Watersports during weekend/peak hours.

[PANDA]

Let me start off by saying everyone has the right to have fun on the water. Whether you flying along at 80mph, enjoying watersports, fishing, or sailing. Living on the Fox River and doing regular boating I have seen some shit. I feel these days most accidents involved someone drunk or watersports.

The Chain/Fox River is one of the busiest boating destinations in the midwest. One of my biggest boating pet peeves is people doing water sports during the middle of the day. You got wakeboarding bro's right in the middle of the river doing 15mph and kicking up a HUGE wake. You got pontoon full of a family towing 3 kids on a tube, zig-zagging, down the river. Not only do you not know where they are going next, you don't know if the person in tow is going to eat shit right in front of you. It is hard to pass these guys and often a traffic jam of boats is behind them in some spaces. Oviously when they are coming at you it is also a problem. I try to be respectfull when I encounter these guys but FUCK it is just not safe todo this shit sometimes. I feel watersports shouldnt be allowed between the hours of 12PM and 6PM on the weekends. At least on the river. I do not have enough experiance on the lakes to talk about this issue.

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[Eagle]

I think you need to worry less, slow down just a tad to avoid running over a random kid who fell off a tube and have a drink you fun-killing anti-watersports [MENTION=16]PANDA[/MENTION] head!

 

[chrisdicarlo]

That is why I spend my water days in Northern Wisconsin. A busy day is a dozen boats on 720 acres. LOL

 

[jason05gt]

AMEN Panda! If you want to ski, wakeboard, or tube do it earlier in the morning or early evening. The water is not only calmer then, but it's much safer for everyone on the water. What get's me on Lake Geneva is when tubers, skiers, wakeboarders are doing it in the traffic lanes near shore. Use some common sense and go where there's not as much traffic.

Also, it's tough to see skiers in the water with the Cobalt bow riding high!

 

[Mook]

Captain Panda doesnt have time for river pissants.

 

[Eagle]

I love [MENTION=16]PANDA[/MENTION] for being safety conscious - lord knows he's done his best to keep me alive on a sled... but everyone deserves their space to do what they want to do - just as his first sentence stated.

 

[BeerOrGasoline]

Enter Wakeboarder:

Wish those power boat & cabin boat dickholes would only boat in the AM while we're trying to shotgun Keystones and do flips & shit.

 

[jason05gt]

I think you need to worry less, slow down just a tad to avoid running over a random kid who fell off a tube and have a drink you fun-killing anti-watersports [MENTION=16]PANDA[/MENTION] head!

If people knew how to drive boats, that wouldn't be an issue, but most people don't know a damn thing about driving boats. For instance, you are supposed to turn right when approaching a boat that's on the same course to avoid a collision. That only works when BOTH boats turn right. I had multiple idiots turn left this weekend. Also, you need to be 100 ft from a buoy, no wake zone or 200 ft from another boat while under power. People never give enough distance and I've had idiots come within 10-15 of my boat under power.

Most people don't read the damn DNR "boating rules" or take a coast guard class. My dad made me do both when I was a teenager.

 

[Yaj Yak]

some of those rules don't apply though on the river.

 

[1quick]

The zig zagging is what I hate, for fuck sake there is a barge coming and 5 other boats and they are still cutting it back and fourth trying to throw their kid off the tube

 

[1quick]

The nice thing about the Morris Seneca pool is past Morris is a ghost town for 15 miles if people want to do waterspots but they don't use it, the go down by the beaches in the heaviest traffic and zig zag tubes all day

 

[PANDA]

I think you need to worry less, slow down just a tad to avoid running over a random kid who fell off a tube and have a drink you fun-killing anti-watersports [MENTION=16]PANDA[/MENTION] head!

I am not a father but I feel if you don't let your kids play in a busy street you shouldnt let them play in a busy river.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

I should buy a boat.

 

[jason05gt]

some of those rules don't apply though on the river.

True...I just read the IL rules and they slightly differ from WI. I took the coast guard class in IL, but boat in WI. I'd like to trailer my GPR down to Fox Lake sometime and just explore.

 

[PANDA]

If people knew how to drive boats, that wouldn't be an issue, but most people don't know a damn thing about driving boats. For instance, you are supposed to turn right when approaching a boat that's on the same course to avoid a collision. That only works when BOTH boats turn right. I had multiple idiots turn left this weekend. Also, you need to be 100 ft from a buoy, no wake zone or 200 ft from another boat while under power. People never give enough distance and I've had idiots come within 10-15 of my boat under power.

Most people don't read the damn DNR "boating rules" or take a coast guard class. My dad made me do both when I was a teenager.

I had a kid on a waverunner come at me last weeked. I went my right, he went his left. I cut the throttle and turned the wrong way to avoid hitting him. He kepted on his way like nothing ever happened.

These distance rules can't really apply on the Fox River where I am at. The river is only a couple hundred feet across in some spots.

 

[Eagle]

I am not a father but I feel if you don't let your kids play in a busy street you shouldnt let them play in a busy river.

 

[ktraver97ss]

Yeah I was up on Castle Rock Lake this weekend near Friendship, WI and what a difference. Just a buncha pontoons, fishing boats, and like 2 bajas on this big ass lake. 7 bars accessible from the lake, so different than the chain and lake g.

You see alot of idiots out there, like just plowing past an anchored or floating boat within 25 ft when there's plenty of room to swing wider. It will never change tho, always been like that up there.

 

[Yaj Yak]

Yeah I was up on Castle Rock Lake this weekend near Friendship, WI and what a difference. Just a buncha pontoons, fishing boats, and like 2 bajas on this big ass lake. 7 bars accessible from the lake, so different than the chain and lake g.

You see alot of idiots out there, like just plowing past an anchored or floating boat within 25 ft when there's plenty of room to swing wider. It will never change tho, always been like that up there.

castle rock can get sketchy though too, that's a bigass body of water that can blow up QUICK.... and then on top of that, once you get north all the random trees & stumps sticking out that aren't marked nearly as well as they should be.

definitely a lot more easy than geneva though.

 

[Yaj Yak]

i was at my dad's most of yesterday and i don't think i saw anyone tubing up/watersports activity-ing after like 11 on the river by him... must be a lower river thing. at least on the upper you can get to the lakes quick and find somewhere to be away from traffic. the lower just gets insane because it is so narrow in some places, and other places only navigable in such a narrow spot.

 

[03GTGreen]

Agreed, should not be allowed at all imo, with how narrow it is, take your ass up North to the lakes for it

 

[Yaj Yak]

i think in that case you have to ban fishermen down there too then between the same hours.

fuckers sitting in the middle of a the main channel with fishing lines out 50' in all directions

 

[ktraver97ss]

Just ban boats.

 

[Yaj Yak]

better yet, ban fun.

 

[Blood on Blood]

Guys sitting in fishing boats are causing accidents?

 

[Yaj Yak]

guys wakeboarding are causing accidents?