For those that can't afford LC reels, there is another method that works quite well ( as long as you can remember which rod had what length out). With your lure in the water and your rod pointed towards the rear of the boat. With your thumb lightly on the spool or finger if using spinning. Swing the rod towards the front of the boat using a full arm swing. typically that is 20 ft. Do it again your at 40ft. etc etc. Split the swing in half etc etc. There used to be a guy who fished the PWT that did not use linecounters, this was his method.
I don't bother calibrating my LC reels like quite a few folks do. I fill them all the same. And over the season one or two will loose some line but the big thing is if you look at the precision trolling book most baits only dive 1 to 2 ft deeper with 20 more foot of line out. And with all the directional currents out on Erie you really never know exactly where your baits are running as sometimes your going with or cross wise or against those currents. Even running inline weights, they are sooo speed and current sensitive your only guessing on what your average depths are unless each time you first run one out and touch bottom to see for that day what dpeths your getting. IMHO