You know that pause after a bottom turn.....

[Surf Hound]

You know that pause after a bottom turn when the waves are maybe 2-3' and you dont have enough speed to carry you all the way to the open face... You know, you kinda just pause and wait for the face, crumble section to kinda grab you so you can go again? Sometimes the wave will grab you and you can make a decent ride and other times you kinda just get stuck in the while water?? What causes this? Is it just the waves are kinda small that day? Am I doing something wrong on my bottom turn? I am not sure why this happens sometimes and was curious if it was me or is it just one of those things that happens on certain waves on smaller days. Now that I think about it, the same thing happened about a week ago to me during 4-5' Haleiwa so I guess it happens sometimes on the bigger stuff?
What do you guys think? Do you have any advice or answers?

[naniekso]

maybe your bottom turn is too sharp. whats the angle your turning at? i'm at a loose 60 mostly and i always am a bit farther ahead. I always go about 1-1.5 feet further than the section thats breaking. i know that by the time i get there it will turn into the section i want to hit. maybe your aiming a bit too close to the breaking part

[IB_Surfer]

I actually changed board shapes and it took care of a lot of it. I used to ride primarily squash tails, and I liked them, but noticed the same thing. My shaper told me to go with a thumb tail, you the turns are not quite as sharp and you keep more speed through the turn. Haven't gone back to squash tails since.

[Aloha]

What the other guys said. Plus a few more.
1. Too much weight on front foot (bogs the rail) or too much on the back foot (stalls you).
2. I get the same on big days with a board that is too small. You try to make the turn hard because you need to outrun the whitewater and get back on the face and you kill your speed, here a longer board with a rounder tail helps a lot.
3. When it's slow, stay low.
4. Wrong approach for the wave. Sometimes it's best to go diagonal down the face, rather than straight and then bottom turn. Usually going straight gives you more speed but if it's a slow wave you have trouble getting back on the face.

[tony g]

You do not always want to do a bottom turn. If I am surfing a beach break with fast sections I may pop up and just work the top third of the wave for speed never doing a bottom turn. It really depends on the type of waves you are surfing. If you are surfing a nice point wave that pushes back when you go into a turn then a bottom turn can work great if done properly. I find the more you surf out in the flats the more you will bog and lose your speed. If you want to go fast work the top third of the wave. Try some different approaches to your surfing, and watch some good surf videos to see how the pros approach different waves.