1mainiac

I guess it would depend on the size of the charger and the duration of the charge. What works best is a nice long soak. The one issue with charging multiple batteries is getting all the cells correctly charged which requires a equalization charge very few modern chargers say they do that anymore because it can be hard on AGM and Gell cell batteries. To be honest the only time you should charge batteries as a bank is if they are all identical batteries the reason is because you can have a dead cell in a bank of batteries and never know it. each cell can vary between 1.7 dead and 2.3 fully charged so it is possible to have 5 fully charged cells and 1 dead one and still have the battery read 13.2vdc which would seem like a decent battery till you try and put a load on it and then it will fall on it's butt.

John that is what I did with my Big Daddy Boards and they work great.

Heck I am all for People Eating Tasty Animals LOL The other group of morons not so much. I believe we all need to take a hand in stewardship of our resources but no way am I giving up Steak for Tofu and wheat germ. Everyone seems to forget that in nature everything is part of the food chain. Lots of people seem to want to live in a Disney world where all the little animals are friends who help each other out. The fact is it is eat or be eaten those are your options you can dine or be dinner. So you make your own choices I prefer to try and stay at the top of the food chain and have my own choice as to what I eat.

Sea Shepard is a group of anti fishing idiots trying to prevent another group from catching fish they have legal rights to catch. However I believe the boat is actually the Steve Irwin either way not a connection I would want to make but it is your boat.

Will see you there Tim hope they bring more food this time they ran out while I was in line last year. LOL

He decided to print money for his friends instead the more you print the less it's worth. Honestly very little has changed only the numbers are all bigger in 1971 gas was 30 cents a gallon a new car was under 3 grand for most and a Vette was only around 6 grand. 12 grand would get you a nice house in the suburbs and minimum wage was 1.65 so except for minimum wage you just move the decimal point. Sadly all we have to offer the world anymore is our money and the more we print the less it buys. I had a chance to buy a 380 acre farm in 1978 for 65 grand and my dad convinced me it would never be worth that much it was for sale for nearly 3 years before it sold. On the bright side anyone with a pulse can buy a house for nearly no interest ( well that is a different problem) My first house was 20% down and 12% interest took me years to save enough to buy it. The good old days were in the 80's when there was tons of money and stuff was still cheap oh yea that was under the Republicans must have actually been bad right. As for the Republicans being in charge of big oil isn't George Soros one of the wealthiest Oil men in the world and he is OBAMA's puppet master. And behind the SIEU ACORN Gun Control and a lot of other things most of us don't want.

Very True and when you look at plotters make sure it has NEMA in and out many of them have several NEMA inputs and 1 output 1 out is all you need because the output can be shared with multiple devices some of the inputs are specific use so make sure it will accept data returns from your radio if your radio has a NEMA output my current radio does not send to the plotter however my plotter can accept a return so I plan on upgrading to a better radio but since for the last 3 years I have been bringing this up every year and no one seems to care to share info there is little sense spending money to gain a feature that no one wants to use. Sadly most guys figure a radio is somewhat needed but want to get the cheapest one they can as they see no other use than rag chewing and the once in a lifetime emergency call. The truth is the radio can be very helpful if you use it and since everyone wants to keep their secrets the DSC feature makes much of that possible. With DSC you can share your info with your friends often without a spoken word on the air. Think of this your radio beeps letting you know I am calling you accept the call the radio switches to another channel and I say we are killing them on Yellow tails 60 to 70 dn on the rigger and divers 160 to 180 back. You can do a position request and see where I am at and even get my track if you do a couple of requests. We just shared some pretty exact info without letting the entire fleet know what is up. A couple of years ago I was trying to get a friend of mine to follow my troll because we were killing the Steelhead When I turned to go back there had to be 20 boats following me. And I had miles of empty water around me before I went on the air to get my friend to come to where I was. Use it or don't use it but if you have the feature you might as well try and get more use out of it then the one thing none of ever want to have happen. The reason I say it that way is part of the idea behind the red button is you push it before you abandon ship and it continues to send you position and emergency call while you try and save your life. For normal distress calls you would not use the DSC you would call the Coast Guard normally and talk to them. DSC stands for Digital Select Calling and was designed to allow private calls ship to ship and to send encoded messages. The distress feature is a add on that was adopted by the Coast Guard but is not yet fully implemented. You will note if you read your radio manual that all of the DSC features are about selective calling except for the red button.

