Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Well it was raining hard and pitch black late Friday and as soon as I asked a friend to spotlight the buoy in the NW zone, BAM I was on top of it. It was lodged under the boat but we throttled down and the last possible second to hopefully prevent the ugly from happening. Ten minutes later, we were free and wet as Hell with no noticable damage.

My question, how are those buoys fixed to the lake bottom and in this case, well over a hundred feet deep. BTW I moved that buoy a good20 feet out of its original position.

I thought (so I tried looking it up) that they were just held in place with concrete blocks.

New breed of buoy holds fast in hurricane wrote:A weather buoy tied with 18,000 feet of mooring line to a concrete block at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles east of the Bahamas, stayed put as Hurricane Earl swept by earlier this week. In the past, this wasn’t always the case.

I also saw some that referenced usage of a mushroom anchor. Most just called it an "anchor" and leave it as that. FWIW, 18,000 ft of mouring line is a tad over 3 miles of rope, that doesn't exactly sound 'precise' to me..

Nice work on hitting one... On my little lakes the only ones I ever see are marking shallow water zones or rocks. On one part of the lake I go to normally (Big Pelican Lake, MN) there are a row of markers, I always assumed they were to mark a really shallow spot, but about a month ago we motored by them and there are about 6 'Rock' markers in a row. For some reason the ones that are floating with the word 'Rock' amuse me. I made my wife take a picture of one last time we were out.

-ron

wrd1972 wrote:My question, how are those buoys fixed to the lake bottom and in this case, well over a hundred feet deep.

Well, when I was in the Air Force, you could tie anything down with a hundred yards of flight line, and you could pick anything up with a sky-hook. I'm guessing they use a hundred yards of shore line, or maybe just harpoon it to the bottom...

We're on an inland river, but the only buoys we have are used to mark relatively shallow channels for tugboat tows--maybe 20' or shallower.

Since our lake is mostly 65'-100' deep, the navigational buoys are up in the tailwaters of the lake--below the next dam upriver.

They're tied to big chunks of concrete on the bottom of the river with "wire rope." I wouldn't want to get'em hooked onto my prop/motor.

The base of the pilings, markers are on, around here might be out of the water on a winter full moon low tide.

I have never seen one on a float in the bay. They do have floating buoys in the passes tho.
I agree, you don't want to hit one.

No Wake zone buoys are generally privately owned, but on corp lakes they must be approved and permitted by the corp. Anything can be used as an anchor, but most of the time a heavy concret block is used.

As Rainy frrrreezes each year, the 'buoytender' goes out in a big pontoon with a small crane attached to it and winches each one up. They are then stored for the winter only to reverse the procedure in the spring. These all have a concrete 'anchor' attached by either chain or cable.
In olden days, he did this process stricktly by 'shoreline reckoning'. Word has it the old buoytenders were so knowledgeable that they were still quite accurate from year to year. Of course, with GPS, his job is now much easier.
Rainy is a very large lake and LOADED with rocks (mostly granite), so there are hundreds of these markers and boy howdy, you better know how to read em. We watch the tourists chew off lower units all the time. Last year, I rescued a rental houseboat crew from where they were hung up on a rock. They thought they were sinking. The water was only about a foot deep, but panic had set in. The 'captain' was sort of brave and stayed with the boat while he waited for the rental chase boat to arrive. We drifted in the area with the pontoon while the wife and children freaked out and swore they would never go near water again.
As well as the red/green nav buoys, there are also hundreds (probably thousands) of white 'rock' markers. These range from ones set by the buoytender to plastic jugs set by individuals. Most of these are indeed floating, although usually in only a couple of feet of water, depending on lake levels. The rock markers are used for small individual hazards, while the nav buoys help keep you out of whole sections of rocks and reefs.
Fifty years of running this minefield and I have been lucky (knock wood). The only incident I have had was taking the tip off a skag. It was at high speed and could have been very bad if the water was only a couple of inches shallower. But I was young and needed the money...

A lot of the lakes in Texas are full of stumps that been cut down for boat lanes with buoys to mark them. I used to fish Lake Fork all the time and have been out after high winds to find the buoys have moved. I have seen several big bass boats lose their lower unit after hitting a stump at 50 mph. One year some guy from up north holed his boat when he hit one. The TDW left it half sunk as a warning to others.

Texoma Toon wrote:I have seen several big bass boats lose their lower unit after hitting a stump at 50 mph.

A GREAT argument for NOT DRIVING A BOAT AT 50 MPH!!!

Texoma Toon wrote:I have seen several big bass boats lose their lower unit after hitting a stump at 50 mph.

You all have probably seen this (top photo) all over the internet. I am the original photographer (my brother and I were fishing near the bay bridge the morning after this happened). I sent the series to our local paper "The Mariner" in '98. Day markers on the bay are steel poles. Hitting one = bad day.

This guy claimed he was going 5 knots when it happened. Years later, Mybthusters proved what the DNR police said at the time, that he had to be going full bore to nearly cut this 42 ft Fountain in two. I didn't even get a Mythbuster's t-shirt for them using my pic

BobG wrote:

Texoma Toon wrote:I have seen several big bass boats lose their lower unit after hitting a stump at 50 mph.

A GREAT argument for NOT DRIVING A BOAT AT 50 MPH!!!

Some run much faster! On a spring weekend during the spawn you stand a good chance of getting run over if you are going less than 60......lots of idiots!

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How did this boat flip over when it is straddling the marker pole in the beginning?

It didn't, you are looking at the bow in this photo.

Eufaula Lake has a few channel bouy markers that are attached via cables to anchors on the bottom. The problem now is with the lake down, the bouys are floating out of the channel so instead of being in 30+' of water, you can be in 3' of water and be right by the bouy -- just depends on which way the wind is blowing and moving the floating bouy.