Staying In Control
Line management is critical in salt water fly fishing, As part of his
line-management strategy, Ray ordered his hull with pop-up cleats.
Unusual for Southern California, the cleats sit flush with the deck
when not needed, eliminating the possibility of the fly line tangling on the
cleats. All five of the 175CC's cleats are popups.
Ray also uses Alu-Marine "FlyLine Tamer" shooting
buckets to control his client's fly lines .The FlyLine Tamer is the original
VLMD, and pre-dates our Pleskunas VLMD by a number of years.
Ray often trolls with conventional tackle to locate fish initially. To augment
the stock rod holders in the stern, he uses Roberts clamp-on rod holders
mounted to the side rails. These rod holders are removable when
not needed.
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Getting around
Captain Ray selected a Yamaha F115 (4-stroke) outboard as his
primary means of propulsion. It has proven to be a rock-solid, reliable engine,
with plenty of power and good fuel economy.
As a secondary means of propulsion, Ray decided to add a Motorguide Lazer
electric motor , mounted on the bow.
The Lazer, which is no longer made, was a remote radio-controlled motor that
could be controlled from anywhere in the boat. As most fishermen with electric
motors have discovered, it is much easier to pull the boat with a
bow-mount motor than push it with a transom mount. Since
Captain Ray is usually somewhere other than the bow when he he has clients, the
Lazer was a godsend for boat control.
One problem cropped up early-on with the Motorguide. Heading out to Catalina,
Captain Ray came off a large swell a little hard, and the impact
caused the the head of the motor to bounce down hard onto the front deck,
damaging the controls. This is a known problem amongst the go-fast
bass boat crowd, and Motorguide had already developed a solution. After
repairing the motor, they provided this small support rod to
prevent the problem from happening in the future.
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