Interesting chart at 2.0 it starts making 13ft every 10 yds and ends making less than 6ft for every 10 yds added but at 3.0 it starts making 8.6ft for every 10 yds added and ends up making over 11ft down for every 10 yds added. So how does the last 60ft at 3.0 nearly double the depth increase of the last 60ft at 2.0?

The answer I keep getting from the Coast Guard is the system is not up yet this is due to needing to build the towers for coverage. The radios are however on and working if you push the button stuff will happen. As for when the system will be fully functional is anyone's guess but Muskegon Coast Guard and most of the stations and equipment have the feature as do most of the Sheriff patrol and DNR vessels. When the towers are up they will have complete coverage of the lake and will announce the system. Right now my guess is close to 80% or more of Lake Michigan is covered. VHF boat to boat is short distance due to the antenna height put the antennas up on a tower like the Coast Guard stations and you can talk quite a ways. Put a radio in a Helicopter at 800 ft and you can cover darn near the entire lake. If you want to see more DSC features go to ICOM's website for marine radios they have several videos that go into detail on what you can do with them. pretty much comes down to 3 versions of what DSC you have all transmit the same info from the red button. The most basic is pretty much send only with no dedicated receive so you can only get DSC signals when you are monitoring the channel. Class D radios have a monitor on the channel at all times and will pick up all distress calls and and calls to your MMSI number or group number if you have one. The basic Class D radio simply puts the info on your radio display and gives you audio alerts to look at the screen. They also contain a phone book of sorts that allows you to save MMSI numbers of friends so you can call them or do position requests from or to them. The top of the line radios also send info to your plotter which is cool as it will mark locations on your screen. So as a scenario lets say GLF sets his radio up and we share info he is on a good troll and having a blast and I am not I could do a series of position requests and mark his trail and troll direction and if I timed it correctly could even figure out his speed. Now I know where he is and what direction he is going so I could either get behind him and see if he missed anything or run in front of him and let him follow me. All of this is done without saying a word on the air and the only radios that hear or share info are ours unless we use a group number.

Mine has been setup for years I wish more would do it as depending on your radio features it is more than just a safety feature. First off for the safety part if your radio is correctly setup and you push the button every boat within radio range will know you are in distress and have your exact position if they have the feature. Any one who has your MMSI number will know it is you and all of this happens without anyone cluttering up the airwaves. Now for some other fun stuff your MMSI number can be used just like a phone number in many radios so if we share numbers and you wish to talk to me on ch 72 you scroll to my number enter 72 as the talk ch and hit send. My radio beeps and tells me you are calling do I accept I hit yes both of our radios switch to the talk ch and no one hears a thing. Second cool feature is position reports Lets say we are both fishing and you wonder where I am at you scroll to position request and my number and hit send on my end one of 3 things will happen depending on how I set mine up it will send you my position automatically or it will let me know you want a position request which I can accept or it will decline the request. Again we get to exchange info without cluttering up the air and giving away info we would rather not share yet. For tournaments you can get group MMSI numbers that everyone can enter in their radio and you can call the entire group and move them all to a common talk ch at the same time to give a announcement or pass info. and again it is all digital info that does not make a sound out of the speakers. Add in voice scrambling and we can chat all day privately. And since none of these signals will be picked up by a standard FM discriminator as long as we are radio range we can maintain private communication without bothering anyone.

