I'm gonna say if the waves are over 3 feet then it is too windy to travel, but if you fish Falcon or Amistad these are common sizes so you just put the nose in the air to stay above them. I was at Falcon when the waves were 4-5 foot, it was fine until I speared one and the wave came over the bow. Talk about a OHHH S**T feeling! I turned around!

Windy days are good for cleaning out the boat.

TP&W has boating safety courses. You could attend one of those.

Read this, it helped me out a lot when I started driving my new bass boat. Might not tell you how much is too much, but will help you handle whatever comes.

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores...eptId=000000000

I've seen 8 to 9 footers on Kentucky Lake and we were running around in them prefishing. Well we weren't running we taking our time and never took more than some spray over the boat. Afternoon weather changed and it was just like glass. We were in a 2010 z520 last October when we saw these. 100% the biggest waves I have ever been in, but there were big bucks on the line. Just have to use caution and take your time. But until you get used to your boat and used to driving it I would stay off anything bigger than you feel comfortable with.

That is a VERY good article. Lots of good info. The only thing they left out is to get a hotfoot.

Somebody shared that one with me on another forum (BBC or OH game fishing, I think). I was asking about chinewalking (because my Stratos was TERRIBLE), and got tired of everyone saying "learn how to drive your boat" before somebody finally posted that. After I read it, and moved the 1 of the 3 trolling motor batteries to balance the weight, It helped a lot.

Nice article. I have to say it should help the novice and even give a tip or 2 to theexperienced.

I learned to drive rough water on Rayburn in a shallow draft 17'10" older style Ranger. You'll learn to read water when that is what you drive. And I regularly ran 4 footers in that boat using many of the techniques in the article. I rarely ran at 45* angles to waves though as you'll take a beating. I tried to run perpendicular to the wind (waves) and then run troughs while steering to keep any waves from breaking over the gunwhales. I got pretty good even once getting caught in the open lake with a frontal t-storm and 40-50 mph winds with legitimate 8 footers ... scared the krap outta me but I crossed 2 miles of open lake and never took a wave over the bow by using my techniques. Experience teaches you what you can do.

I now run a 19 1/2 foot Champ and am more cautious than I was in a smaller boat ... that comes with age but I just don't want to push me or my equiptment now. Get out and run some rough water and you'll learn what you and your boat can do.

Carry some extra Fruit of the Looms. It doesn't matter how experienced you get, or how big your boat is, sooner or later you will get caught in water that will scare the s***t out of you.