Fish Tugs of the Greatest Lake

BARNEY DEVINE / ALBERT J.

Barney Devine and sister Cindy Marie at Cornucopia, Wis., October 2013.

BARNEY DEVINE / ALBERT J. 236912 Built by Burger Boat Company of Milwaukee in 1937, for Ludlow White, Alpena, Mich; 50 ft. in length and 14 ft. beam, of all-steel construction, with a full-height pilot house with sleeping space for the crew.

White named the boat ALBERT J., but sold her after only three years to the Wisconsin Conservation Department (now Department of Natural Resources) who renamed her after the late Chief Conservation Warden Barney Devine. The boat was intially used for commercial fish enforcement on Lake Michigan, then in 1969 was transferred to the Bureau of Fisheries Management for use as a research vessel. In 2012, the DNR replaced the BARNEY DEVINE with a new vessel, and sold her to Halvorson Fisheries of Cornucopia, Wis.

The boat was originally equipped with a 75-90 Kahlenberg oil engine, but according to an advertisement posted online at the time of the sale, that was replaced in 1972 by a 250 hp Cummins Model NT-335M 6 cylinder turbocharged diesel engine. Other equipment listed included a a Crossley net lifter "believed to have been installed in 1937."

Wisconsin DNR Photo