1mainiac

Fortunatly Terry I planned on averageing out the cost of everything over the years but in raw numbers it sucks. But on the other hand if I catch as many this year and don't spend a ton the price will come way down but hard to spend 25g in one season and not have ugly numbers to start off with.

I added up all receipts for last season and it came to about 160 per fish with close to a 10lb per fish average makes it 16 a lb for whole fish if I netted a 4lb per fish average in filets we are talking 40 bucks a lb for filets. Geez I could have had Lobster and steak nearly every day for less money. But the sound of a screaming drag is priceless.

Tony you will love the Brutes however get the speed control and auto stops on them for a few extra bucks. You will not beleive how fast they are mine go down so fast they nearly free fall it only takes a few sec to drop them to over 100ft. I had a lot of issues with my probe tangleing going down with mine so I ended up moving the probe to one of my slower riggers. Up speed is fast as well I run 15lb balls on mine and they fly.

I Have 2 Icom ham radios and will be upgrading the boat to one as soon as I can afford it. I really want a 504 with the voice scrambler chip in it. But out of my price range at the moment. My current radio has DSC but limited features I would really like to get a few groups together. It would be nice to be able to call the person you want to talk to without calling everyone on the air at the same time. Another neat feature would be for tournament groups to apply for a group number for the event and give everyone the number to add to their radio then the directors could call the entire group and get a response from every one at the same time. They could also do ramdom position requests to see if anyone was fishing out of bounds.

I agree with Don those rods are a good start or if you prefer you can go with my method take your father in law fishing and buy 2 of everything till your wife threatens you with divorce. Then remind her you are taking her dad fishing and cut back a little on purchases. Honestly I had to move up to a bigger boat last year cause my 18ft would probably sink under the weight of my fishing tackle. Even though I have over 20 rod and reel setups on board I can always see something I should buy. Also for some wild fun don't be afraid to bring along some small gear it is hard to beat the fun of catching Salmon or Steelhead with a 7.5ft Ugly stick and light line I know a few guys with these poles and 20 series reels running 12 to 15 lb test on their down riggers. I have even used my 10ft Steelhead rods with 8lb on downriggers what a blast. So don't think all we use are winches for reels.

The funny thing is frank my riggers have the same counters they came with years ago they just seem to get smaller each year. LOL

http://www.captgarys.com/index.php?cPath=1_133_138 http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0036108018140a&type=product&cmCat=SEARCH_all&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&Ntt=depth+Raider&Ntk=Products&sort=all&Go.y=8&_D%3AhasJS=+&N=0&_D%3Asort=+&Nty=1&hasJS=true&Go.x=11&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jsp.form1&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1 http://www.gloutdoorstore.com/kelllabsdepthraider.aspx There are 3 places I love mine.

I am starting a thread on DSC and will begin with a few Icom videos. http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4328799/11624852 http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4342208 http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4372485/11731873 The purpose of this is to inform everyone on some of the cool features we have in these new radios. I know the first thing I will hear is that it is not up and running yet. Well the answer is it is not fully functional yet however I have been told by personal at Muskegon Coast Guard Sta that pushing the red button will get a response. Secondly if the rest of us set up our radios we will all also receive the call. For this year I will be using the DSC setup and would hope others will join me. For those running events or for groups of boaters who want to keep in contact you can apply for a group number most radios can store up to 10 or more group numbers so we can make a group call to all who have it setup and and with a couple of button pushs have the entire group move to a secondary channel and talk without bothering anyone else. If we all have position request enabled we can check and see where each other is without saying a word on the air. In the event of a distress call everyone with DSC working would receive the call and location of the vessel and possibly the nature of the distress. If connected to you plotter the position will show up as a waypoint on your screen. The MMSI number you receive to program into your radio is like a cell phone number so if we share the numbers with each other we can make direct calls to each other much like a cell phone I can enter your number and select a talk channel hit call and your radio will beep to let you know I am calling you you hit receive to accept the call and both of our radios switch to the talk ch where we can have a semi private chat since we did not announce to anyone that we were changing ch on the air. if we use the voice scrambler we can have a completly private call but that costs more money for the scrambler and radio that can use one. If you choose not to accept the call it will be stored in memory as a missed call and you can call me back when you get a chance. Any how something to think about for the upcoming season.

