sgilbert

I'm simply a guy that has taken care of our 22 acre ski lake off and on over the last 20 years (not a professional). Obviously, you can avoid chemicals altogether, but the plan-of-attack is limited. That would largely entail dyes and sterile grass carp. The downside of dye is it is dilutive (in the event of heavy rains---flushing water out of the outlet). Grass carp take about 3 years before they reach their full consumptive potential. Their consumptive potential plateau for a couple years, and then decline. After year 7 or 8 they are simply 5 foot long monsters just swimming around with substantially reduced consumptive strength. Candidly, I like grass carp as a control method, but you will need to re-supply about 20% annually in order to keep the collective stock consuming in the optimal "plateau" range. As to "chemicals", if you want "easy" look into Sonar or Tradewinds. Both are easy/quick to apply. Downside is that you may not be able to irrigate lawns from the lake for 90 days, and you'll need to be careful about other restrictions. Tradewinds is used by many to primarily control Duckweed, but I have found it effective (at times) with general evasive weed growth---except for large and small pondweed. A product by the name of Aquastrike may also be a good bet. As I understand it, Aquastrike is essentially a "cocktail" of Clipper and Diquat (i.e. my novice take). A key advantage over Sonar and Tradewinds is the fact that Aquastrike is a contact herbicide, with limited irrigation restriction. A disadvantage is that you have to dilute the product with a lot of water, which makes it much more time-consuming and equipment intensive to apply (with 3 or more applications needed during the skiing season). As to Aquastrike, if you can get it on without a heavy rain within a few days (i.e. flushing water out of your lake), it should do a good job. Sonar and Tradewinds, conversely, work over a period of weeks (not days) and quantities applied will dilute in the event of a "flushing" rain. All-in-all, I have found that chemical weed treatment is an "art", not a "science", and timing, weather conditions, chemistry, and follow-up are all very important. Also, the chemical that worked good last year, doesn't always work well the next year. Like BCM stated above, this is why many hire local, licensed professionals.

Thanks so much for the feedback. Since writing the original post, I have done a lot of "hands-on research (ha). What I've found is a lot of technical ortho-jargon, but not much real-life feedback from active people like myself who suffers with this---people who use their hands a lot athletically (i.e. think water skiers, rowers, rock climbers). Probably the most insightful information that I viewed was on a rock/mountain climbing forum, and I generally condensed those comments to read as follows: (1) Live with the pain/issue (via medications/PT/rheumatologist advice) as long as you can before contemplating surgery, (2) If all else fails, and surgery is the only option, then think hard about getting a full hand fusion over a partial fusion or a PRC. It is fantastic that we have Dr. Ahmad participating in the sport. Logistically, it may be tough for me to reach out to Dr. Ahmad (I live in the Midwest), but I'm certainly going to look into it. Thanks again for your feedback.

Thanks for your question. To explain, a hand has 8 bones in it (not including the finger bones). With a PRC, the three lower bones (nearest the wrist) are removed. After the row of three lower bones is removed, the upper 5 bones simply slide down to fill in the space. As surgical procedures go, it is actually considered a pretty simple operation. In my case, the procedure would be done in order to eliminate bone-on-bone (caused by arthritis) between one or more of the bones being removed and the wrist bone. As far as hand surgeries go, it is an alternative to what they call a "four corner fusion". With a PRC, the patient will lose less mobility than with a four corner fusion. Again, I'm not rushing to do anything, and I plan to look at all alternatives (including those that would not include surgery). Just trying to get some feedback from other skiers (or other athletes like rowers, etc.) who have undergone the PRC procedure and continue to participate routinely in the sport.

I am considering a wrist surgery called proximal row carpectomy. If you are familiar with this surgery, I would like to hear your opinion about "mobility" and "grip strength" (as it relates to "buoy chasing") after the recovery period. I am a year-round physically active 65 year-old guy. I live on a man-made ski lake and ski (on average) 7-8 sets per week during the 5 summer months (in Indiana). I would like to continue water skiing at that pace, if possible. Also, if you have any insight into great "hand" doctors (in the U.S.), please let me know. Obviously, any doctor that is both "great" and very familiar with the sport of water skiing would be a big plus. At this point, I have only met with one doctor, so my search for a second opinion is just beginning. Thanks for any help you can offer!

My advice to Krista is to: (1) Ask and listen to what sponsors want, (2) Be an influencer/driver for change within the sport, (3) Think big---and, "out of the box"---i.e. who would have visualized the popularity of the X-Games a few years ago. I've been around this sport most of my 50+ years, and have come to the conclusion that we need to bring "wakeboarding" into the format. I would still maintain a 3-event format, but develop a point system whereby a skier could substitute wakeboarding for trick, jump or slalom. Let's face it, one almost needs access to a private lake to jump or slalom (and there are not many jumps around even on private lakes), but virtually anybody can go out and wakeboard and trick if they have a boat. And, if you would ask Malibu, Correct Craft, Mastercraft, etc. what % "wakeboard" boats they sell vs. "slalom" boats, I think most of us would not be surprised by the lopsided answer. As a few other posts indicated, collegiate skiing provides a huge catalyst for our sport, and I feel this would be a great place to start with this format. I can hear the "moans & groans" now about a big wakeboard boat eating away at the shoreline of a small private ski site, and I'm very sympathetic to that. It will take someone smarter than me to come up with an alternative/solution to that issue. I'm simply of the opinion that if we want to grow the sport, gain more sponsorship, and see fewer % "gray-hairs" (like me) at tournaments, we need complement the traditional format---much like the snow skiing community has with snowboarding, half-pipe, etc. Does anyone truly believe that Red Bull would be sponsoring these winter sports venues if that sport still relied largely on the traditional downhill and jump format?

