Freaking Fishermen!

[Deephaven]

He wouldn't be so happy if you came by with a surf wake at 10' from his boat...

Sucks that stuff like this happens. I have a Ranger 521 as well and love to fish, but I'd never do something so idiotic.

[stooy]

Two seasons ago we had a very near miss.

I was towing my brother behind our previous boat (1978 Haines Hunter V17L), I see him in the mirror set up for a healside jump, at the same time I spot a Wakesetter VTX closing very quickly behind between our wakes ! I was thinking to myself "please don't fall"..... he fell. I did a flat out power turn, but I wasn't back in time to block the Wakesetter, they veered off at the last second missing my brother by less than 50M (which is pretty close at 40MPH).

It was so close that even over the flat out engine of the Wakesetter the two guys on board heard at least 10 seconds of both my brother and I expressing our dis-satisfaction with their driving.

The thing that was so stupid about it was that there was no reason for them to be following us, we were at Lake Eildon which is over 500M wide and many KM's long. It was two very young guys (17-18) out acting like idiots most likely in the family boat.

I hope it never happens to us again.. though our new 'setter will be a little quicker to accelerate after a power turn .... just in case

Cheers

Stewart

[DUKENO1]

That would be the last time that guy would use that hand for months if that were me. I would have broke every finger on his hand and beat the sh*t out of his face. That is absolutely unreal. *HE* would have been tasting blood if that were me.

Edit: You're way better mannered than me. Do you have any idea what that would have done to your leg if it dug in?

[DUKENO1]

Kind of a funny story....probably about 7-8 years ago I was in the intracoastal waterway cruising along on my old 98 waverunner. Without any warning a boatfull of jackasses passed by me from behind on my port side in a i/o of some sort with captains call exhaust. They literally passed me at full speed less than 10 ft away! I never heard the boat until it passed me, as my ski is pretty loud as well. Everyone in the boat yelled and whooped it up as they passed also. Well needless to say, this scared the pi$$ out of me! After they passed they forgot about me and kept getting it up the waterway. Well they had a pretty good head start but what they didn't realize was my ski was not quite stock. In less than 30 seconds I was right beside them telling each and everyone of them they were number 1 and motioning for them to pull over. The look

on their faces was priceless!! They didn't take me up on my offer and I backed off after letting them know what I thought.

I know it was pretty stupid on my part as they could have swerved over and taken me out with the bigger boat, but at that point I was beyond common sense... I wish I had a picture of their faces to this day! Unfortunately there are a lot of dangerous and inconsiderate tools out on the water.

[lewistonskier]

I'm guessing it was a misjudgement of their speed. Not to mention the law states any boat should be > 100' away from the boat AND *any rider*. That means other boats should never be closer than 100' to your wakeboarder / skier in any direction. If the rider swung out to max pendulum and then the fishing boat encroached enough to break the 100' radius, the boat is in the wrong. If the boarder and boat are heading at each other it's kind of a toss up. I'm not sure what the ruling is if they're both heading towards each other but I would hope it would be like driving a car - pedestrians always have the right away. If the boat law isn't like that it should be, otherwise it's just going to get dangerous.

Also I think your question warrants another. Should a wakeboarder or skier have to worry about other boats hitting them? I think not. When I have wakeboarder noobs out there they can barely control themselves - they're just trying not to fall! Now we're going to say it's their duty to stay away from boats? I think not.

As far as fault, I agree the passing boat was primarily at fault. All I'm trying to point out/remind people of is that sometimes in an unsure situation, we as the people being pulled behind the boat should delay situations that would make us more susceptible to falling (jumping/cutting etc.). I agree with your noob analogy, but they're usually within the wake at that point, and directly behind the boat. That to me is a different situation. Maybe I'm wrong to expect this, I just know when I'm the one behind the boat, and with the amount of stupid I've seen in my 20+ years of boating, I feel I need to mentally account for what the boat behind me in doing if I know it's there. Again I don't know the whole situation, and I'm not saying Love2Ride wasn't wronged by the overtaking boat.

[TallRedRider]

Few things make me go "Postal" but following my skier or jumping the wake behind them is at the top of that list. I try to avoid the conflict at first and the best way is to turn toward the shore (if you know the water). Wake jumpers usually won't follow you in close. If that doesn't work, I'll turn the boat and point directly at the boat or jet ski and make them avoid me (always leave a way out). Once they turn, I go back to my normal course. If they come back, I do it again. A couple of times of staring at me pointed straight at them usually gets the message across.

If that doesn't work, I pull the skier in and chase them down and tell them point blank that they better stay away from my boat and skier and I'm the one who decides what is too close. Most get the message by then.

It is really stupid that I resort to this, but it is the only thing that works on my lake. I consider it doing to them what they do to me. They follow me too close, then I just charge them and follow them to close. They think I am dangerous and stay away from me after that.

[WakingMeHappy]

Being I own a Malibu and a bass boat I'll take both sides of the issue. As a Malibu owner it also torques my jaw when a bass boat (or any boat for that matter) screws up my glass-like water. Or, like the OP, come dangerously close to me. As a bass boat owner it's the exact same thing. When I am fishing and minding my own business and wake boarder come by me ans throws a wake so big I have to hold on while my boat rocks back and forth I get mad. So, there are stupid people on both sides of the fence. It boils down to common courtesy...which is something we greatly lack in this country.