More Than A Hobby, Communities Debate Impacts of Wake Boats

Zac Schultz:
Labor Day marks the unofficial end to the 2025 boating season in Wisconsin. But what isn’t ending is the controversy over whether wake surfing and wake boats should be allowed on some lakes. Tonight, Murv Seymour tells us why this battle is likely to carry over into next season.

Murv Seymour:
Rain or shine, big and small, Wisconsin lakes are a state and national treasure.

Jeff Meessmann:
It’s a critical resource to the state of Wisconsin.

Murv Seymour:
Especially during summer.

Jeff Meessmann:
When I came up here, I fell in love with the place.

Murv Seymour:
This place Jeff Meessmann speaks of is Natural Lakes, a 380-home lake community in the Northwoods of Vilas County.

Jeff Meessmann:
It has one of the highest concentrations of freshwater lakes in the world.

Murv Seymour:
He proudly lives on one of them, 220-acre McCullough Lake in Presque Isle, where street names reflect some of the rich wildlife seen along these winding rural roads.

Jeff Meessmann:
We see bear here. We see wolves here, coyotes.

Murv Seymour:
Jeff Meessmann loves McCullough Lake and the lakes of Wisconsin. It’s why he moved here.

Jeff Meessmann:
We’re an advocate for the protection of our lakes.

Murv Seymour:
Guided by his boat with a bucket of gadgets…

Jeff Meessmann:
Normally, what we do is we take samples in the deep hole.

Murv Seymour:
… Jeff prepares to head 300ft from shore to the deepest part of McCullough Lake.

Jeff Meessmann:
I’m putting the anchor in and we should be about 26ft.

Murv Seymour:
Once there, as he does on three other lakes, he voluntarily grabs water samples on behalf of the Department of Natural Resources. He tells me the lake data dates back more than 20 years.

Jeff Meessmann:
So I’m going to be recording the temperature.

Murv Seymour:
He checks the temperature and depth of the water.

Jeff Meessmann:
You can see from the top of the surface of the water, all the way down to 15ft was very consistent.

Murv Seymour:
He also checks water clarity with this black and white patterned tool called a Secchi disk.

Jeff Meessmann:
So I’m going to pull it up to where I can just see it, which is right there.

Murv Seymour:
Finally, using a six-foot pole made of PVC, he pulls a water sample from six feet under. It’s then sent to the DNR for testing. While you’ll see loons, bald eagles and massive fish on McCullough Lake. One thing you won’t see is wake surfers and most likely wake boats.

Jeff Meessmann:
They’re wrecking our lakes and wake surfing needs to be regulated to the proper size lake.

Murv Seymour:
Jeff Meessmann and other like-minded lake stewards believe wake surfing wrecks water quality, produces too big of a wake, and they believe the boats destroy the bottom of smaller lakes and erodes shorelines. Most importantly to Jeff, he believes wake boats increase the risks and spread of invasive species from lake to lake. Meessmann has led the way, banning wake surfing on McCullough and more than 60 other lake communities statewide.

Jeff Meessmann:
It’s going to stop a lot of paddlers and kayakers and just people on pleasure cruises, on pontoon boats from enjoying the lakes. We saw one wake boat on our lake four years ago, and I took it into action right away and we stopped it. Now, Presque Isle for the last year has had an ordinance in place and it doesn’t ban wake boats. It bans the activity of wake surfing.

Murv Seymour:
240 miles away in southern Wisconsin, you’ll find Redline Watersports.

Man on phone:
Redline Watersports. This is Mars.

Murv Seymour:
And a totally different opinion.

Paul Vitucci:
There’s two sides of the story.

Murv Seymour:
When you step into Redline, owner Paul Vitucci says

Paul Vitucci:
You’re going to get slapped in the face with the active water sports lifestyle. We’ve got gear, water skis, wake boards. We also sell pontoons.

Murv Seymour:
More importantly than all of that, Paul Vitucci tells me he sells bringing families together through water sports. Inside his office, he has family pictures in the window, on the wall, on his desk. He even has a family picture stuck to his computer. But for him, one particular picture says it all.

Paul Vitucci:
I think I was probably three or four years old. It was my father and I. It was the first family boat. It’s been in my blood ever since.

Murv Seymour:
Like Jeff Meessmann, Paul Vitucci loves Wisconsin lakes and fun on the water.