I would suggest a Radar Senate C. It is a very stable ski, turns well, and provides the right balance between open water/course ski. In other words, it's a great open water ski, while providing the necessary characteristics to advance you in the course (if/when you so choose). I would suggest that you go to ski-it-again.com and look for a used one that has been lightly used. You should be able to purchase one 2-4 years old well within your budget.

I provided this original post. Thanks everyone for your great comments/advice. After seeing your comments, and reviewing the regimen I've been using the last few years, I have concluded to do the following; again I live on a man-made 23 acre lake that's abou 8.5' deep ave. in the middle): 1. Copper sulfate treatments periodically are a given. Surprisingly, I have only had to use about four or five 50' bag/yr. if I mix it right. I'm probably going to move to Cutrine Plus in the future because it's in a liquid form (not powder like copper sulfate); easier to mix with water. 2. Someone commented about sterile grass carp (Amur). I put 100 GC in in 2007, 50 in 2008, 25 in 2009, and 51 in 2012. Grass carp lose their "consumptive" capacity over time, which accounts for the need to put in maintenance replacements each year. In hindsight, I should have put in 20-25/yr after 2009. Thus, with the addition of 50 in 2012 I'm playing a bit of catch-up. My gameplan is to put about 25 each year from now on. 3. The predominate weeds in our lake is Sago and Thin Leaf Pondweed (aka Small Pond Weed). Like most lakes, there are others, but these are the main ones. During the last two years, I have applied 22.5 gallons of Aquathol Super K (with a bit of Cutrine Plus) when the water temp gets consistently over 65 degrees. In the future, I have determined that I should go with a second application (at least on the side of the lake where the homes are---and certain spot treatments) about 6 weeks after the first application. I'm guessing that this second application will take 12-13 gallons of Aquathol Super K (with a complement of Cutrine Plus). 4. Although the lake is fed by a watershed that's about twice the size of the lake (and we lose a lot of dye with a heavy 3-4 inch rain), I think (based on your comments), I need to keep it up. Thus, my gameplan is to put in 24 quarts early April (the heavy concentrate type from Sanco), then follow with 12 quarts or so every 6 weeks or so until mid August (or use one of those tests where if you can't see a shiny thing over 2' down you're okay). I guess I'm writing all of this to give you a feel for what I'm thinking about doing this year. Basically, it's comparable to what I have been doing the last couple years, but more intensive (and unfortunately more money). Please feel free to provide me your feedback (i.e. the more critical the better). Like most of you, I'm just trying to tweak things to gain a balance between results and economics. Again, there are 7 homes on the lake, and we all irrigate from it. Thus, we need to scrutinize whatever we put on. Thanks!

I was just reading the "Building a ski lake" posting. Depth and weed issues were addressed in several comments, but little was said about weed control. I would be interested in knowing what chemicals you use in your lake---to control weeds. I have lived on a 23 acres man-made ski lake in Indiana for the last 14 years, and coordinate most of the maintenance for our lake association. The bottom consists of silt and clay, and the average depth of the lake is between 8' and 9' (down the middle), with the predominate weed issues being in water 6' or less--although there are a couple of small pockets of weeds in the deeper areas. There are dozens of chemicals on the market (all very expensive), and all "claim" to kill weeds. However, I have yet to find a reasonably priced "silver-bullet"---and, most treatments cost double if you hire a firm to do it. I might add that dye costs about $550/application, and a quick 3-4" rain flushes much of it right down the drain pipe. There are a number of homes on our lake (and all irrigate from the lake). Thus, we aren't able to use any chemicals that will kill landscaping. I realize that this is a "ski" forum, and this subject may not be appropriate, but I would guess that controlling weeds gets in the way of "doing sets" for many of us.

Farmers now have tractors and combines that can essentially drive themselves (via GPS). Driverless cars have also navigated hundreds of miles of the most challenging roads in the U.S. (via GPS). Thus, I'm not sure why a boat can't be engineered in a similar manner to maintain a straight line down a ski course (w/o a driver's hands on the wheel). However, like a commercial aircraft (on auto-pilot), you would still want a pilot (driver) ready to take over in the event of an emergency.

I live in the midwest, where we start off skiing in 50-55 degree water, it moves close to 90 in the summer, then back to 50 - 55 before we give it up in the Fall. I'm not one that likes to tweak fin every other day (or even every week). Would prefer to limit it to 3 settings during the season---one at, say, 60 degree water temp, one at 75 degree, and one at 85+ degree. Let's assume that 75 degree is the "standard" setting. Would appreciate "general" feedback that will keep it simple (or make it simpler) for skiers like me.