Kevin if you want to have your reels spooled up you can go to Al & Bobs on division or to the Outdoorsmen in Jenison. Both of those shops are well stocked and knowledgable on Big Lake fishing. Also Riley's hardware on Michigan has a pretty good sporting goods shop in the basement. I don't know how much early fishing is going to be in my budget this year but I usually have room for a couple more on the boat. Or perhaps we can get together on your boat and I can go with you and show you things you can do on your boat. Cause unless you have deep pockets going out and seeing some of the setups a lot of us run may not help as much as learning how to catch fish with what you have. There are several of us here who have more invested in fishing tackle then some guys have in their boat. Also you and your son might be interested in some of the smaller tournaments that are here like Mikes tournaments which are geared to be fun first. Mike runs a league style tourny out of Muskegon and was planningon doing multiple ports he also is putting together a 1 day challange tourny here is a link to it http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12827 there is also a Dreamweaver Challange that many on this site fish in and here is a link to that. http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12903 . Both of these are fun events and your entrance fee gets you a bag of lures and you must fish with what is in the bag. Often the lure bag is worth as much as the entry fee and no Pros are allowed so everyone has a chance to win. Though my personal goal is to win all of them this year. LOL When you get to know some of us you will find that we all have a few things we keep to ourselves but everyone shares a lot of good info here. One thing you might consider is letting us know what boat and gear you currently have and then we can better determine what you might want or need to have more fun catching fish. Also what port do you plan on fishing out of? Tight Lines and welcome Jim

Yep that is why I have 12'son the out and downs they say 15 will work but they seem to have a tough time so went to 12's no issues. Can use boat anchors off the Brutes on the back.

The steelhead are running pretty good we just did not find any in the hole we were fishing saw a few pass thru but no takers on what we offered. I have no doubt in my mind there were steelhead in the hole we just could not coax them into hitting. I saw a few fish hitting Stone flies landing on the surface made me wish I had brought the flie rod. They may have been brooke trout or browns but next time will have my fly rod along. After lunch we just kinda gave up on the Steelhead and had a blast with all the suckers and the bonus Walleye's and to be honest we had a blast and fished till we were out of bait. There was some serious snags across from where we were standing and a nice quiet section of water that I could not fish with spining gear I would have love to lay a few flies over there but was not setup for it. Next time will be differant may try again Monday as I am sure it will be shoulder to shoulder this weekend there are a lot of fish in the river right now.

Thanks Dan I know they were at least 30in fish and figured 9 lbs was a safe bet as to weight. Sadly dad overdid it yesterday and was too sore to go again this morning but the look on his face was worth it when I netted his big Walleye. He has been one of the best fishing partners I have ever had as how can your wife complain about the cost of taking her dad fishing.

I wanted the sharks or torpedo style weights but they don't fit in my holders and cost to much so stuck with round fined balls again this year. 15's on the back and 12's on the out and downs. I also have a set of 12 lb bottle's for the out and downs and some of the fish weights but mostly use the finned round balls.

Fished the White today below Hesperia for Steelhead well no steelhead to be found today. However my fater in law caught the biggest Walleye of his life today since we were wading neither of us had a camera and the fish had to be released. The fish hit a spawn bag and tore it up for quite a while before I waded out with the net and got it. No scales no tape just a huge fish at least 30 in long maybe 32 in and fat, hand guess about 9lbs. About 20 min later he gets a second fish at least 25 or better long and also fat and heavy. we fished that same stretch of river all afternoon and pulled at least 60 suckers out of that hole in 6 hours. To top it off I slamed a huge Walleye as well as big as dads first one though he says mine was a little smaller ok today he got the most suckers and I will give him the biggest Walleye as well but mine was so close to his it could have been the same fish we released earlier as I caught mine close to 3 hours after his. Except for a couple suckers we gave away all the fish went back in the water and swam away.

