WHO I FISHED WITH: This morning, Wednesday, June 29th, I welcomed aboard U.S. Army veteran and retiree Robert Rhodes of Killeen, TX.

Robert, like many anglers, has a boat which is well-equipped with sonar, a trolling motor, and quality batteries to keep everything powered up, but he knew he just was not using this equipment to its full potential when it came to finding and catching fish.

We made some inroads today toward that goal of consistently finding and catching fish after Robert booked both a fishing trip, followed by an on-the-water sonar training session with me.

Here is how the fishing went …

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My next openings will be on 1, 10, & 11 August. Weekday mornings are always best. Saturdays are available for on-the-water sonar training sessions (only) until after Labor Day when I’ll again offer Saturday morning fishing trips (until mid-March 2023).




PHOTO CAPTION: With clear skies and light winds following Monday’s cold front, we really had to work for what we caught today. By the end of the trip, Robert got great exposure to downrigging, sonar use, the smoking tactic, and the sawtooth tactic.






PHOTO CAPTION: For the sixth consecutive trip we managed a “triple” — catching three fish at a time, one on each of the three Pet Spoons on my 3-armed umbrella rig fished behind a downrigger. This was our one and only triple today under calmer, brighter conditions.



WHERE WE FISHED: Lake Belton

WHEN WE FISHED: Wednesday (AM), 29 June 2022

HOW WE FISHED:

We came as close to “post-frontal” tough as we could today without the winds actually going calm. Despite a forecast to the contrary, we endured bright skies and near-calm, puffing winds all morning. The fish really didn’t put on the feed bag at any point this morning, but, the latter half of the trip was definitely more productive than the first half.

The downriggers really earned their keep this morning. When the bite gets tough, the downriggers allow for covering a lot of territory very quickly. Many folks mistakenly think of downrigging as an expensive, highly-technical form of trolling, but it is much more than that.

By precisely controlling the depth of your presentation (and verifying it on sonar), lures can be run in and around many times more fish than could be presented to with a vertical or horizontal presentation over the same amount of time from a fixed position. Further, at a time when fish begin to organize horizontally (parallel to the bottom) due to thermal stratification, the downrigger keeps your baits right in the “zone” better than any other method. The Hell-Pet, Jet Divers, Dipseys, and trolled crankbaits just can’t match the downrigger’s accuracy and allowance for tight turns.

When fish are turned off, a downrigger can help expose that low percentage of fish willing to chase and eat to your lures while the vast (disinterested) majority of the fish just watch that bait go on by. You are able to weed out the aggressive fish from amongst the passive fish.

We used the downriggers to find and catch fish, and, on the occasions where the caught fish came from an area with an abundance of other fish present, we stopped and worked MAL Dense Lures more thoroughly over those areas with a horizontal “sawtooth” method, guided by side-imaging which showed us which direction to cast, and how far out away from the boat the fish were.

We caught roughly 3 fish on downriggers for every 1 we took on the MAL Lures today because the fish were very spread out and pretty disinterested all morning. We took two fish on the MAL Original (the lightest version of the MAL) when they burst up on the surface chasing after shad, literally, for just seconds.

I rigged up our downriggers with unweighted 3-armed umbrella rigs equipped with Pet Spoons.

Our 51-fish catch included 49 white bass, & 2 largemouth bass.

TALLY: 51 fish caught and released

OBSERVATIONS: Bright, near-windless conditions really made it tough going this morning.

WEATHER DATA:

Start Time: 6:30A

End Time: 11:00A

Air Temp. @ Trip’s Start: 72F

Elevation: 5.52 feet low, 0.03’ fall in last 24 hours, 50 CFS flow

Water Surface Temp: 84.3F

Wind Speed & Direction: Puffing 0-3 from ENE for the entire morning.

Sky Condition: Cloudless, bright skies all morning.

Moon Phase: New moon.

GT = 0

Wx SNAPSHOT: Unfortunately, this wx forecast missed the mark. We never had winds above ~4 mph, with multiple spans of calm; and, we never had any cloud cover.






AREAS FISHED WITH SUCCESS:

Areas B0099G, and B0180C to 347 — all downrigging to find fish, then horizontal MAL Dense work to capitalize on what we’d found.



Bob Maindelle

Full-time, Professional Fishing Guide and Owner of Holding the Line Guide Service

Belton Lake Fishing Guide, Stillhouse Hollow Fishing Guide

254.368.7411 (call or text)

Website: www.HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

E-mail: Bob@HoldingTheLineGuideService.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bobmaindelle

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bobmaindelle

Solid post and fish. Good job.

