When we got to Poulsbo last weekend, we were using the ground tackle for the first time we weren’t sure we were going to be able to decipher the marking system we’d done months before. We actually had no clue what we done. However, once the chain started to go over the side it was VERY easy to figure out and required no secret decoder ring. That’s ladies and gentlemen is what we call good design.

Some people use paint or other flags, we used colored zip ties (which is also common) and this is our color coding scheme:

• White – 10 Feet
• Black – 50 Feet
• Red – 100 Feet

The way the system works is you add up the zip ties.

3 white = 30 feet\ 1 red + 1 Black + 2 white = 170 feet

Very intuitive and easy to maintain by just replacing zip ties when they inevitably break off after a while.