Re: Why all the tubing posts?
I am newly back to boating and water sports, and this thread reminds me (as does my recent experience on the lakes) that when on the water we do need to all find a way to coexist and get along. That starts with thinking about those around us in whatever we are doing. There is a small lake a mile from my house that is perfect (small) for skiing, is great for bass fishing lake, has the local rowing club, and also offers sailing lessons. Every time I'm out there, I see a combination of all the above going on. And the reality is that all of the above participants can be jerks if they want to be.
My kids love to tube (and I hate it... I like to ski much more). When we go tubing, I do pull them in a zig zag pattern, but to say that I go in an unpredictable pattern I wouldn't agree with. Anyone towing anything is going to at any given point in time do a direct u-turn to pick up a fallen rider, so I guess in that sense it is unpredictable. But, otherwise I'm doing a pendulum type motion, and in an overall loop around some part of the lake. I have to know that there is room to do this or I don't do it. And that means giving other boats space. But anyone can be a jerk. Just yesterday I was doing this and some idiot comes flying past us on a boat towing nothing and then stops right in front of us. I proceed to overtake him and just as I'm coming up beside him, he takes off again and so now we are directly in his wake. He eventually made a left turn in front of us and so we towed the tube across the wake. I slowed down a little and all was well, but my point is that he wasn't towing anything and the lake wasn't crowded. I was cruising along in a pretty "predictable" pattern and he didn't care. If you are driving a boat around others, it helps to understand how different types of water sports are done so that you can make some educated guess as to where they are going to go.
Now change the tables and we are out in bass fishing mode a few days before on the same lake. We were trolling along near shore... I would say about two times the distance I could cast from shore, and all the way down in a corner of the lake. Before I knew what happened, some idiot with a wakeboard boat came between us and the shore... no kidding, he was probably 4-5' off the shore and towing a kid. As he passed, the music was blaring and I could still hear it as he was a 1/2 mile down the lake. Its great that he was having fun, but the wake he thew on our boat was pretty bad, and the fact that he had to thread the needle between us and the shore when there is a whole lake he could have driven in equals total jerk to me. The music was just obnoxious. We have a stereo on our boat too, but I don't try to play it so loud that it can be heard over the motor and other noise so that its loud for the person in tow. Obviously the boat is designed to do this, so in my mind its designed to be incredibly obnoxious. There is really no way that boat can be used as designed along side someone fishing or canoeing and not have it be annoying. The fisherman isn't really doing anything in that scenario to bother the wakeboarder, but the wakeboarder is annoying the fisherman by removing the peaceful environment they came out there to enjoy. In the scenario I experienced, the guy could have easily gone around us and not between us and the shore, and I doubt the kid in tow would have really not had fun if the music was turned down a bit. The kid was being taught to disregard how what they were doing affected other people around them. We have a world way to full of adults that don't care about others.
But lets not stop short of fisherman that are jerks. There are plenty of times that a bass boat going way too fast for the conditions comes buzzing buy everyone, or, it seems like they get the prize for most obnoxious WOT power loading on the ramp to save 90 seconds of crank time on the winch.
Bottom line is that anyone can be a jerk... tubing; wakeboarding; fishing (or at least driving to the fishing spot). The lakes don't belong to one or the other, and more boat owners need to think about the people around them when they are doing something. It is possible to have some fun without annoying everyone around.
