1mainiac

I am pretty sure those lighted J Plugs have caught more fishermen than fish I looked at one thought kinda neat then saw the price and never considered it again.

I stick with conventional oils well racing blends of them Castrol 20w 50 racing or Valvoline 20w 50 racing oil. I have been running those 2 oils for close to 40 year in V8 engines and never had a oil related failure. It keeps good oil psi when hot and is designed to be abused.

Glad you like it Mike and Don Fishsniffer came and got my Special mate box today so only a few more odds and ends left from the old boat to part with. Anyone interested in a 6ft Planer mast let me know.

I store mine at Water Front Storage have found a few places cheaper but it is close by and I can work on it any time I want for the most part.

Nick that is part of the reason for only running a few harnesses and just swapping out the plugs on them. I don't even know how many plugs I have total right now as I have not counted them yet but my guess is well over a hundred I have 3 boxes of 20 big plugs and need a 4th and have a couple of small boxes of smaller plugs.

No surprise there the Government does not care what we think or want. It does not matter to them a bit becuase they know they are smarter than us and many of us with jobs don't vote. I skipped a few elections in the past but never again I have voted now for years and will find the time to make my voice heard. Sadly even though the majority of Americans have said no to Public health care for a hundred years they are going to try and shove that down our throats anyhow. How much do you have to lose before you are willing to fight to get it back becuase it is coming and soon I fear? Say what you want but no tax every levied has been removed once the need for them money is over they use the money for something else.

Glad you like it Frank it is a simple cheap way to deal with them. Not sure why I did not do it again this year for some reason I decided to just run a few harnesses and change out the J Plug bodies this year so I baged up all my spare harnesses.

I have been informed Simrad no longer make s the AP12R or the AP14R so if you want one get em soon as the are no longer in production. The suggested setup now is the AP24 with a MSD50 drive unit. One of the packaes I looked at came in at just under 4 grand plus tax and shipping. It is a very cool system but not cheap and works the power steering servo so if you have 2 engines you have to run the one with the power steering pump for the AP to work.

Since all my boxes are stored in compartments I don't worry as much about UV as I do finding stuff that will fit in the space allowed which is why I am getting rid of my Special Mate spoon box it just don't fit anywhere right in the boat. It is a great box and I wanted it bad on the old boat but it just don't fit the new boat.

Mike here is a couple of pics of what mine looks like with the paper clips would work on yours as well.

Mike I did that on one of the boxes I use this is one of the spares. I also keep 3 or harnesses out and ready on the boat so I have found that if I have a harness problem I get a new one that bag is full of new unused harnesses. I was putting all the harnesses on the plugs and hooking them with a paper clip last year which made it easy to get them out just grab the paper clip and pull out the plug and harness ready to go. I may go back to that this winter as it worked pretty good. This year I just reused the same harnesses all summer as long as they were sharp and undamaged. The paper clip idea was my wifes and worked real good.

Andy Garmin is selling the TR-1 Galdiator system they bought the company. At present they have no upcoming plans to offer it in anything but HYD steering I would love to convert my boat to HYD steering but it is not cheap was quoted 5800 to convert the boat and install the new Garmin system. I can save about a grand if I do it myself. May be a differant story next spring if the buy Raymarine as they would then own the Sport Pilot system as well.

Kyle I have not looked at the OR 31 so not sure mine is centered about 1 in up from the bottom at the rear of the board. This increases the length by about 1.5in which gives the board a little more weight forward and keeps the front down and digging out better. The only issue I had with this was on my 2 color with the orange releases it would not release at the front with the mono stretch so I am going back to the black releases or considering braid for my 2 color as I run them a long ways out when pulling 4 boards per side so catching fish was a adventure as you had to drag the fish and board across the entire spread until you could get it to release and drop back. The last trip out we lost 4 Steelhead that way as they would not trip and the fish were happy to get off as we tried to work them over the rest of the spread. They were not big fish but it still sucked to lose them as they would have left me 1 short of 300 for the year. Overall I am pretty happy with my board setups this year we got a lot of fish on them and my 300 coppers were very productive as compared to years past when I had such a time getting them to run that they seldom got fished. Probably the only setup I did not do well on this year was my wire divers and that is mostly beacuse I hardly used them I am kinda old school and go to the wire setups for mid day fishing but we did so well this year I hardly ever ran them. Mostly because I was rod limited much of the year by the number of people on board and often fish with friends and family who don't know what they are doing so handing them a wireline rod is asking for trouble. Lots of people suggest I run more braid but I only fish with a few guys that are good Jay and Steve and a couple others are great but most of my family is not so the mono is more forgiving of mistakes than wire or braid.