Good report, thank for posting. I used downriggers quite a bit about 20-30 years ago, but haven't used them since around 2005. Yesterday, I dug them out of a storage shed behind my mother's house and want to rig them up on my boat. I will need to buy some swivel mounts, gimbal mounts and new weights. When my dad went into the nursing home, my BIL gave 2 complete Cannon downriggers with my dad's boat that he sold for my mom. Since I usually fish by myself, would it be worthwhile to buy Cannon electric downriggers and control them on the Humminbird One Boat Network? I know it would be easier to raise the weights when I drive across a high spot if they were electric. I have seen some used electric Cannons, but those that work on the Humminbird network are really expensive.
We used to let out about 100' to 150' of line behind the downrigger weight, it that unnecessary? How much line do you let out?

Double Row, here is my opinion on your several points:

1. I would definitely recommend the Cannon electric downriggers, especially if you are going to fish by yourself, and so much more so since you plan to run dual 'riggers. I use a pair of the Digi-Troll 10 TS units and love them.

2. I would NOT recommend the One Boat Network, rather, I would suggest controlling the downriggers individually from their own keypads. The reason: I've done, literally, hundreds of on-the-water sonar training classes involving Humminbird control heads. The more "stuff" you network into those 5-port Ethernet connectors (multiple control heads, 360, Mega Live, downriggers, etc., etc.), the more slowly the systems run and the more problems they have. The "theory" is great, but the execution falls short.

3. I use 12 pound balls so the weights hang nearly vertically and therefore show up well on my 2D sonar. I run my baits ~25 feet behind the ball and track ball/release clip/baits on Garmin LiveScope. I simply do 12 "pulls" of line from the levelwind on my reel out to the first guide on the rod.

Glad to answer any additional questions. Just let me know, and good luck!

Thanks for the information, Bob. I will try to find a pair of used electric downriggers and not worry about the One Boat Network. I won't use them enough to justify buying new ones.

Is there anything wrong with the older Cannon Marlin electrics, or any other specific models to stay away from?

Does the Positive Ion Control actually do anything, or is it just a gimmick?

Double Row, I'd stay away from anything not made in the last 10 years, just because you won't be able to find parts should something happen.

As for PIC, I've got trout and salmon guide buddies who swear by it, however, because I've opted to do away with my metal cable and instead use a 250-pound braided line, the PIC won't work on my unit. Regardless, we put thousands of summertime fish over the gunwales every summer via downriggers.

Thanks for the update, although I am unsure what would be a Cannon electric made in the last 10 years. Obviously those listed currently on the Cannon website, but I'm not sure what the last generation, or the one before that. How old are the Marlin downriggers?

Your best bet on nailing that production date down will be to make note of the serial number on both Marlin devices, then give Cannon Tech Support a call. They are very helpful and typically you never have more than 2-3 calls in front of you. The number I use is: 800.2227.6433. The Digi-Troll line has been in place for quite a few years now, and the Magnum 5 with non-telescoping boom is the least expensive in that lineup.

One more thing to consider about the Digi-Trolls is that you can also get the optional bottom-tracking feature. This allows you to set the ball to automatically stay at specific distance from the bottom. Very useful when you encounter sudden depth changes while following a contour line, especially if you’re trolling by yourself. I have a DigiTroll and a Mag20..the Mag20 is a handful when working closer to the shoreline. The DT handles itself.

Bottom tracking sounds like an awesome feature to have, does it have to be networked to a Humminbird to track the bottom? Thanks for the info.

Double Row, here is a "cut-and-paste" from Cannon's website concerning the "Bottom Tracking" feature:

Bottom Tracking requires a source of depth data (transducer) to keep your weight a set distance from the bottom. For Optimum downriggers, you have the option to connect to the Cannon Downrigger Transducer or use the depth data provided from a Compatible Humminbird Fish Finder transducer that is wirelessly connected to the master Optimum downrigger. You can network up to four Optimum downriggers to troll at set distances from the bottom through a single transducer.

Previous Digi-Troll 10 models require the Cannon Downrigger Transducer to enable Bottom Tracking capabilities and are not compatible with Humminbird fish finders as a source of depth data.

My older DigiTroll 4 has its own depth transducer so it’s not networked to anything else. It could control another DigiTroll if I had one. I see that the new Cannon Optimums will network to a Humminbird and that you can actually control them from the Bird’s screen, which would be incredible.(Edit: but read Bob’s info regarding network sluggishness issues.) Optimums also have Wi-Fi network control thru the Cannon mobile app. Wowzers!Cannon Optimum link