Hey folks these are all good stories, but I need to say that lobbing a weight at a jet skier, chasing one "2 feet off the bow" and on plane 30 feet behind a skier are all unlawful acts as well. The best thing anyone can do in those situations is to document it on film and turn the suckers in. You won't have much of a case and no room to gripe about their wrong doing if you yourself engage in a wrong doing. Use your heads and remain the cream of the crop. Fisherman are the cream of the crop on the lakes. My insurance company told me recently that they love to insure fisherman because they are more professional and experineced in their boating. Let's keep that reputation.

throw some dive gear in your boat and put up a dive flag, be sure to have your cell phone, violating the dive flag distance will get them ticketed esp. on canyon lake.

Here is what i found on the laws!
http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/pw.toc.htm
This one seems to have the content of rules!
http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/PW/content/htm/pw.004.00.000031.00.htm#31.095.00
you may have to copy and past

From crkfck's link: By the site's defination, a Personal Watercraft is a jet ski.

� 31.106. PERSONAL WATERCRAFT. (a) No person shall
operate a personal watercraft in the following manner or under the
following circumstances:
(1) unless each person riding on or towed behind the
vessel is wearing a U.S. Coast Guard approved Type I, II, III, or V
personal flotation device;
(2) if the vessel is equipped by the manufacturer with
a lanyard type engine cutoff switch, unless such lanyard is
attached to the person, clothing, or personal flotation device of
the operator as appropriate for the vessel involved;
(3) during the period between sunset and sunrise;
(4) within 50 feet of any other vessel, person,
stationary platform or other object, or shore, except at headway
speed;

Its in the post right above mine. I remember when it happened was right after I did my boaters education course and I just laughed when my uncle thought he would fight the ticket. What happened was he was on one of our jetskis and my dad and the rest of the family was in our ski boat so my uncle drove by and sprayed us. Turned out to be not such a good day for him.

You don't have any pictures of these blonde bimbo's (assumably in bikini's) to put up as a warning to us do you?

Was this in Iowa or Texas? If Texas, then you could have been ticketed for cleaning your fish while still in your boat.

Yeah, that's for a personal watercraft. A boat is not a personal watercraft. I can't find anything that prescribes the minimum distance for boats.

I was trying to put my bass boat in on lake lavon once and this guy started doing circles on a wet-bike about 10 feet from the ramp trying to splash his 4 year old son and wife who were about 5ft out in the water on the ramp ,he would miss them by about 2 feet every time.Also he was filling my boat with water and almost sank it when I got it off the trailer.When I finally got the water out I aimed straight for him ,floored it and turned about 20 feet away and cut a donut ,he was standing behind the wet bike at the time and got knocked down by the bike when the water hit, then loaded up and left. Also I waited till the little boy was out of the way

DD-22 does the trick if no traps are available at the time. Just ask the cheek-less a-hole prolly still trolling Fork looking for his cheek meat.

I've been on both sides of this arguement.

I grew up hunting and fishing and waterskiing. If there was one thing Dad always emphasized (besides safety), it was give the other guy his room.

If I want to fish and someone is already waterskiing on the dam/bridge/cove I wanted to fish, either stay out of his way and deal with the wakes and noise or go somewhere else...they were there first. It always seemed to me that there were more good places to fish than there were good places to ski, anyway.

If I want to ski and someone is already fishing on the dam/bridge/cove I wanted to ski, give them a wide berth (50+ yards) or go somewhere else (especially if space is limited)...they were there first.

He also taught me that if I want to pull a tube, get the heck out in the middle of the lake where I won't bother anyone.

I've been buzzed by jet skis in my ski boat, my bass boat, and my canoe! I've also been buzzed by bass boats while in my ski boat with a skiers in the water. I've been buzzed by every craft on the water when in a small sail boat.

My point is that a little common courtesy from both sides would go a long way. Nobody owns the water. If the other guy was there first, let him do his thing and just deal with it or go somewhere else. Would you jump in and start fishing right where another guy was fishing? No, of course not. I just read that thread. Give all recreational boaters on the lake the same courtesy.

I make no excuses for jet flees.

I post the same stuff on the watersports boards.

anecdotes:

We've all heard stories from the fisherman's point of view...I certainly have mine.

