“PhillyDeals: Electronic guide offers fishermen a wireless-age tool - Philadelphia Daily News” plus 1 more

PhillyDeals: Electronic guide offers fishermen a wireless-age tool - Philadelphia Daily News

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Posted on Wed, Feb. 16, 2011

By Joseph N. DiStefano

Joe Demalderis, co-owner of Cross Current Guide Service up in Milford near the Delaware Water Gap, makes his living taking fishermen to "where they're biting."

When trout season opens April 16, he'll have a new tool: an $80 Ultimate Fishing Maps GPS Fishing Guide, produced by Warrington's Gogal Publishing Co., which marries the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission list of stocked and wild trout streams, bass ponds, and hundreds more fishing sites with a pocket-size Garmin global-positioning system.

The electronic guide provides maps, rules, and driving directions that make it easier for anglers to find and drive between fishing spots and boat landings across the state.

"Pretty cool," Demalderis told me. "It's like having a navigational chart, like you'd use in a lake or

saltwater, with the wrecks and reefs marked. Only it works from your car. You're in a place, you want to make a move somewhere else, you just pull it up and find what's nearby, and it tells you the shortest route, so you don't burn up $3-a-gallon gas."

The guide says he's used it to find "small brook-trout streams I could never locate before." He's started recommending it to clients for "the guy who's in town, maybe on business, he's got four hours and a GPS, now he can go fishing in places he'd never know were right there."

This is a wireless-age version of the fishing maps that Ultimate Fishing founder Mike Gogal, a Temple grad and professional video producer, used to publish through the former Alfred B. Patton Co. in the 1990s.

Gogal told me he sold more than 50,000 maps a year, at $5 to $7 each, before his wife's death in 1996. She had handled all customer orders, and he didn't feel like going on without her.

Remarried and resettled in Warrington, Gogal began working on next-generation fishing maps two years ago with neighbor Mark Burdack, a software developer. The new map lives on a thumbnail-size GPS chip inserted into Garmin units. Gogal has also issued a new generation of paper-based Pennsylvania fishing maps (three editions covering different parts of the state, at $15 each) through King of Prussia's Franklin Maps.

On a demonstration, Gogal piloted me toward spots to hunt bass along the Schuylkill, trout in the Wissahickon and Chester Creeks, channel catfish off Flat Rock Dam and the Frankford Arsenal. It's surprising, he said, how fish have recovered in the city and its suburbs.

Gogal says the partners are directing 5 percent of proceeds to the state fish commission's Conservation Acquisition Partnership, which buys land for public stream and pond access. "A lot of fishermen feel they ought to give something back," he said.

Shine on

Community Energy Solar L.L.C., a developer of solar electric-power plants based in Radnor, says it has agreed to sell two planned photovoltaic sites it has been setting up for the Vineland Municipal Electric Utility in South Jersey to Constellation Energy Group Inc., of Radnor. Constellation says the plants it builds will have total capacity of 7.8 megawatts.

"We developed the plans and secured all necessary permits," Community Energy boss R. Brent Alderfer told me. Solar power still costs more than old-fashioned coal-fired electric plants, but federal renewable-energy credits make prices comparable, and solar electric costs are falling as fossil-fuel costs rise, he said.

Alderfer told me that plants the size of the Vineland operation typically cost about $30 million to build. The city-owned Vineland electric company has agreed to buy solar power from the sites for 25 years.

Constellation, a publicly traded company that owns Baltimore's energy utility, already operates a five-megawatt solar plant at the United Kingdom-Johnson Matthey chemical plant in West Deptford, and solar plants totaling 55 megawatts in other parts of the country.

Community is owned partly by Alderfer and business partner Eric Blanton, and partly by out-of-state venture investors who have backed the 12-year-old firm with $4 million.

Contact columnist Joseph N. DiStefano at 215-854-5194 or JoeD@phillynews.com.

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An Expert's Bermuda Travel Guide - Associated Content

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Bermuda is a special place. It's a true tropical paradise, with palm trees, pink sand beaches and water almost too blue to imagine. I've traveled to Bermuda numerous times - most recently for a friend's

wedding - and each time I have a different wonderful experience.

Hundreds of years of British colonial rule have also left their mark and it remains a little piece of England in the middle of the Caribbean. Although Bermuda is considered part of the Caribbean, it's actually much further north and east. In fact, if you check a map, it's actually in the Atlantic Ocean, about 600 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina.

Here are five tips for Bermuda travel from this travel expert.

A Taste Of England
As Bermuda remains a territory of the United Kingdom, it really is a piece of England. While you're here, why not have fish and chips or bangers and mash and a pint, or other typically British pub food.

The island also retains a bit of English stuffiness and formality, which is actually a good counterpart to the normal laid-back attitude of the Caribbean. Things happen on time, people take their job seriously.

It's also very popular with English tourists and you can spend a week there in British hotels, hanging out with British people, eating British food. You can also venture off the beaten track, and have a totally different experience with locals.

Enjoy a Pink Sand Beach
There is some kind of sea creature shell that blends with the sand and creates the magical pink beaches the island is famous for. Not every beach is pink, we love Elbow Beach in Paget Parish. The waters in Bermuda are incredible, crystal clear and turquoise blue as well.

Avoid Hurricane Season
The time not to travel to Bermuda is the hurricane season, which runs from June through November.

Maps Guides

Wednesday, February 16, 2011