PFD prep

[Tin-Can]

Hey Lynn, was that you or Pat that had one go off a year of two ago?  If it was Pat, I wonder if he knew how old his canister was when it went off to inflate the vest?  I'm terrible, but if mine still shows green I tend to trust it... But I fish in shallow water 90+% of the time.... So I can wade home if I fall in... That makes a difference and I have foam life vests in the boat for everyone, so my inflatable is a back up to my regular jackets... However, I don't wear the foam, like I do the inflatable when in risky conditions...  Later Jeff

I'm with you Jeff, can't say I've ever replaced mine but I rarely fish alone. I remember that thread where members were talking about replacing them, pretty sure Tincan was one of the members talking about replacing theirs.

  YES.  I replace my Co2 cylinder and bobbin every 3 years on both of my primary PFD's.  That's one of my pre-fishing prep actions.     Ever since I "fell" out the back end of my boat at Mantua several years ago. I had my PFD on, I was stopped in less that 5 feet of water, it was August so air and water was warm.  My PFD worked as advertised, although I bought  2 new ones the following week. The one I was wearing inflated great, and would have kept me from drowning, but it inflated around my neck so tight it almost strangled me. 

A word of caution, If you own or purchase an auto inflating PFD, be SURE it is a proper fit.  This piece of advise may seem more costly that some would care to deal with, but when I bought my new, larger PFD's as well as 2 additional inflation kits, when I received them, I tried them both on (one at a time of course) and pulled the manual charge lanyard. Two reasons:  1. to be sure they would inflate and had no leaks and 
2. that they would NOT be too tight around my neck.   Then I replaced the expended cylinders.  The cost of the replacement cylinder kits was about $30.00 each. I figured that was $60.00 well spent to protect my wife and myself.