Problems with people in the ski course!

[responselxio6]

I am new to the website and have found alot of advise on here to be very helpful so I thought I would see if anyone has any helpful tips for this situation. I ski on melton hill lake near Knoxville Tn. The lake has several coves (that are all empty) and only one cove with a slalom course but for some reason everyone wants to hangout in the cove with the slalom course. I mean yesterday when I pulled into the the cove there was a pontoon boat running a skier in circles around the course, there was a mastercraft pulling 4 tubes, 2 boats teaching people to wakeboard, and of course there were some jet ski's running in circles. I have skied for alot of years and realize that there will always be 1 or 2 boats that will come in throwing waves to tear up the water but it seems like in the past 2 yrs it has become drastically worse. The club has 2 signs up stating it is a twra permitted course and is a no wake zone (which people ignore) but other than that is there anything that anyone else has found to keep people out that are not skiing?

[cyoda44]

Time for the PoPo

[responselxio6]

Will twra do anything about it?

[responselxio6]

The other things that is aggravating is that when you explain to these people what is going on and why they are supposed to be at an idle they want to get mad and fight about it!!

[cyoda44]

The other things that is aggravating is that when you explain to these people what is going on and why they are supposed to be at an idle they want to get mad and fight about it!!

no problem...we'll all gang up on them!!

[obski]

There was a jetboat with a few people in it sitting in the middle of the cove for the slalom course we went to last night. We explained what we were going to be doing and just what a slalom course is. They were pretty nice about it and had no problem moving to another part of the river. They said that they had been curious as to what all of those bouys were. They had assumed that they were crab pots. Don't know that there are any crabs that far up in the river. Anyway, they moved and we had an awesome evening out on the river skiing the course.

[davemac]

One theory I took from my 2 week vacation at the lake this year.... whomever penned the phrase "Common Sense is not so Common" surely must have thought of it while watching other boaters.

[mcc]

Keep a paintball gun on the boat... ...should be good target practice!!!

[Lance B. Johnson]

might be a tad expensive but the navy usually uses mines to keep ships out of certain areas

[68Slalom]

Another option is a remote control shark fin use the tactic of scaring them away

[Soon2BV]

At the course we used at Lake Cumberland this past weekend, there was an IDLE ZONE marker at the last turn before the small cove with the course in it.

It was a regular lake marker,i assume it was legitimate.

That might keep out the tubers and wakeboarders, but not the people who want to just come in and park ...

[responselxio6]

There are currently two signs there but they are hard to see and kind of old. So I went and had two large signs made that state (twra permitted ski course idle speed only no wake please) the signs are very large and have a bright yellow background with red letters.I will put them up tomorrow. Maybe this will help. I dont care at all about people floating in the coves I just want the tubers to go away!! It is amazing that tubers want rough water yet the go to a cove with smooth water to tube.

[spinxt]

May take some work, but why don't you move your course to on of the empty coves?

[areamike]

There was a jetboat with a few people in it sitting in the middle of the cove for the slalom course we went to last night. We explained what we were going to be doing and just what a slalom course is. They were pretty nice about it and had no problem moving to another part of the river. They said that they had been curious as to what all of those bouys were. They had assumed that they were crab pots. Don't know that there are any crabs that far up in the river. Anyway, they moved and we had an awesome evening out on the river skiing the course.

CRAB POTS!?!? HAHAHAHA! Typical Wallys.

You should have said "Yep" and then thrown your anchor out to grapple one like on the show Deadliest Catch.

Edited August 18, 2009 by areamike

[REW]

There are currently two signs there but they are hard to see and kind of old. So I went and had two large signs made that state (twra permitted ski course idle speed only no wake please) the signs are very large and have a bright yellow background with red letters.I will put them up tomorrow. Maybe this will help. I dont care at all about people floating in the coves I just want the tubers to go away!! It is amazing that tubers want rough water yet the go to a cove with smooth water to tube.

Its just plain curtiousy! I spent a long lunch at a place called Julie Waterfrount, over looking a small lake in the Orlando area. The course was set up in the middle. The jet skier was at idel the whole way around the lake until the skier went down in the middle of the course and had to be picked up then the jet ski accelerated and went to another part of the lake where the waves would not affect the course. The major problem is that tubers don't care about you or anybody else, they probably don't even see you or anybody else.

it is amazing how rough the water will get with a tuber in the area.

REW

[DUKENO1]

I pulled my GF's daughter and a friend (both 8 years old) on a tube a couple of weekends ago. The first thing I did was head out into the main channel. They had a blast! I can not for the life of me figure out why a person towing a tube would prefer smooth water. They always end up doing circles and s turns anyway to get the water roughed up. So what is the difference?

I know we don't own the water but it still doesn't make much sense to me. Oh well, school starts here next Monday! Woo-hoo!!! THe number of Wally's on the water will drop exponentially!

[wienrdog]

A fling/whip on the tube through glass is a hoot - but only if nobody else is around... Otherwise it's the main channel & trying to get the passengers in the boat sea sick & see if the tubers can hang on.

[shade]

There are currently two signs there but they are hard to see and kind of old. So I went and had two large signs made that state (twra permitted ski course idle speed only no wake please) the signs are very large and have a bright yellow background with red letters.I will put them up tomorrow. Maybe this will help. I dont care at all about people floating in the coves I just want the tubers to go away!! It is amazing that tubers want rough water yet the go to a cove with smooth water to tube.

It's amazing how ignorant and inconsiderate some people are. We have the same problem on the 70,000 acre lake we frequent. Lots of places to tube w/o disturbing ski/wakeboard glass, but nooooo. And someone already mentioned that its difficult to educate the ignorant because they get fightin' mad like you're trying to take away one of their freedoms.

I'm not a real intelligent person, but the older I get the more I realize just how many blundering idiots walk among us.

OK, I better get off of my soap box now. This is just a sore subject for my crew and several others at our lake.

[Baddog]

Some people are so totally clueless about what a course is and the requirements for the skier using it. Some of those people, when told the facts, will be considerate and do the right thing and the others won't give a shyte. Too many will just say it's public water and you don't own it, so there!

Unfortuantely you just can not teach courtesy and ethics to total idiots. And it seems that the idiots are taking over.

Edited August 18, 2009 by Baddog

[areamike]

Unfortuantely you just can not teach courtesy and ethics to total idiots. And it seems that the idiots are taking over.

BINGO!