News Photo by Mike Gonzalez Tom Rieckelman, Emily Gosselin, Brooke Roose, and Kaylee Skiba wait on their boat for the storm to die down before heading back out in Thunder Bay at the Alpena Marina on Thursday.

ALPENA — Fishing equipment and the boats that anglers use vary in shape, size, and expense. One of the most important advances for anglers in the past century is the electronic technology used to catch more fish and stay safe out in the water.

Tom Rieckelman, a local angler participating in the Michigan Brown Trout Festival fishing this week, said the equipment he uses on Thunder Bay is useful when it gets dark outside. He said if he can’t see a boat, even with their lights on, it could potentially lead to disaster if the boat around him in the pitch-black water.

To make navigation easier, Rieckelman uses a radar unit.

“That’s the radar unit right there,” Rieckelman said Thursday, while pointing to a white dome on the top of his boat. ” So I can pick up even the little water buoys out on the lake for the shipwrecks. I can pick those up on the surface. Earlier this week, we ran up to Rogers City and it was pitch black and I just put it on as a safety thing.”

On Thursday afternoon, Rieckelman waited for storms to settle down at the Alpena Marina with loved ones and friends on the boat.

Team Captain Emily Gosselin, along with teammates Kaylee Skiba and Brooke Roose were on his boat to compete in the Ladies Classic tournament. They went fishing for salmon and trout, catching a large lake trout that weighed in at 24 pounds. The lake trout is now No. 1 on the leaderboards for the tournament with Gosselin’s name on the board.

The equipment they use to catch fish is typical for many of today’s anglers: Fish finders, kicker motors, and troll systems to get the lures attached to the end of lines to run at the right speed. Once the boat is moving at the correct speed, fish located at a certain depth will see their lures and take a bite.

Rieckelman’s boat has 24 Okuma fishing rods in total on board as well as electric downriggers, with cannonballs attached, which help send a lure down to depths where the fish are.

For as much as technology helps the anglers on Rieckelman’s boat and so many others, reeling in a fish still requires some manual work to bring in.

“These are all manual crank, so (the) ladies here today were having fun on some of these longer rides,” Rieckelman said to laughter from the women sitting on the boat. “But no, it’s all done by manual. The only thing is this is electric to pull the cannonball because that’s a 15-pound cannonball. You can’t pull that in by hand.”

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that every boat needs a light on past dusk. The law was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.