Northwoods wants 8 bucks shipping plus the OR16 Franks wants 9 bucks shipping plus the OR16 clips. Z Boards included shipping so price comes out about the same Walmart has Offshore's at 32.95 Dicks also has them for the same price I can't drive to Franks or Northwoods for free so makes it roughly a wash on price. Might be some good deals at the GR show but I got my first set of Z Boards at the show last year for 30 bucks a pair. I have to talk to Lance and see what price he will give MSCST members this year. And again I still like my Offshore boards but the Big Daddy boards will run them over on the way out. Boards are to gain width and the Z Boards will get wider than any board I have ever used.

Not sure I understand the cheaper part here last I checked Offshore boards were 31.95 each add in a set of the red clips at 8.00 a pair and you have 70 bucks in a pair. A pair of the Brother boards which are the same size as the Offshore boards and comes with the red clip is 56.00 now toss out the Big Jon push pin and get a set of Orange clips for the front at 8 bucks and you are at 64 bucks still less than the Offshore do like I did and put the red clip up front and a simple snap on the rear and you are money ahead. I did not buy mine to replace my Offshore boards I got them to do what the Offshore boards don't do well and that is pull heavy loads without standing on their tails. Everyone has their personal fav's that is fine I also have my fav's and ask anyone of the guys who fished with me this summer there was some cussing involved in dialing in the Z Board program. As for losing a board they last time I lost a board was 3 years ago when Jay clipped one on wrong and he replaced it the next day and has never made that mistake again. Realistically the Z Boards are just a combination of several board designs but if you play with them you will have good luck no different than the Church or Offshore boards that have had hundreds if not thousands of posts on how to improve them. I will say bending the arm is not easy and I am making a tool to do it which is a piece of 1x4 with a saw cut thru the middle to slide over the arm next to the board so you can bend against the board right at the factory bend without putting pressure on the joint where the arm is glued to the board.

I have mono between the braid and the copper but when adding the Dive Bombs we let it out about 100ft pas the copper so it was clipped to the braid with no issues. I have never had one of the snap weight clips slip or come off any line I have put it on. And the idea is not mine I know a few guys who run their Off Shore boards the same way. And 12.50 for the OR 18 is just not in my budget for 16 boards I have 8 Offshore and 8 Z Boards I like them all and they all have their place I just have to pay attention when I mix them as they don't always play well together. My Offshore boards are all setup with the red clip at the rear and either orange or black clips up front and set to release. All of my Z Boards are Big Daddy boards as I mainly wanted a bigger board for the heavy metal program and deep presentations which is where the Offshore boards really begin to suck. The one thing I have found is that both the Z Boards and the Offshore boards are ok with my trolling speed which starts fast and goes up from there. Anything below 3 is slow for me and below 2.5 I have to check to make sure the motor is running LOL.

Are you talking about the original White inner flow rod or the Diawa I had a set of the white ones a long time ago and hated them. I have heard a couple of people say they like the Diawa better. Still not enough for me to try them again.

Well my final modification cost was zero move the included red clip to the front toss the Big Jon push pin on the desk and put a large snap on the rear. They will pull a 300 copper with 2 4oz Dive Bombs on it with no issue since I only run my Copper and long line setups far enough from the boat to keep em out of my divers it works great. I should get another 15lb spool of line then I could run out to the middle of the lake and troll both shores LOL.

I have days when I think I will just run mono braid and wire and use weights or divers to get the depth I want. I used to think the Torpedo divers were over priced but am beginning to think they might make more sense then setting up dozens of rods.

Also keep in mind depending on twist some coppers are heavier than others so they will run deeper.

I would think a bit deeper but I don't have a 100ft copper however my 300ft will drag bottom in 75 to 80ft and bounce on turns in 90 ft. So my guess would be between 25 and 27 down.

