Exactly what I meant. I hated running the cable through that terminal device. Thanks!

Yep those terminal devices are a pain!

MOST important for New to DownRigging YOU HAVE a 5LB Lead Ball swinging around the side of your boat. Wrecking Ball if you are not careful...Wind, Waves, Newbies.. Ball management is Most important.
Next will be Depth of ball and Lake Bottom.. after that have fun and Catch some good deep fish.

I use a downrigger occasionally here in central Texas for whites and hybrids. Use a Cannon Easi-Troll ST and 6-8 lbs ball - cant recall exact weight but it works ok for my use as I don't usually troll all that deep. Probably should switch the riggers wire out for braid but haven't yet.

I use a Chamberlain release. It's a patented magnetic release thats independently adjustable for both the vertical and horizontal pull. Helps with not dragging smaller fish that don't trip other releases and works with wide variety of lure sizes and rod loading. I troll with small Pet Spoons most of the time and it releases reliably even when hit by small whites. But it's a little more $ than simpler releases if you hang up the ball and have to break it all off which luckily I haven't done yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsgUj7fIi50
http://dev.downriggerrelease.com/

Here's a way to avoid the 'wrecking ball'. Lower the weight just under the waters surface, then attach your release clip. When you retrieve the downrigger, you can stop with the weight still in the water and reach the clip.

I haven't heard of those magnetic releases before, pretty cool! I'll check them out. I've gotten my release clips set where a smaller fish won't trip it too easily but I can pop it out of the clip fairly easily. The reason I do this is because I use "double up" rigs with pet spoons tied on. If a small to decent white bass hits it, my line will typically stay attached to the ball so I can "double up" and hopefully keep my other pet spoon in the strike zone for an additional few seconds. It is easy to tell when a fish is on the end of the 7' 6" feather light rod because it will clearly tug up and down on it but keep attached to the release clip.....Just some ideas I wanted to share as it has resulted in more fish for me.

My favorite release is the Walker Adjustable. So easy to set and very reliable. And adjustable.
Also very durable. I've been using the same ones for over 20 years.

First we got smart phones. Now we have smart balls.

Gotta be smart, losing cannon balls add$ up fast 😉

Definitely do not want to start losing cannon balls!

How late in the year do ya'll typically have luck downrigging? I'm curious to see how far long I can keep downrigging and haven't stuck with white bass and hybrids in the winter yet. I hope we have another month or two at least before deadsticking and gentle tactics start being the go-to methods....

Well I'm still downrigging and will usually keep it up until about the end of November. Of course that depends on water temperature and cold fronts. Since I got a kicker motor, it's been a lot easier to slow down the trolling speeds than it is with the Optimax. There comes a time when 2.2 mph is just too fast but I can get it down as low as 0.9 witn the kicker

That's what I figured. I just went yesterday when this cold front started blowing in and still had a great trip. I figured it won't be long when slowing the presentation down may get more hits and I think we are getting there now. Had lots of fish come up and chase my bait but half the time they wouldn't bite even though several of them came up and chased it. The wind made it almost impossible to slow down and really control the speed and precision