Too Damn Rough

[B can man]

Checked two weather sites and wind/wave forecasts before I left the house at 7am. Was telling me east winds at 13mph and waves 2ft or less, subsiding to 1ft or less. Hauled the boat up to the Mazurik and got bait along the way. Sunny and beautiful on the way up, but as I sat at the ramp, I went "holy crap" I was looking at 3-4ft'ers easy. There were six others sitting the prep lane waiting for the waves to come down. Some broke out lawn chairs. Saw a few bigger boats and one or two smaller ones go out. Their boats were up and down so much that you could pretty much lose sight of them when they were in the troughs and that was from an elevated position!

The wind slowed down and the lake started to flatten out. I almost took the tie-downs off, but decided to turn on the NOAA VHF station. I heard "Waves 2-4ft increasing to 3-5ft" and something about a "stalled front bi-secting Ohio". Looked at my fishing partners and said "we're going home". $40 for gas in the truck, $12 for shiners/worms, 0 hours on the lake. GG lake, you beat the weathermen/observers to a pulp this time.

[imrsmk]

For wave heights I figure 1 foot wave/ every 5 knots (assuming nothing blocking the wind). So, when I hear 15 knot winds, the waves will be around 3 feet.

I never rely on forecasted wave height. iWindsurf and the bouys are usually pretty close on wind speeds, so just do the math yourself. You will save yourself a lot of trouble.

Obviously, with S winds the waves will be less in closer to shore.

John

[ken]

That sounds like a very good way to look at it. 1 foot wave per 5 knots of wind. I like it. Thanks for sharing this.

[Lyman1]

Good point, imrsmk. Makes sense. I like the docs explanation too but wouldn't the buoys be calibrated to take into account any discrepancy in being able to not rise to the actual wave height? Great site BTW, you guys are very nice to put your experiences on the lake into writing here, Thanks!

[skipper9]

It was blowing thats for sure.. I always double the bouy 45005 's wave height.. it was a very bumpy ride out there... thank god the fish were biting...