I have 8 of them they all work great Yep I have played with the releases the stock releases work pretty good and if you put the red clip on the back and make sure the line is in past the pin it cannot come off unless the line breaks. Only thing I can say they out pull anything I have ever seen. The first time we set one it ran over the rest of the boards so there is a learning curve. One thing you have to do is adjust the arm up or down to match what your pulling The out of the box setting was great up to about 5 colors but with long cores or copper it would dig in too much and dive bending the arm up about 3/8 to 1/2 in fixed that. I switched the releases around and put the red clip on the front so it can't release on my long coppers this ended all the false releases. I really don't think anyone makes a good enough board release to handle a board and long copper setups. As to the having to modify them all I can say is I have pretty much ran every board out there and have not found a one that does not require modification. The big difference is how well they pull heavy gear. On Just Hookin we ran them on the outside of his Church boards and the were well ahead of his boards. On my boat comparing them to the Off Shore boards running the same gear under the same conditions side by side the Z Boards pulled wider and further forward setup after setup. To me we use boards to gain width so the board that runs widest wins and hands down that is Z Boards. Anyone who has ever seen my Steelhead program can attest that I sometimes run 800ft wide. The neat thing is seeing the boards all running off the side of the boat not looking like a bunch of ducks in a V pattern behind me.

I hope they finally fix it when I bought this boat the X5 was part of the deal 8 months later I gave up on it as they kept changing the release date and got my money back for the AP. That was coming up on 4 years ago since then it has been released pulled redesigned released and pulled again and again. Keeping in mind the X5 is a rewrite of the old Sport Pilot which also went thru the same issues and was finally pulled for good. One thing that got me was in talking to the Raymarine rep and he made a statement basically to the effect that because I had a cable steered boat my issues did not matter as we are a small market segment to them and they have to take care of the big boys first so I should just sit and wait. Seems strange that nearly 70% of the boats under 28ft are cable steered and they were working on a AP for cable steered boats but since it was such a small market they did not care if they ever produced it. Don't look for a lot of Raymarine products on any of my boats now or in the future.

Sure was glad to see them leave when I sold mine. Not sure I would take another set if they were free. The list of issues with them is long ask anyone who has fished with them I bet you get the same or similar answer.

Rereading the rules and perhaps we should just get rid of rule 11 as it is better covered by 17.

Ok Don types faster than me but then I wrote more waiting on him to call me back and we will sort it out.

I will discuss this with the committee. My personal thought is check in is at the weigh in and the time between check in and weigh is to allow guys to take care of their boats and be ready to weigh in. I would have loved to have it work out better at Dockers because my original thought was we would all weigh in at the dock then move up to the bar and do the awards have beer ect and call it a day. I guess part of the problem is Muskegon lake is so big that we don't really have a good central location to meet at. Another reason behind the check in and weigh in time is if there was a line at the ramp as long as you were waiting in line you would be considered checked in. Since several times we came in as a group being able to let a committee member know you are stuck in line will not cost you points or a DQ. Taking a chance on being late and losing points is a choice we all have to make. I really prefer this to having a end of fishing time and then run in time. We have also considered chk in at the pier heads but I think having Jon or Don check in the boats at the ramp is the best idea then guys who slip and choose to do so can drop off a member and the cooler and run to their slip. Since Patty will likely always be there early to check some one in as well. For you guys that will have to tie up for weigh in then being checked in while in line works as you can wait while the guys who have to load use the ramps and then come in. Also we need to consider keeping the ramp open as much as we can.

Rules and dates are posted The Battle of the Leagues will be a fun event Don and Ken and Myself need to work out a few details. But nothing major other than the possibility of boats fishing in both events Which I think could be done provided we all agree on the rules. My thought is any boat wishing to fish both contests must abide by the lesser of the rule differences. So that they are in compliance with both sets of rules. Correct me if I missed anything but here are the differences I see. Start times Anyone fishing in the MSCST will stage at the Pier heads at 6 am Rod limits if you are fishing the WMFL you will fish by their rod limits which are 8 rods max. Stop times anyone fishing WMFL will pull lines by noon. Weigh in we will try and do weigh in next to the WMFL so everyone can see what is going on however remember we weigh 6 fish and the WMFL weigh's 5 so anyone wanting to try and fish both will have to remember which weigh in line they are in. Finally keep in mind this message has not been approved by either the WMFL or the MSCST tourney committee it is just a suggestion I thought of this morning. I put it up for comments or suggestions.