how deep

any tips for getting a decent wave in shallow water. the lakes here in my area are really low. the main one i use is at 4ft. avg depth. I cant seem to get a good enough wave. I think it is the depth hurting it because when i hit pockets that are 6 ft the wave starts to build and curl put it will not last because the depth changes back to 4ft. so all this said. have you found a min. depth for a good wave?

I don't know a minimum for sure but we usually wakesurf near the dams at our lakes where the water is 70+. We have tried it in 10-15 ft and the wave is definitely not as good. I would think 15-20 should be plenty but I am sure some others will chime in. You are probably going to have a hard time at those depths.

MHO less then 10 foot and you cant get the drive you want , you can surf but you have to work the board to stay in the pocket ,

We've staged contests for the NorCal INT league in a man-made wakeboarding lake that had a claimed average depth of 8 feet. I think it was actually less than that. I think with some work, you can get a "good" wake, but not great, in 7-8 foot depth.

A few things we found:

1) A consistent depth was important - as you're finding Kevin, when the bottom surface changes it really impacted the wake. Going from 7 feet to 4 feet caused the wake to get HUGE and then turn to mush.

2) We had to place a great deal more weight in the boat to generate a wake compared to when we surfed deep water. My recollection is that we added almost twice as much weight.

3) The ballast placement was very different than when we were in deeper water. I can't remember now who suggested it, but we normally don't add weight in the bow of my boat in deeper water, in this shallow environment we placed about 25% of our total ballast in the bow and that hepled considerably.

From the last contest we staged on that lake:

I notice huge losses in our wave size when I hit anything less than 12 feet. Hydrodynamics or something.

I like at least 12 feet and won't even try in less than 8.

Here are some better wakes at the contest at Nor Cal Int. The Walker Tige did well in shallow water.

The lake closest to my home(10 minutes)averages between 8 and 12 feet deep. In the spring its at the 12 mark and we can get a great wake at the 11-12 foot range. Once the water level goes down in mid-summer we are finding 9-10 foot depths. The wake will go from good to terrible almost instantly as we're surfing at this depth. I stopped going there after the lake gets below 10 feet. Its worth the extra 20 minutes drive to a deeper lake.

6 feet of water. 2009 Moomba Outback V, 750 lbs in corner, 400 lbs in front ski locker. 9.0 MPH.

Can stay in the pocket all day

When we were on the Sacramento River last year we would be okay at 10 feet and have a good size wake until we hit about 8 feet and the wake would literally disappear and turn into just wash.