ATV winch on masts and downriggers?

[Alessandro]

Since a scotty electric downrigger costs 1200US$ here, I been thinking of fitting a Big Jon manually downrigger with an ATV electric winch (cost about half here and spareparts are much easier to get hold on), anyone tried this?

I can only get hold on Big Jon manually downriggers here in Sweden.

Also thinking of fitting a Berts Custom Tackle mast with ATV electric winches

for the same reasons (with no wire but dacronline instead).

I´m also thinking of taking an old glassfiber fishingrod as mast extension and

adding a small red flag (indicating fishing boat) on the top and a bigger flag with our team name "Team Plockepinn (swedish)=Team Mikado (english)", using also as a lightning pole.

Unfortunatly one person died of lightning here a few years ago when he was holding a

lance during a knight tournament and lightning struck him. So I´m a bit scared of holding a carbonfishing rod during thunderstorms.

My questions about the mast is if anyone had a lightning strike in the mast and if

you should ground (how do you ground a mast?) it?

[Nailer]

A # 10 wire run down the mast to the water would do it. Better off not fishing in the Lightning storms;)

I would think an ATV winch would be to slow for a rigger.

[Alessandro]

Well, I prefer an yellow dacronline to the utterboats, better visibility and if caught under a bow of a sailingboat it cut off and we don´t lose the utterboats. Since I use rollable dogleash to adjust the utterboats, I don´t fancy wire to much especially in rough weather and if the utterboat sink.

Yes staying home is a option, but when you fish at sea things can change fast, I had one incident when I was fishing for european perch on a shallow lake, alone on the lake (no petrol engine allowed since they take tapwater from the lake) and lightning started and hit a tree near the lake and fire started, not too pleasant I say.

I start first with masts, downrigger is a few paychecks down the road...

[Priority1]

If I see lightning on the horizon, I'm out of there. I watch the weather forecasts, and stay off the pond if it's in the forecast.

Just a thought on the riggers, some use an electric car widow motor.

[Alessandro]

Any specific car brand that are more reliable than others when it comes to car electric windows for using in a damp environment as a boat?