According to NOAA and
National Geographic, there are two types of water spouts, Tornadic waterspouts and Fair-weather waterspouts. From National geographic:
Tornadic waterspouts get their start as true tornadoes. Influenced by winds associated with severe thunderstorms, air rises and rotates on a vertical axis. Tornadic waterspouts are the most powerful and destructive type of waterspout.
Fair-weather waterspouts, however, are much more common. Fair-weather waterspouts are rarely dangerous. The clouds from which they descend are not fast-moving, so fair-weather waterspouts are often static. Fair-weather waterspouts are associated with developing storm systems, but not storms themselves.
My brother and I witnessed a fair weather one miles away from us while boating and fishing on the Lake Erie. When we heard someone on the radio mention it and when we looked to the South, we ran into each other in a mad panic removing all the fishing gear . When we lifted the gear, we noticed the spout was stationary, hardly moving. It was a fair weather one, the lake wasn't calm but hardly choppy either and there was no threat of thunderstorms. We usually are heading back to shore we know there are thunderstorms to the west of us. So we watched it for a few minutes, and it went away. But it scared the hell out us when we first saw it
The one we saw was much more tame than this one. It was just a vertical spout, with no bulb close to the bottom.
There was only the two of us so not that many lines or gear to remove. To give you an idea of the gear we had to either bring into the boat, goto to the 3:30 mark