J.D.

Everything you need to know is right here.....

Once you hit that price level, you will have a ton of options. Check out Furuno.... commercial quality at a reasonable price. My sounder is Furuno and I couldn't be happier with it. https://www.hodgesmarine.com/Furuno-Gp1870f-7-Color-Gps-Chartplotter-Fishfind-p/furgp1870f.htm

I have used this information to better prepare my boat. It talks about small, ocean going boats, but pertains to the Great lakes as well. I closed off through hull fittings, increased pumping capacity and battery isolation circuits to keep afloat in an emergency situation. http://www.docksidereports.com/small_boat_safety_at_sea.htm

big one is atlantic

We've been out with John twice, and attended one of his seminars years ago at Bass Pro. I picked up a lot of info each time.. A real nice guy. J.D. and Capt. John

Monster Tackle, Angler's Avenue, Lake Michigan Angler, and Frank's Great Outdoors have all treated me well with online purchases. Good customer service from all of them.

Out of Braddocks 9-11-2017 Made a quick run out of Bradocks Monday morning with a newbee, lots of bait in the 60-120 range right out in front of the bay. Temp. down 70 ft. was around 60 degrees. I know the kings can be out of temp. this time of year, so I saw no need to head deep without taking a look inside. We hit a small brown on a 4.5 watermellon Apex, and 2 kings, 19 and 26 lbs, both on a chrome Pro Troll paddle with a aqua fly 70 over 90. All in all, a decent morning for 2.5 hours of fishing. Newbee Eric with 26 lb. king

X2

We caught a stubby little brown last year.... nick named him Leroy...

Maybe something else left a hole there, and these are purely cosmetic to cover the old hole. I've done the same thing on my boat to cover old flush mount rod holder holes..

I still use them. dodger/squid, and flasher/fly.... gives them an option.

I've been running 7 foot downrigger rods, and 7 1/2 foot wire diver rods for a number of years now. I think it's easier to get leverage on a fish with the shorter rods. My wire diver rods are 2 piece musky flipping sticks from Bass Pro at $25 a piece, add a twilli tip and good to go. If I'm fishing down 70 ft. or less I use Slide Divers with 20ft. of 30 lb. test mono attached to the wire with a #8 Spro Power swivel. I can have a longer distance between the diver and lure, but the diver sliding down makes netting easy. Deeper than 70 ft. I switch out to #5 Chinook Divers with 6 to 8 ft. leaders between diver and lure, harder to net on a small boat, but worth effort to get the divers deep. I've been using 50 lb. test mono between the Chinook diver and the lure, easier to hold onto when hand lining the fish in. If I run a spoon, I add a fluorocarbon leader to the heavier mono. This is what works FOR ME...... lots of ways to skin the cat...

I can relate... I've left the toggle switch powering my autopilot on, but picked up on it the night before going out. Plugged the charger in overnight, and was good to go. I double check everything after each trip now.

Rob, I fish out of a 17 footer, and run the program you describe. I stack the riggers 10 ft. apart with the probe 'rigger deepest in the cold water, then run lines up every 10ft. from there. One wire diver on each side, one deep, and one in the middle of the spread. This is just a starting point, fine tune the program from there. It's a very manageable program for 2 guys on a smaller boat.