For me it was simple the gains from the Fish Hawk which you pay for are both surface temp and speed and subsurface temp and speed on the same display. My fishfinder combo unit gives me surface temp and speed or the option I choose which is GPS speed my second GPS also gives me speed and course. The coated cable is only needed for depths past 100ft on the Depth Raider and Sub Troll. It comes down to a preferance really to me the Depth Raider gives me the info I need uses the smallest dash space and is cheaper. The Sub Troll is a great unit does everything the Depth Raider does and is priced about the same but has a much larger display unit. The Fish Hawk provides features I did not need requires holes in my transom has a new display that is Bigger the the Depth Raider and smaller than the Sub Troll and costs more. If Cannon would make up their minds if they are going to continue their Speed and Temp unit it would be the one I would consider buying as it gives you light levels at depth and also gives actual depth as it has a sensor for depth. This allows you know what the true running depth is. Cabellas and a few other places used to sell a temp depth monitor that you could clip on the cannon ball and it would give you actual temp and depth readings but you had to pull it back up to read it.

Tony the Fish Hawk is a package system it has it's own transducer that sends to the Fish Hawk. While in the end my choice on the Depth Raider came down to price and size of the display unit. (Limited dash space) They idea of putting more holes in my transom did not appeal to me. I talked to Kurt Kell last year about a idea which he agreed would work fine and that is to install the antenna and cable on all of my riggers and to use a switch box to select which one I wanted the unit to read. This way if I wanted I could have speed and temp on every rigger. This would allow me to compare notes between each setup I was running.

I did not buy much this year being laid off but still managed to get a few things in under the radar. 2 new used wireline rods 2 lightline setups New Gimble bearing installed several new spoons 2 new cannonballs Bert's track system for the boat Swivel downrigger mounts for the Bert's track 6 more rod holders 2 bird tree rod holders re lined several reels Re tied a bunch of flies found a bag of lures flashers and flies I lost 2 years ago 1 new Steelhead rod and reel Thats about it other than the usual several spools of Gamma leader material some bead chain hooks and other needfull things.

Jim remember you will have to set up both pumps the same way also plan on a larger resevoir tank to supply both pumps and to help reduce the heat as 3 or 4 gallon res would help cause when you are running on both engines the pumps will be in bypass mode at full flow all the way in so can build up some extra heat. I forgot about the vans having a remote resevoir another issue is to make sure your check valves can handle the flow from the pumps at full throttle. Automotive pumps are optimized to work between 800 and 2500 rpm so long runs at 3400 were not in their design plan they will do it fine but will have a lot of flow so a bigger tank would help. One of the other reasons I mentioned the engine driven plow pumps is that most of them came with a electric clutch like a air conditioner pump then you could just have a port or starboard slector as to which pump you ran and not have to deal with 2 pumps on at the same time ever.

The Fish Hawk adds a transducer to your boat like a fish finder and the probe attachs just like a cannon ball then you have a short cable below the probe to attach the cannon ball. The Probe has a transmitter in it and sends sonar signal to the transducer. It will interfere with some fish finders but I don't remember which ones. One advantage is you can use any rigger for the probe a disadvantage is if the probe swings out of the receive cone of the transducer you will lose the signal. This does not happen often and most of the time you can adjust the transducer if you have trouble with it.

This pump will steer your boats all day long I would suggest a external psi bypass regulator cause I am not sure your steering system could handle the 2500 psi built in relief setting. http://stores.daltonhydraulic.com/-strse-659/DC-power-unit%2C-hydraulic/Detail.bok The real question is could your charging system and batteries handle it? My best guess is you would be adding a 30 to 50 amp continous load. With a external regulator set around 1700 psi you would never see max load on the unit and it has enough volume to handle what the boats need.

