Wiring the Lund

Blue Sea Power Center

Instead of fishing this weekend I spent a day helping my friend Bill Lundeen in hooking up his Lowrance HDS units and rewiring his older Lund boat to clean up the mess left by the last guy that owned it.  We did some preliminary work a few weeks ago however I felt that we needed something more substantial to distribute our power to the new installs which included a couple of Lowrance HDS units, Structure Scan 3D, a NMEA 2000 network, and a lot of odds and ends that needed to be addressed.  We ended up putting in a Blue Sea power distribution center, complete with the appropriate fuse holders for easy identification and servicing.  Admittedly it was tough working under the dash as my head sometimes feels like it's going to explode when it is lower than the rest of my body however I got through it pretty well and got it all installed.  Compared to what was there, it turned out really nice yet later in the week Bill tried his structure scan and eventually discovered that I had forgot to add that power cord to the fuse box.  Oh well, at least it was in and of course ready to easily be added to the panel for power. Admittedly (and you could not tell from my pole shed!) that I like things neat and right.  I was so impressed with this that I ended up buying another one of these for my boat as I have an add on panel for all my accessories and this is pretty slick.  The other thing that is going to get added is something called a Boost Converter.  Years ago i used to run Genetron's in the boat as my main depthfinder/sonar unit.  It was amazing as the unit could mark fish better than anything on the market at the time.  Unfortunately the display was an old CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) similar to the way televisions were 20 years ago!  These display's drew a lot of electrical current and were susceptible to shutting down if the voltage on the battery got to low, which would happen when I started my motor, causing the unit to shut off.   My old and late friend Tom Emmons was a super design engineer and he designed a boost converter that would take any battery voltage from 8 - 14 volts and convert it to 14.4 volts.  The Genetron loved to operate at the slightly higher voltage so Tom and I made one, stuck it in the boat and never had an issue again with low voltage causing problems. Well fast forward to today and with the new bigger outboard, I still have issues with low voltage so at the same time I will install a newer Boost Converter, hopefully I can get it done before next Friday when we head back to Canada.

Nice Green Bay walleye

So there are some people that have been fishing and one of those guys is my godchild, Ben Aiona. Ben has been fishing Lake Michigan quite a bit these last few months and in fact I gave him some of my equipment that I have from when his dad, Kevin and I used to fish with Gary Barneson, in my 1985 16 foot Lund boat.  He had een getting some nice salmon and this last trip he was up near Green Bay fishing for a combination of salmon and walleyes.  He claims all of the locals are complaining that the fish are not biting very well however from the pictures he has sent, you could have fooled me!  Ben is a very good fisherman and is quick to adapt to whatever the conditions are and is usually successful.  I am glad that he got some use out of my equipment and was successful.  This walleye looks fantastic, has great color and is nice and plump.  As for Ben, well you can see for yourself!!

Well, the Mille Lacs situation, or drama, continues to dominate the walleye fishing here in Minnesota.  Despite near record catches, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources continues to tow the line about the messed up walleye population on Mille Lacs.  After years of culling out the normal 16 - 20 inch walleyes, what we have left is a lake full of 20 plus inch fish and a ton of 14 - 16 inch fish from the 2013 year class.  This has resulted in a catch and release only season for walleyes on Mille Lacs with the original intention of closing the fishing for walleye between July 7 - 27, an it was supposed to open back up to catch and release walleye fishing last Thursday. Well, Mr. Lundeen and I speculated that it would not open back up at all, seeings how fishing was soo good in June. This week they delayed the reopening of walleye fishing till August 11th where it will again be legal to fish for walleyes, but not harvest any.  It will stay open until September 4th, or labor day then close again until December 1st, the start of the new harvest season.  I don't see an end in sight as it is sad, I have fished in Canada this year more than I have fished on Mille Lacs.  Although there are other reasons for this, I used to fish Mille Lacs almost every weekend in June and July.  Oh well, nothing ever stays the same.  I am not sure I will be getting out this weekend as I have a lot to do before heading back up to Lac Seul for a week of fishing.