Oakley

Thanks guys. I'm sorry I couldn't make the last event. I had a problem with the boat electronics. I am suspecting we had a lightening strike near the house because everything on my boat got fried. The battery was cracked open, the marine radio, the fishfinder, and the stereo were all shorted, the low oil alarm was roasted, and the warning alarm burned out. We had some stuff in the house go bad also. Real Bummer. Good news is that I got the boat running again and the marine radio is back. My Fishfinder is hopefully on it's way back so I'm going to use my old unit in the mean time. Hope to see you guys soon. I'll bring the ice.

I want to apologize if I came across too harsh. Rich - I know that you asked the question for some honest feed back and that you didn't mean anything by it. I got a little riled up because I have been in and heard of too many "fun" leagues where some of the guys started getting serious and made the league not much fun to be in anymore. Not that I think any of the guys in our league would do that, it's just that the question started me going down that road. My bad and my apologies. Humbly submitted - Brian

First Comment - Rich you are doing an awesome job. Second Comment - If there is someone who is in a yank about the weight of an ice cube they should go fish somewhere else. Our league is for fun and to get together with a great bunch of guys (and gals). Third Comment - If someone is shoving ice down a fishes throat before our weigh-in because they are taking our tournament too seriously, they should go fish somehwere else. I am sorry for being on such a soap box about this but I think that our group and this tournament are excellent and the help we give each other out on the water is an example of how fishing should be. The money we chip in should be just for fun and not taken too seriously. Besides that, ice down inside the fish doesn't help keep the beer very cold.

I bought a SD card from best buy and was able to download from the map software no problem. When I got my GPS from Lowrance, the package came with the card reader. I have also used the Lowrance card reader (which plugs into the USB port) to download digital photo files from the SD card in my camera. I'll check through my stuff to see if mine has the same conditions regarding the 5 chip thing.

Sliders are the way to go. Before it gets light I will send down a free slider and when it gets light I tend to set a fixed slider about 10-12 feet above the bottom spoon.

We went out of Port Sheldon last weekend and the only place we found baitfish was in 20FOW just outside the second sand bar. They were stacked up in a very narrow band between 20FOW and 28FOW. If we went deeper the baitfish disappeared and if we went shallower and in between the sand bars, we marked very, very few. All this was south of the pier heads. We tried this same depth range north of the pier heads and found nothing.

Sorry about the crazy math. I think I confused myself. Maybe I need a few beers BEFORE I try to figure this out again. I think I'm getting mixed up between the MPG's you get and trying to figure in the actual run time on the engine. Thinking somehow that by taking longer to get somewhere you run your engine longer and use more gas. I think I will just try to drive more conservatively and call it good. I need to go fishing!

And by the way.... Yes I am a geek engineer who should find better things to do than punch numbers on my calculator. But I enjoyed you post. Thanks for the ideas.

Rick - I agree 100% with your thoughts on not driving erratically or aggressive and not doing fast starts/stops. Your comments on driving slower got me wondering about the savings from that so here is what I came up with: 17,500 miles per year. If your yearly average speed (City/highway) was 40mph, your total drive time is 437.5 hours. If you drop your average speed down to 30mph, your drive time goes up to 583 hours. This increase of time is 145.8 hours. At 30mph, that equals 4,374 miles. So even though you don't actually drive more than 17,500 miles/year, the extra drive time has the effect of adding 4,374 miles. This would give you an effective total travel of 21,874. If your mileage rate increases 15% because of the lower speed, you would average 18.4 mpg. At this mileage rate, you would use 1,189 gallons at $2.95/gallon equals $3,507.55. Did I figure that right? Using your previous numbers: Average miles traveled per year…. 17,500 Divided by average MPG…………16 Equals……………………………..1093 gallons of fuel used Times………………………………$2.95 today’s fuel price Equals……………………………..$3,224 annual fuel expense Slowing your average speed by 10mph can cost you almost $300 more. So unless the mileage economy in our cars changes more than 15% from the change in speed, just slowing down doesn't look like it will help. This whole load of crap I just figure out only looks at driving speed. I agree with you that most of the inefficiency we have while driving is from the quick start/stops and the jamming on the accellerator to pass or get up to speed really quick. If we can stop those habits we will probably save a lot.

Thanks Steve. I'm hoping I can get out tomorrow morning and give it another try.

Thanks for the replies. If I don't have to mess with a drift bag it makes fishing easier. Hopefully this year I can get a few browns.

I'm going to try to put a good effort in on the browns this year and wanted make sure I wasn't going the wrong speed. My boat will run at 2.5 mph on idle so I put out a drift bag to slow down to 1.5 or so. What speeds do you guys usually run for the spring browns? Any advice would be appreciated, especially given the price of gas now.

Nice job on the Gills Rich!

I like to use the velcro leader holders that hold either 6 or 12 leaders. They are basically a fuzzy cylinder with plastic formed eyelets along one side. You then wind your leaders around the tube and use a small little square of velcro to hold down the end of the leader. These work well for leaders without hooks. You can find these at any stroe with fishing equipment. For flies I use the same thing as Caz, the piece of foam swim noodle works well.

Happy Birthday Jim!

I would have to say Port Sheldon since I started my salmon fishing there, then Pentwater because it's an easy run either north or south to the points, then Muskegon.