Honestly your only option is not going to go well price wise and that is to convert to HYD steering. Well another choice would be to use a electric power steering pump that was independant of either engine then it would not matter which engine was running. This might be a little cheaper than going to Hyd steering. A small snow plow pump will run your power assist steering just fine but will use 12v power all the time so you would need to make sure you have battery and charging system enough to handle it. By the time you purchase a second power steering pump and lines you are going to have a few bucks into it then you will need a diverter valve to seperate the 2 pumps and the valve must put one pump in bypass mode when both engines are running or the other pump will burn up. Lot of issues to cover here you don't need a lot of pressure the working pressure on a power steering system is fairly low most of them go into bypass at around 1900 psi you also don't need a lot of volume form the pump as the cylinder is fairly small. So a 1.5 gpm at 2000 psi pump would run the system just fine. The other option would be to put new pumps on both engines that use remote resevoirs the both pumps could draw off the same resevoir and all you would need is a check valve on the output of each pump and again there are many snowplow pumps that are engine driven that would do this as well. However the standard power steering pumps used on both boats and cars have a built in resevoir and can't be run in tandam.

Jim Sixshooter has announced a Jul 25th date for the Dreamweaver event at Fishermans Landing on the MS page and already has a short list. He is hoping for 60 boats this year.

Medic I was not there very long but thought most of the prices were kinda high. I was there because a friend of mine wanted a new fishfinder GPS unit and wanted my opinion. After looking at what was available and comparing prices he went with the suggestion from the humminbird rep and ordered one from Bass Pro Shops. Several places had a buy 5 get 1 free deal but the one had prices so high I could buy all 6 at the local bait shop and save money. All in all a good show and there were a lot of bargins to be had just none I needed so I got a free Daredevil for being one of the first 500 for the day and saved my money.

The reason for the twili-tip is to help prevent kinking the line. The reason for roller rods is to prevent kinking the line and to reduce friction and wear on the guides. You would be amazed at how much this adds to the pressure you apply on a fish. Take your favorite fishing pole and attach the line to a spring scale point the rod straight at the scale so there is no effect of the rod and pull till the drag slips and record it that if done correctly will tell you what the reel drag is set at. Now lift the rod and apply pressure like you would while fighting a fish and see what it takes to get the drag to slip it is often 2 or 3 times as much. If it weren't for the fact I cringe every time I hand someone a roller rod I would use them on more of my setups. Standard eyelets and mono fishing setups are very forgiving you can do a lot of bad things and recover. As guys move into super lines and braid it is a great setup but less forgiving to error. Then you have the light tackle guys even less forgiving. Finally wire line and roller rods where there is nearly zero room for error. I have a set of Eagle Claw roller rods I have fished with them for a couple of years very few of the guys I fish with have ever seen them. Why well ask Paulywood "Nick" or a few others here if you mishandle a fish and the wire jumps off the roller you have milli seconds to correct it or you are going to have a bad day. Things will break cursing will occur basiclly all the bad parts of the bible. And what happens is the rod gets blamed because it is a cheap peice of junk. So you trot down to the store and max out your credit cards on a set of Shimano rods which hava a closed in roller guard. Now you can still mishandle a fish and lose gear but at least the line can't jump off the roller and ruin your day. The first thing I try to explain to people who fish with me is there is no setting the hook and very little pumping the rod we are trolling not bass fishing the fish are either already hooked or gone just apply steady pressure and bring them in. This is more true with wireline than any other equipment we use.

I used Minn Kota trolling moter plugs for mine and since I have a short run from the plgs to the batery I used 10ga wire well also because I had some in the garage. The motors are rated for 50 amps so 10ga is kinda skimping 6 0r 8ga would be better. The reason they suggest 4ga is because a lot of guys will run wire to one outlet and plug both riggers into the same outlet if I had to buy the wire I would have ran 4ga over to one side and hooked up 2 riggers on it and did the same thing on the other side. The reason for bigger wire is longer runs. Kinda like hooking up a 4 ft garden hose to fill a bucket then filling the same bucket with a 100ft hose the shorter hose has less resistance so the bucket fills faster. Another thing to remember is you will gain resistance and reduce power output at every connection so using larger primary wire provides you with enough power to overcome the line and connection losses.