Paul Vitucci:
It’s what my family did growing up. God gave us these beautiful lakes, and if we don’t enjoy them, it’s our fault. And if we don’t take care of them, it’s our fault.

Murv Seymour:
We met at the Marshall Park boat launch in Middleton. Once he arrives in the desired spot with a couple of touches to the screen, this high-powered boat transforms itself, sucking in as much as 3,300 pounds of lake water into its ballast system.

Johnny Zdeblick:
Ready?

Paul Vitucci:
Here we go. For the sport of wake boarding, we just use the center plate and that kind of helps us get up on top of the water.

Murv Seymour:
Paul Vitucci tows three generations of water sports enthusiasts on this afternoon run on Lake Mendota.

Paul Vitucci:
Johnny Z. over here, mid-30s, outstanding athlete.

Murv Seymour:
There’s 18-year-old Kyle Polster, who has been on the water with family for a long time.

Kyle Polster:
Ever since I was like six months old, I’ve been out on the water. I learned to ski when I was two or three.

Paul Vitucci:
And then Joe D’Amato, who is on the other end of things.

Joe D’Amato:
Actually started a little later in life on the water sports.

Paul Vitucci:
To be able to do this well into your 60s and 70s.

Murv Seymour:
One by one, they ski, water board and wake surf, which requires the boat to produce the largest wake artificially.

Paul Vitucci:
So right now, through all the engineering, we’ve just created this beautiful wake from the running surface of the boat and the devices, and we’re going about 11.3 miles an hour and just cruising down a lake.

Murv Seymour:
What’s it like to glide on water?

Joe D’Amato:
I’m going to say freedom. Hopefully, the camera picked up the big smile on my face and I wanted to shout out, to be honest with you, but it just felt so good. For my age at 67, it’s just, it’s just a great sport.

Murv Seymour:
Unlike Jeff Meessmann, Paul Vitucci and his crew believe banning wake surfing wrongfully punishes families because of a few bad boaters.

Joe D’Amato:
It’s so easy just to say, “that’s bad, that’s bad” without really getting all the facts and understanding who you’re affecting.

Kyle Polster:
It was more the fact that it was something that we could all do. I want to have the opportunity to do this my whole life, and I want to be able to have my grandkids or even great grandkids out on the water.

Johnny Zdeblick:
If it hurts the access for people who might own a house there, or if that’s where they grew up vacationing, or it’s the closest lake that they have available to them.

Murv Seymour:
While most only see the beauty in the surface of the lake, Jeff Meessmann cares about what’s happening all the way to the bottom, which is why he worries about the potential damage wake boats can do. Both sides believe it’s time for state lawmakers or the Department of Natural Resources to step in to create a statewide standard on where wake surfing is allowed. Paul Vitucci believes 200 to 250ft from shore, in a minimum of 20ft of water, is far and deep enough to protect the environment and others on the water. Jeff Meessmann wants three times that distance in a minimum of 30ft of water, on lakes 1500 acres and larger. In a written statement, the DNR tells me the department is actively reviewing the latest science and will continue to review and consider any new information. They recommend that all interested stakeholders keep up with upcoming meetings of the Natural Resources Board for future updates. Back on the water, both sides believe their scientists and not the others.

Jeff Meessmann:
Wake surfing is scientifically proven to damage the bottom, to beyond 20ft deep, damage the shorelines, make the lake dangerous for everyone else to use.

Paul Vitucci:
The scientists whom I’ve spoken with all are under the same belief that if we operate these boats in a little deeper water, we’re fine. Every boat that runs around the lake is going to create a wake, and it’s going to disturb the lake and make it rougher.

Murv Seymour:
The battle over wake boats and wake surfing reminds Paul Vitucci of another battle on the water. He thinks both sides can find a compromise if they simply talk and not go off the deep end with each other.

Paul Vitucci:
Years and years ago, jet skis came out, and one of the big issues with them is that they didn’t have good muffler systems on, so they were very rah-rah-rah-rah. You can hear them halfway across the lake.

Jeff Meessmann:
I’m a fisherman. I water ski. I enjoy all the water sports. I’m not after trying to stop somebody from fishing or enjoying the activities. The only activity that I don’t agree with is wake surfing.

Murv Seymour:
Which represents family and community to so many of those who do it.

Kyle Polster:
I don’t know if I’d come out on the water if I wasn’t able to wake surf and wake board.

Murv Seymour:
Reporting from Presque Isle and Dane County, I’m Murv Seymour for “Here & Now.”