At the risk of over-simplifying, there appear to be two kinds of people on and in lakes. There are people who are there to enjoy the lake and people who are there to destroy the lake while playing with expensive, obnoxious, and dangerous toys. The people who are there to enjoy the lake include the recreational kayakers and canoers, the fishermen (and women), and the waders and swimmers. The other group are the skiers, inflatable tube draggers, jet ski riders, and other people for whom the lake is no more than a race track that happens to be wet.
The thing is, these two sorts simply cannot share a small body of water because they are both using the lake for fundamentally incompatible purposes. For the fisherman or the kayaker, the lake is (theoretically) a peaceful place to escape the pressures of modern life, to float, listen to the sound of waves lapping, maybe get some sun and a little exercise, and be close to nature. A lake filled with people taking this approach to the water would be a lake in which people were not getting in each other’s way or getting on each other’s nerves. It would be polite, civil, and respectful because that is the goal of being there. For the recreational watersports enthusiast, however, the general attitude is “fuck nature, fuck peace, fuck tranquility, I wanna go fast, I wanna be loud and I’m fine if nobody else gets any peace or tranquility either”. It’s speed, giant waves, shredded floating weeds, and lots of noise for these folks. When somebody takes a personal watercraft or ski boat to an inland fishing lake, loads it in, fires up their 100+ horsepower engines and spends an afternoon shooting back and forth on the lake, they make sure that they (and others like them) are the only ones having any fun. Fishermen don’t impede on other people, kayakers don’t either, or canoers, or swimmers. No, you won’t hear these people, you won’t be tossed about by their waves, and you won’t be run over by them. Only the ski-people feel the need to destroy the environment while also ruining the experience of the lake for anybody who wants to relax. And the kicker is that there are more and more and more of these people every day, wrecking lake after lake with noise, waves, pollution and floating shredded weeds (which make fishing nearly impossible, if the noise hasn’t already scared every fish away).
If you are somebody who owns or operates a personal watercraft on an inland body of water or goes skiing behind a big ski boat and you absolutely, positively, must continue to do these loud, obnoxious, horrible things, might I ask that you please, please, please, consider restricting your activities to large bodies of water with lots and lots of space for others to avoid your noise, your wakes and the general unpleasantness you cause with your activity? Not everybody goes to a lake to race in circles like an inconsiderate buffoon. Many go to relax. They don’t impose on you but you most definitely impose on them. Try to think about that and respond accordingly. If you really don’t care and think that you’re so important that you can just ruin whatever lake you like for who ever else is on it, well, then you’re an asshole and there is no hope for you.
General rule of thumb: If the lake is small enough to see objects on the other side clearly without the aid of binoculars, it’s too small for your jet ski or ski boat, go elsewhere. Your presence on that body of water will be disruptive to everybody else on the lake who is not an asshole like you. Exception to this rule, feel free to tear up any body of water you can find that contains no fish, wildlife, or other people. Good luck with that.
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