TOPIC:

New to the south end. When someone says they are fishing the 45 & 12 area ,what does that mean? I think it’s got something to do with long&lat but can’t figure it out. Please help!

Those should be the middle coordinates on you gps. 41 45 70 - 87 12 50. Think indiana state line is 41 45 70. The first numbers change every 60 miles I do believe. The further west you go the west goes up, east lower. Gary Lighthouse should be 19 and the Indiana Dunes Pavilion I think it's two or three west. Hope this helps out a little. Mike

It didn’t help a little.... it helped a lot! Thanks,Jack

I think of them as streets and avenues. Mike is right each middle latitude number (minutes) increase or decrease is one Nautical mile - a bit over 6000 feet so a long statute mile. Each middle number longitude is - well it depends where you are. In Equador, it's a nautical mile, near the North Pole it's a few inches. Luckily, we are about half way from equator to pole so figuring it a half mile isn't too far off. So if you hear some one is fishing 45s and 12s you can pin them to roughly a mile by half-mile area - 300-400 acres which (here at the Southend offshore) is pretty well right on the money.

Thanks again. Everyone on the Southend is awesome!