Does anyone leave their cable course in over the winter?

[chaloux]

So last year I pulled all the buoys off and replaced them with empty plumbing antifreeze jugs (am a plumber). I left the course in the river because my turn ball arms are glued and it's pretty intensive to install/remove. There is also a lot of debris at the bottom - lots of trees and branches. Our river is much larger than nature intended because of being controlled for hydro generation and logging, and when it was all cleared Hydro was supposed to clean everything up and obviously didn't. So I'm hesitant to let it sink fully as that could be a huge pain in the spring to try to raise again. Sometimes if a turn ball comes off and an arm drops to the bottom, the river adapter has to be removed to pull it up because it will get caught on a branch or tree. Not interested in dealing with that with the whole course.

This spring I found one buoy arm had snapped, which I was able to recover and repair, but that was pretty much it in terms of damage. This year I'm thinking of filling the antifreeze jugs half full (or whatever is required) to partially sink the course so the jugs don't get caught in the ice. The river moves pretty strongly all winter - max about .5" of ice at the end of our dock, but it is much wider where the course is so I'm sure there's more ice there. 

Anyone have experience with this? Any recommendations other than fully sinking the course or fully removing it? It's an ez slalom cable course again with glued arms.  I will remove the river adapters. 

[Andre]

I do but i'm on a lake and the course is in 7-13' of water. I just removed bouys and sink the SS mainline and arms.Last year,we left the 55 m green bouys in since they were so much faded and  not part of the mainline and they survive to 24'' of ice.

Not much help...

[skimtb]

How deep is the river?  Maybe just leave the jugs full and “sink” it 5 feet above the bottom by using cinder blocks or something heavy and 5’ of rope at each buoy location?   
You would be dropping something to bottom of River, but it would be cinder blocks and vertical rope vs horizontal pipes and mainline etc.  should reduce odds of getting caught on trees branches etc  

you would need 12-15’ of water for this though.  If you have less, tie the jugs closer to the pvc. If that makes sense?

[VermontSkier]

We have a cable course on a river in Vermont. If you have any ice flows in winter, I would pull the course. You never know what ice will dislodge from the shores, like big trees. 

[motoxr]

We pull the buoys and drop the course. However, a different situation for you. How about adding some small sub buoys half way down the line? Just enough to hold it a foot or two below the surface.

We also use sub buoys on another course that's not a floater. Then, we only have to go down a few feet in the spring and avoid all the sediment at the bottom.

 

[coach3]

not unless someone makes me!

 

[chaloux]

I can't imagine the ice being more than a foot thick. When I went to put it together this spring I had most of the empty jugs in place and they were floating at the surface over the winter. Unfortunately I can't really get down there to check in the winter, no snowmobile trails and can't go on the river as most of it is open. I think if I sunk it a foot down from the surface that'd be lots - just a few fishermen to watch out for or notify that it's still there. @skimtb and @motoxr I think that either of these options would work - @motoxr you say half way down the line do you mean half way down the rope to the cable or do you mean at the mid point of the course? I'm assuming you mean partially down the rope that goes from the main cable to the buoy. That's exactly what I'm thinking with the half full antifreeze jugs

[motoxr]

Our floater has the PVC tubes that extend out to each turn buoy. From there the rope is about 6' up to the surface. You could affix a sub buoys to that line. Of course you would also have the sub buoys at the boat path lines too.