Fish-Hawk.Net

So I was up near Georgian Bay about a two weeks ago, fishing with some cousins of mine. We went out one night on this beautiful little lake to do some evening fishing. It was great! The scenary was wonderful and the moment bliss. It didnt even matter whether we were catching the big ones or not. A bite here, a small pike or pumpkin seed there and it was all worth while. It was truly a great time. Peacful and quiet. Then suddenly here they come. Animals...nothing short of. First there was one then a half dozen. Guys on Sea doo's.
I was fine with them being half way accross the lake ripping up the water and acting like idiots, but you know this never remains the case. Those things eat up water distances so fast that it is only a matter of time before they are on top of you.
Punks! The whole lot of them. Now you would imagine that characters with such little respect for others would be in of the teenage category. I beg to differ!
This scenario presented the entire bag of bone heads. You had the young 16 to 19 year olds, with there girl friends yelling "faster, faster" to the 20 to 30 something group of "should know betters". In any case, their actions were anything but tasteful.
One minute we were fishing in a nice quiet calm bay, to the next with these guys (of both age groups) finding it hillarious to buzz super close to where we were creating wake and agitating us. I couldnt believe the stuff I was seeing! From this, to turning super fast and hard to throw a wave shower over a large group of Canadian geese with their young in tow. All for crap and giggles! What the hell is going on with the regulations regarding these things? The people who operate these vehicles, seem to instantly loose all manners and higher lever brain activity the moment they sit on one. If you were to act like this on a motorcycle you would face severe police action and repurcussions. Lets not even talk about what would happen if caught doing this stuff in a car. But up in these little lakes, these smucks seem to act without any fear of police or public reprimand!
You know I cant help but think that, not only is this a major disruption to the peace and quite of others, but also to the fish! Within minutes of these guys tearing around that little lake, there wasnt a bite to be had anywhere! There must be a connection between the numbers of these machines in a lake and number of fish there in aswell. I cannot believe that this disruption is not having an impact on the fish stocks in many a lake in Ontario.
I had read articles addressing many similar oppinions as the one I am now making in the past and was not able to comment or disagree due to my lack of exposure with these things. Though I can clearly state I am of the oppinion now that people who have properties on lakes, should do their best to see that this form of water craft is heavily regulated or banned from their lakes all together.

Abraxus

I had a similar experience one time while fun fishing on Lake Scugog. Only this time they got what was coming to them...

We were fishing around some shallow pad beds close to a wall of cane in an area with stumps scattered stumps all through it. Well this ideot decides he is going to rip up the whole area and do circles around us, doing sharp turns, close enough to spray us with his own wake.

Well you've probably guessed what happened next, he creamed a stump just inches bellow the surface and it sent him flying off his craft and his PWC soaring right up into the cane. It was a pretty spectacular crash!

We trolled over to see if he was ok, he said he was fine and asked for our help. I told him to sit on his toy and wait for the propper authorities to help him. Also made the call for him Not sure what happened, but it sure was a nice feeling afterwards to see that nut job get what he deserved. I wanted to stick around to see about maybe pressing charges, but that would have been overkill, because nothing bad was done to us, and he sure got his, so I guess that should have been punishment enough. The other way I looked at it was, even though he was a a** to us, we did help him, rather than hurt him more, and that may look more favorable on us as fisherman and not start any extra unnecessary grudges. Hopefully he has wisened up since then!

Aric

They probably didn't have any licenses to drive a Sea-doo. There will always be a few idiots out on lake whether they are driving a sea-doo or a speedboat or whatever. In my experience, most of them steer clear of people fishing. As far as the fishing goes, on a small lake I could see them effecting the fishing but on large lakes they don't seem to cause any problems.

The problem is there are no consequences unless someone gets hurt. There just isnt enough enforcement around and they couldnt catch them anyway unless they were on sea doos. I guess all you can do is hope to see where they go and report them and their location to the proper people. But it still wouldnt do anything probably to curb this behavior.

I have to deal with similar boneheads on the lake where our cottage is located. It has gotten to the point that I don't even try to fish on our lake anymore because it's like trying to fish on the 401 !!! And it's not just the jetskis, it's the massive powerboats who come roaring through the back bays creating huge wakes while I'm trying to spend a peaceful afternoon fishing. There is not a single bay on our lake that you can go to get away from these things. It just seems that some people have more money than brains and they do not even consider the guy sitting in his little aluminum boat. Of course it doesn't matter what size of boat you're fishing from, these yahoos are annoying to everyone. I no longer even bother putting my boat in our lake. I take it to some of the smaller lakes off the beaten path but even then there is one or two jetskiers that think this would be a good lake to tear around. Again they don't ever stop to think about anybody but themselves. I'm not saying all jetskiers are bad. I've played on a few myself and they are fun but I would never go anywhere near a fishing boat or a canoe as I have seem some of these yahoos do. So I don't know what the solution is. Maybe a 3/4 oz jig stuck in the back of their neck might smarten a few of them up.

Fishboch you have read my mind, But the trick with that 3/4 jig is to be good and ready for the hookset and make sure you set the drag accordingly, cause it might cost you a rod.

Same thing happened to me a few months back fishing from shore for catfish, but this time it wasn't a bunch of teenagers or 30 somethings, it was a crew of firemen. They had just finished doing there rescue training with one of the Seadoo boats. So they decide to come peeve off the fisherman. by doing U-Turns right in front of me then they took off again and by the time they came back I was all setup fishing for Cats. at Victoria Island. I was on shore about 12-15 feet up from water surface and i had my rod in a rod holder. I doubted that at that speed they could have seen my line. They didn't come back close enough but let me tell you that I had an 1 1/2 oz slip sinker and a nice big circle hook at the end of the line. I might watched a real rescue...

WB

That's why I prefer late Fall, Winter, and early Spring fishing. The water is free of those pests.