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I ran the Offshore ones on a friends boat. I like to keep it down to one or two boards a side until daybreak.

Gordy, Beautiful pics.

Bill, A warm welcome to the GLF site.

She's lookin good.

Gj Eric.

Ahhhhh!!! Thanks John. I needed that.

Jason, A warm welcome to the GLF site.

Tony, My condolences on your fathers passing. I'm sure that is the image he would want left in your memories.

Those Harbor freight winches suggested above can be had for as little as $50 when they are on sale. You could modify one with a larger drum to increase the speed. By increasing the speed your will decrease the torque and pull weight. I just bought one for 50 a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to use it on my boat trailer. I'm going to strip off about half the cable to decrease the drum size to slow it and increase the torque. The biggest problem with these and a lot of DC motors is their Duty Cycle. Most can only run for about a minute without having to rest for 15 minutes to cool down. That is not a problem loading a boat, but may be if it's intended time use is greater. I see they have them for $79. http://www.harborfreight.com/2000-lb-electric-atvutv-winch-with-automatic-load-holding-brake-68146.html

I only made a few trips this year because of an early Spring shoulder injury. This pic was taken a few days before my surgery. The two boys are John's, SOMETHIN' FISHY, grandsons. These two boys were very patient on a day that had a slow start but a strong finish. Some days ya just have to hang in there until you figure it out, find the fish, or go to the force feed em method. Zach and Ty brought most of these to the net. There is nothing I'd rather do than to share our sport with a kid. Besides John V. and the two boys, we had a lot of help from Mike R. (SeaMac) and Tom T. (TallTails).

Pics of my rod storage rack.

Robert, I did get a Sony Cyber Shot. Wally World had some on sale on Black Friday. I thought our little town of Tawas would not be too bad @ 12:00 midnight. Wrong!!!!!!!!! I wanted to get the 16 MP with 10 times zoom but the few they had were scooped fast. I did get a 16 MP with a 5 times zoom for $99, about $30 less than the 10 times zoom. Thanks for the tip on the Sony. I like it so far. I'll post some pics of my project below that were taken @ 5 mp and reduced in Gimp to mail and post with out taken too much space.

Isn't technology grand? There is affordable electronics that even million dollar ships didn't have a decade or two ago.

Mike, Gj in tough conditions.

Orval, Was that $49 for the app and Great Lakes download?? If so not bad. I have made shades for my Garmin Sonar, Lowrance 350 combo, and my Toughbook chart plotter. All are sunlight viewable but the shades help a ton. It's like the bill on a ball cap on a sunny day. I made them out of some thin black foam material I got at a hobby shop. I fastened them to the units with sticky Velcro. They make shades for the units but the cost of this was only a few bucks a unit.

I think this is just the competition that Bumming Bird, Garvin, and Low Rants need to bust open their chip game. Like I stated before I have no problem buying a unit but despise their chip chip chip game. They would still make money selling their units with all the GLs included in the price. I don't have a smart phone but for those that do it could be a backup or the main tool. I like killing two birds with one stone.

Kevin, Good Job man.

WTG Kevin.

Has anyone tried some of the apps available for smart phones that will accept NOAA charts?? Here is one link about it. Like everything there are probably pros and cons about it. http://sailing.about.com/b/2010/03/14/new-chartplotter-app-for-iphone.htm This is an old thread from this site discussing several GPS systems including Laptops. http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16411&highlight=SeaClear

Capt. Drew, Thanks for posting your FL reports. I always enjoy reading them. VN video.

Tom, VN buck.

Kevin GJ on pier.

It's great you are able to do this with the boys. The mechanical problems are part of the game and I'm sure you knew it going in. The boys are learning valuable lessons that will stay with them the rest of their lives. I'll bet Hunter and Wyatt are turning wrenches with you also. GL 2 U all in the next race. ^5s

John, ^5s and congrats. A beautiful large bodied buck with a nice rack.

Gr8 video.