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March 21, 2000

Cummins Powers Lake Michigan Trap Boat

The Lake Michigan commercial fishery has been well established for many years, but as in so many other areas, it has had its difficulties. In spite of this there are still a good number of fishermen working from fishing communities around the lake, like Fairport Michigan on the Garden Peninsula along the lake’s north shore. Several families work trap boats out of this little port. The boats, around 48 to 52 feet, run out eight or ten miles to check the fishermen’s traps. Each day in the April to October fishing season, they will typically check three to four traps. The traps are built with 1200 feet of guide and a pot. The submerged nets are set out on banks in depths of 70 to 90 feet with 25 to 30 feet of water between the top of the net and the surface. The nets are anchored with ten 70 to 100-pound double fluked anchors. As fisherman Joel Peterson likes to say of the 3/4-inch line with which he secures his traps, "We make it as tight as a mosquito’s butt stretched over a 50 gallon water barrel." The pot contain an enclosed net that can be lifted to dump up to 4000 pounds of white fish into the trap boat.

Looking for a little more power for getting around to the traps and for the lifting hydraulics, a number of fishermen have recently been repowering with Cummins C-series six cylinder engines generating 350 HP at 1800 RPM. Jack Feira, Cummins Great Lakes Marine sales representative out of Iron Mountain Michigan, estimates that "About 85% of the boats in this area are using Cummins power for service support and reliability."

Joel Peterson of Fairport is one of those fishermen. He is currently repowering his 45x12-foot 18-year-old aluminum trap boat, "Martha Jean", with a C-series Cummins. The boat’s existing Cummins, rated at 300 HP, is still working fine and will be kept as a spare. "We’ve been working with Jack Feira (Cummins Sales Rep) for years," explains Joel, "Once we lost an engine and Jack had us back fishing again in just three days."

With his brother, Joel works about 30 traps. In order to check each trap every two or three days, they will often travel 80 to 90 miles per day. Hauling that much net and fish from those depths requires good hydraulic power which the Cummins C-series provides.

Joel, who is a fourth generation fisherman on his father’s side, also fishes a 50x15-foot steel gillnet boat with a tribal license inherited from his mother’s side of the family. This boat is powered by a Cummins 855.

For more information on this fishery and its Cummins engines:

Jack Feira Cummins
Great Lakes Iron Mountain, Michigan
Phone: 906 774-2424
Joel Peterson Fairport, Michigan
Phone: 906 644-2876

500-476, 475-451, 450-426, 425-401, 400-376
375-351, 350-326, 325-301, 300-276, 275-251, 250-226, 225-201
200-176, 175-151, 150-126, 125-101, 100-76, 75-51, 50-26, 25-0