No, it really isn't that bad, especially if you have a couple people on the boat for "shifts". A lot of that depends on how heavy your pots are. If you fish them on the slack and float with them, you really don't need more than about 5 pounds of weight (I attach a 5 pound anchor on a 10 foot rope to the bottom of the pot). If you want to fish in current and/or leave them unattended while they soak, you're going to want more weight. More weight = more effort. Some people run pots that are so heavy that I'd never want to try to pull them by hand. I use the "anchor pull" that attaches to the pot's float. It can be a PITA but it beats pulling by hand. At the point you spend $ on a mechanical puller, you could have bought a lot of shrimp.