paul h

Unless you are running a charter, todays top end reels reels can be fished for many years w/o needing a rebuild. And the rebuilds seem to be about the same price weather a $100-500 reel. I guess the best buy is to get a couple year old used reel, but they don't seem to come up that often. So if you can save a couple hundred on the reel, and send it in for $30-50 to freshen it up, you can save a couple bucks. But on the other hand, with a new reel you don't have to spend your time sending it in, wondering/waiting to see what the rebuild will cost, then get it back. I can see if one has the $ and not the time, it's easier to just get a new reel each year with fresh line, and trip the used one on flea bay.

I'm sure that's what happened, whoever programmed the gauges set them to read water temp from the same engine. It's also pretty easy to change. I know on mine last season I reset the tank size and somehow I set the gauge to read the fuel flow from a meter (which I don't have installed) instead of from the engine cpu. I couldn't figure out why my tank didn't show any fuel consumption I really like the lmf 400, I just wish I had a nmea 2000 gps so I could get calcuted mileage vs. having to fudge it in my head based on speed and fuel consumption.

I've found jigs typically outfish bait, especially if you have a few folks fishing bait to lay down a scent field, and then your jig has the action and get the fish. I also often put a chunk of bait on my jig, or at least smear it with some herring oil or gel.

I'm assuming both engines and both LMF 400's are on the single network. If so, both gauges have to be configured for everything they read. I'm thiinking that the starboard LMF-400 was configured to read the engine temp off of the port engine, not the starboard. You'll have to put the gauge into config mode and verify which engine it is setup for.

Just because people can reproduce doesn't mean they can raise kids. Needless to say the kid acts that way because he's learned from his "parents" and teachers that he can do what he wants with no repercussions.

I wish I could find a map that shows Alaskan waters, CG ports, and overlay it on the lower 48. The coasties to an amazing job covering vast distances with relatively little assets. Not to mention weather that is difficult to opperate in.

One thing to add is that dry chemical fire extinguishers cake over time. For home or marine use, pull the extinguisher off the mount and vigously shake it and make sure you can fell the powder flowing back and forth. It's not a bad idea to get a new extinguisher every few years, considering how inexspensive they are, and how critical it is to contain a fire as quickly as possible on a boat.

For ditch bag use you are probably better off just using alkaline batteries and keeping a spare set or two in vacuum pack bags, at least thats what I do. I keep my handheald in it's stand at the helm and charge as needed with a cigarette lighter charger. Nicads ideally should be discharged occasionally and then recharged, as light top offs will create memory in the batteries and they won't hold much of a charge. We use the handheald for shore excursions, which is why it doesn't live in the ditch bag.

Not the biggest nor the fastest, but it gets us to the fish, and I built it myself Tolman widebody 23' with suzuki DF 140. 22-24 knot cruise, 31-33knot wot.

I haven't learned the proper butterfly technique, but did find butterfly jigs to be very successful the few times I got out fishing last year, well until I lost the jigs to the rocks I was using a seeker blue lighting 6 1/2' jigging rod with shimano tld 20 II speed and 50# braid. I'd use a short top shot of 80# mono, but if I broke off I'd just tie a swivel directly to the braid and have at it. I used some (relatively) cheap e-bay 14 oz jigs. Here was the best fish of the season, a 44" 40lb ling cod. Not terribly big but a good eating yellow eye

I'm looking to upgrade to a decent fish finder, I still haven't settled one, either the Furuno FCV 620 or 585, budget will likely be the 620. I'd like to use one of Airmar's new transom mount transducers, but I haven't found anyone that has one in stock. While I know the 620 can't drive a 1kw transducer, I'm thinking about going with a 1kw transducer, and then upgrade the head end in the future. But I don't know if Airmar has shipped the tm's yet, or if anyone has them in stock.

Another vote for the tld 15, I just ordered one off of flea bay earlier today, $108 shipped. I've used a variety of 3/0 and 4/0 senators both specials and standards over the years, mostly gotten used off of e-bay. While you can get the older reels in your price range, they generally need a re-build. I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend my time fishing than re-building older reels. When you factor in the cost of replacement parts, a new $100 reel beats the heck out of an older reel needing a rebuild. I also have found that I like lever drag reels way more than star drags. With a star drag you are always guessing at your drag setting, and when you get excited can easily crank down the drag and then break your line. With the lever drag you set your strike drag on a scale, and thats it. I've also found that the drags on the tld's seem to be smoother than the senators. I'd say unless you have to have 4 boat rods in addition to your spinning rods, just get two nice ~$100 reels and leave the other two rods in the garage, vs. setting up 4 rods with reels that might have issues.