. Nothing like a closer look.

On Kerr I would say if someone else was in the cove first go find another one.   We pretty much go on first come first serve around my parts. We set up camp on the best water we can find and keep running there until we are done, if someone else shows up and tries to run my line I don’t give them a very wide berth, that is rare though. Likewise If someone doing anything other than tubing is there first we go somewhere else, and wake up earlier the next day. Of course first come first serve doesn’t apply to fishermen if they are parked in the only calm spot of the lake. If it’s calm over at least half the shore I give them plenty of room if they are already set up, but if its blowing north or south and we only have one reasonable spot to ski that is where we ski. If you spend more than a couple minutes between sets then any claim to a line is pretty much forfeit.

Life Jeff (Faceplant) my "home" lake in Michigan has no wake restrictions for much of the day; before 11 AM and after 7:30 PM. I mostly dislike this rule, but since there isn't anything I can do about it I just live with it and have a nearly identical skiing schedule.

The thing that really burns me up are the tubers doing donuts in the only clean water on the lake when it is windy. Back in June my skiing buddies and I were *this* close to actually waving a boat down and asking them (nicely of course) to move to the larger part of the lake where they wouldn't be messing up smooth water that we, and maybe other folks, wanted to use. As far as fishermen go I don't give them quarter beyond what I must legally during the hours where we are able to ski. I figure they've already got the mornings and evenings to themselves so I am going to use every available inch of smooth water when I can.

Oddly, I've been able to get more barefoot runs in recently with other boats around than I have slalom runs. I think this is mostly because I can find small stretches of smooth water along the shore to zip through and I am satisfied with that. I am also getting better at dealing with waves/wakes and it kinda makes it fun. I cannot say the same for slalom because I usually want to make multiples passes on the swerve stick and invariably some idiot will mess it up the good water that is important for predictability in my turns.

Yeah I just enjoy hitting the water and don't have high hopes for Labor Day Weekend!

Lake law should read as follows:
Barfooters get first crack, then slalom skiers, then tricks/combos and wakeskates, then wakeboards then tubes and surfers..

Any deviation and we pop your tube!

While I like the first come first serve rule... if I am pulling a mediocre wakeboarder or less and notice a decent skier looking for good water, I will migrate out of the favorite coves etc. and give them right of way.

Jeff, 99.9% of the time I am on Hutchins Lake on the west side of the state in Allegan County, about 3 hours west of you. As I kid I also spent a decent amount of time on Big Star Lake near Baldwin and IIRC they had similar speed restrictions and I have seen it on other lakes in Allegan Co. as well. Is this some kind of Michigan thing?

Yes, common courtesy for sure. I have to say that there are many more skiers, especially kids, on the lake today than there were ten or even five years ago so we've got that going for us. I suspect the most offensive tubers are mostly short-term renters, and in some way I can't really blame them for "ruining" the water so long as they do it safely (which isn't always the case).

scottb wrote: jbear wrote: footed Saturday morning & took seascamper for a ride in the new to me boat. A couple of young girls came out in a center console boat with a tube but they waited till we were done! We rode over to thank them. I'm sure you went over just to thank them. Nothing like a closer look.

just being friendly!

john

Faceplant wrote: Hansel . I heard that the wake restrictions only apply to the smaller acreage lakes .

Jeff, that makes sense, but I wouldn't call either of those lakes small. Hutchins is about 380 acres and Big Star is over 900 acres in size.

This sign at Big Star seems to indicate that it is some kind of "special" rule, though apparently also a common one in our part of the world.

Skiing etiquette is 2 ski boats sharing the same water. Most of this discussion is boating etiquette. Good luck finding this during a holiday weekend on any body of water near civilization.

Oops - guess that I was wrong on the acreage to no wake law comparison . My lake is only 68 acres . The other one with wake time restrictions is 53 . Just assumed it was because of smaller sizes .