Stuff not in the picture 21 big lake rods and reels 3 other tackle boxes Most of my divers and flies 4 spare cannon balls a bag with about 30 loose spoons and plugs. And several other loose trays of needfull things. This addiction is going to be the death of me ( esp if the wife ever figures out how much I really spent).

Ok 3 weeks ago I cleaned out most of my gear off the boat so I thought and cut it down to mostly fall program. This last weekend I pulled the rest of the gear keep in mind there are several more boxes in the garage but here is a pic of the tackle I had on board in it's current messy condition as I have all winter to clean and resort all of it. As I hauled load after load into the basement I wondered how I kept the boat afloat all season with all this stuff on it.

You really only have 2 choices I have a similar setup in my boat and am stuck with one choice. The Simrad AP 12 or 14 R units are a pretty good unit however require nearly 11 in of space behind the helm for the unit I know it is less than 11 in but not much and I don't have the room on my boat without cutting a hole into the head. Then I would have my steering box sticking out above the toilet not a option as far as my wife is concerned. This leaves me with one option ( inexpensive that is) and that is the Raymarine X5 Sport Pilot. This mounts under the wheel to the dash so other than raising the height of the wheel about 3in poses no clearance problems. Both setups run about the same price depending on any options you choose and start around 1300 bucks plus install. If you are handy with tools you can install either one yourself.

here is a couple of pics of my setup. they hold 20 plugs per box I have a couple of smaller boxs for little plugs and need a 4th one as I bought more plugs this year.

I have several Fipsider boxes one plug per compartment zero issues they are clear so you can see what you are getting and no tangles.

Off Shore OR 12 I have made several changes I relocated the rear snap and changed it to a snap weight clip with the pin in it so it won't slide or come off. I changed the front clip as well but am going to change some of them back I also covered most of them in Glow tape making them easier to find in the dark as if you hit them with a light they glow brightly for a while.

Well Adam I thought it over and probably not as the 2 I have in mind are my step daughter and a friend of mines daughter who both model. And Ken if the photos were ever more than a after thought it might help but when fishing I am not stopping to take pics. Esp since I nearly always forget the camera. But on the subject of the site Mike you have built a very nice site it is pretty much all geared towards fishing on the Great lakes and runs pretty smoothly with lots of good reports and pretty good topics. We have a lot of good fishermen with great ideas and not a lot of know it alls. So the site mix is pretty good and I think everyone will agree that most who show up here are impressed and tend to keep chking back. That is a good thing.

Mike this is a great site the way it is a few more forum sections as mentioned above would be cool. For the small fee of becoming a supporting member it is a great deal. Perhaps you could try and put together some more field tests and things like that for supporting member as perks and get a few more guys to donate to help you with the cost. I prefer the minimal advertising here but realize you have to pay for it somehow. Next year I think I will try and get a couple of swimsuit models and a good photographer so I can win one of the Siggs Rig contest LOL .

When you have 2 bags it will decrease the rolling a lot. If you ever watch the big Trawlers they run birds which are large heavy wings on out riggers to stabilize the boat. My design is a variation of birds for smaller boats the idea is it widens the base of the boat this cuts down on the wind pushing you around as well.

I have a design to work with the rough water problem but honestly I did not touch it all season the fish were biting so I never finished them I need to make a few this winter and have some guys test them next season. my design will provide some speed control but was designed more as a stabilizer then a speed control.

Bags work very good you will like them 90% of the time.

Kinda reminds me of something my bass player used to add to our contract riders he wanted a bowl of Peanut M&M's but no green ones cause he said they were duds. His point at the time was to make sure the agent read and stuck to the rider on the contract. That had nothing to do with fishing but seemed to fit in I also have bought many dud lures over the years. I have no way of knowing how a fish can pick the same beat up lure out of spread and swim right past brand new ones to get it. My wife picked out a spoon this spring and the fish chrushed it repeatedly to the point we replaced it the replacement never got a hit so I dug out the beat up one replaced the bent up hooks and again it got pounded. I know I am not the only one who when buying a new lure will pick up at least a couple of them. I have a bunch of spoons I have ran for years and never got a fish on. Like a Glow tail copper spoon for instance I had it in my box for years never got a fish on it so this spring when I got the boat out for it's first trip I grabbed the dud lure box cause I figured if I was gonna lose any gear the first trip it might as well be stuff I did not like. So I tossed the Glow tail behind a rigger and never got the rest of the rods set before it had a fish on it. I think it took 3 or 4 fish that day and many more the rest of the summer. So I guess I have to remember to run my duds once in a while because sometimes they learn how to catch fish. Either that or eventually you run into fish dumb enough to even hit the duds.