On the flip side:

On a Wednesday afternoon one summer, I went skiing with a group of about 10 friends. We were in two boats (23-footer and 21-footer). We were skiing along a bluff that provided protection from the wind on Lake Waco (or Wake Laco). We were just about the only people on the lake. After an hour or so, a bass boat pulled up and started fishing right in the middle of the bluff and "our" ski run. We adjusted our run to go around them each time up and down the bluff. The first time we went by, they shot us the bird. The third or fourth time, one of the fisherman cast at us (nevermind that we were obviously WAY out of his range) and was shouting something (which we were too far away to hear). Then they started trolling out into deeper water, forcing us to ski farther off the bluff, pushing us into the rough water...with both fisherman casting at us on every pass.

The next part is questionable, but then we do a lot of questionable stuff when we get riled up, don't we? I waved the other boat in our group over and we decided to leave. No one was going to be having any fun if anyone caught a lure in the flesh or ran into a bass boat that was no longer focused on fishing, but, instead, focused on making it hard for us to ski. So we formed up and gave them a low speed pass to make the biggest wakes possible on either side of their boat. They took a wake over the bow from me and one over the stern from the other boat. Of course, they both cast at us since we were now in range. But they missed by a large margin.

All that was learned here was that if 2 fisherman act like jerks, they can force 2 ski boats to leave an area. Also learned was that it takes more than 1 pass with two boats to completely swamp a bass boat. Piracy was suggested by a few of my friends--we had the size and numbers advantage. Boarding and skuttling the bass boat was a popular option. Something that was evidently never considered on either side of the arguement was that someone could have had a gun. Was any of it worth that?


Another evening that summer, we were skiing in a protected area a few hundred yards outside of a marina. My skiier had just dropped and I was about to turn around to go get her when a wall of bass boats suddenly flew out of the marina. I went to WOT and spun the boat around to get back to her before the bass boats did. When the bass boats saw me running straight at them, they started bumping into each other (rubbin's racin'). I was able to get my boat between my skier and the bass boats, but we heard a lot of cussin' and saw quite a few "birds". The only lesson learned here was that we shouldn't be outside of that marina when fishing tourney starts. Nevermind that a tourney start like that has to be breaking some laws with so many boats operating at such high speed in such close proximatey.


Another day, we were skiing in that cove near the marina again and were getting hassled by the jet flees. They were following us and jumping the wake regardless of whether or not we had a skiier or two out there. We were there first, but they were obviously not going to leave us alone, even after we had waved them off, asked and told them to leave. We headed for the bluff, but there was a fisherman there, so we went to another smaller, shallower spot. When we finished, I took the group back to the marina near the protected area to drop them off. When I headed back out of that marina, the jet flees were on me like flies on a cow. I jumped the speed up to 30 mph where my wake gets really flat. They would just pass me and then turn straight for my boat and then jump the wake. I finally went to WOT (good for about 42 mph on an inboard boat with 280 hp). They just hung with me, but could no longer pass and jump. Finally, I just threw the boat into a 180 spin and stopped. One jet flee turned and flipped. The other turned and threw his passenger off. I waited to make sure that both of the thrown riders surfaced and we concious, then I drove off. A safe move? No, but it was fun. It might have "taught" those 3 riders a lesson, but it didn't fix my jet flee problem.

Another thought:
Has anyone thought about the hunter vs. fisherman confrontation? About a year and a half ago, I took a friend that had just moved from Missouri to Lake Fork for some fishing on a freakishly warm January Saturday. We were fishing an area when another boat drove up about a hundred yards away. No big deal, that�s pretty far. They set out their decoys and then put up their blind. The way the area was shaped, we started getting closer to them at one point even though we were following the shore line away from the hunters. When we were about 75 yards from the hunters, we saw some ducks that were really high. When the ducks saw us, they turned and started to fly away. One of the hunters jumped up and fired the biggest sky bust I have ever seen�right in our direction. I told my friend (an all-state heavy-weight wrestler) to put his head down. He looked at me and said, �why?� Right then, the shower of shot could be heard hitting the water around us and plinking on my aluminum boat. My friend shouted a profanity at the hunter to which he responded with 2 more sky busts aimed at us. We trolled on out of the area. I wanted to get their TX numbers, but they were completely hidden by the camo.

Again, common courtesy would have been nice. We were there first. I wonder what they would have done had we been hunters with our decoys and blinds set up first?

Most likly they have never read or heard about courtesy!! If I'm not mistaken they are breaking the law by getting too close to you and not allowing you the right to lawfully take game. I was doing some fishing up on Buchanan a couple of years ago and one of the big party boats that take tourist all over the lake came within 50 feet of us and threw the engines in reverse and just about threw all the tourist down and almost swamped us. We got his hull number, time and date and turned him into TPWD. We heard he lost his license, got fired and fined!! Next time try turning them in or ???
Trey Scott