>When a filter is set to a table with many records and the filter only includes a few records somewhere in the middle of the table, is there a way to prevent the long wait when you skip past the limits of the filter?

Alan,

SKIP, GO TOP, and GO BOTTOM are not optimizable commands. Dump the filter and use something like this instead;

USE TheTable
SCAN FOR YourFilterCondition

ENDSCAN

OR

* To move the pointer to next record;
SELECT TheTable
LOCATE FOR YourFilterCondition REST