i have done searches for trolling methods and tackle, but i just get "trolling motors" as results. so i was wondering, who trolls, and how, and with what tackle?

i bought some cannon down riggers last year, and havent used them with any success.

ive always took out my son and his friends and when we couldnt find sand bass, we would just troll tinytraps and pick up a few here and there. i bought the downriggers to try to catch biiger fish like hybrids and stripers, but really have no clue how to do it and with what lures.

anyone have any tips on this technique?

I just got my Cannon downriggers mounted to my new boat along with free trolling home-made rod holders.<----clicky

Let me get back to you in just a moment - in the mean time, drool and slobber over the pictures of the home-made rod holders. You can see one of my mounted downrigger swivel bases in the photos.

I've never used a downrigger, though, i would like to. I like to troll either shad raps or rattle traps. Bomber "A"s work well too. You can almost always catch fish trolling. count to 18 1000 when your letting line out. Good luck!

Excuse me - my step son was calling from Ft. Riley - mother's day. I talked to him for awhile before giving him to his mother.

Now, let's get down to talking about downrigging, one of my most favorite methods for hanging big hybrids, stripers, and freshwater redfish. I will also attach some photos.

Do you have manual crank downriggers or electric? I have electric Cannons (found them cheap on the TFF several years back after using manual cranks for a couple of years). Nothing wrong with manual crank downrigger, even if you're fishing by yourself. You just have to fight the fish awhile, crank the cannon ball up, fight the fish awhile, crank the cannon ball up, etc.



In the above picture you see a black cord strung from the cable to the body of the downrigger. This is a weight retriever that allows you to pull the cannonball in without having to reach out and grab the cable by hand. $20 for one but it's well worth the money. There's one other necessity that you will need - a terminator kit. There will be times you need to snip off frayed cable and this kit allows you to simply reattach the end part that the cannonball clips to. $30 but another investment you can't live without.

Swivel bases with tab lock bases. Allows you to swivel the downrigger 90� or 45� to the boat or swivel it to the stow position (see photos below)


Tab lock base mounts to the swivel base and allows you to quickly remove your downrigger from the boat without having to remove bolts and nuts - you can see the tab sticking up on the plate mounted to the swivel base. Here's a better view of a tab lock base ---->clicky tab lock base

Continuing on about how to fish with downriggers. I prefer to use 8-lb. cannonballs. 10-pounders will take some of the angle out of the cable while you're at trolling speed (usually somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 mph using the GPS - the boat speedometer just can't read that low of a speed).

I like to use a pressure release<-----clicky

This attaches to the back of the cannonball and you pinch the line between the pads. Place the line between the pads about 1/3 the way into the opening. Clamping it with one click is a light setting for fish like crappie and sandbass but you can't put a lot of bow in the rod tip at this setting or the line will pop out of the release.

I usually let my lure out about 80-100 feet before I put the line into the release clip. Two clicks about 1/3 into the pad opening is good for hybrids, stripers and redfish - they have enough power to really pop it out of the release. Once I have the line in the release, I put the reel in free spool with my thumb on the spool then I let the cannon ball down to the depth I want it and stop. I engage the reel, put it in the rod holder then crank the reel handle until I have a nice bow in the rod tip - the rod tip is pointing down toward the water with a nice 75� arc. I use 8-foot rods with a stout butt and quick tip, made specifically for downrigging (usually medium action and line of 12-20 pound test. I do not use braided line when trolling - you will want the stretch of monofilament, trust me.

Lures to use for striper family and freshwater redfish.

I like floater-diver hard baits like Ripplin Redfins, any of the Yozuri type lipped lures, and Bill Norman DD series crank baits. I also like the Stump Jumper (roadrunner style) jigs -n 1-oz. size dressed with a 4-6" long plastic trailer. If using both downriggers, I try to use a jig on one and a floater-diver on the other one. The problem with using a non-floating type lure is once you get a fish on and stop the boat to reel it in, the heavy lure is going to fall to the bottom and possibly hang-up. If you have someone with you, here's what you do when you get a fish on one of the rods - have the person who is not reeling in the fish "pop" the line out of the release on the other downrigger and start slowly reeling it in. Chances are good that he/she will also get a fish on at the same time doing this - and it also saves a bait from potentially becoming hung-up on bottom.

Making turns using two downriggers.

Please don't make real tight turns or you'll have a mess on your hands. Gradual turns. When you turn to the right, the lure on that side is going to slow down and fall if it is not a floater-diver. The lure on the opposite side will speed up and rise (if it is a sinker). If it is a floater-diver, always turn to the floater-diver side.

Most strikes in turns will come on the speeded up, rising side but keep the one eye in the back of your head peeled on the slowed and falling side - thats the side the lure will track thru UNDISTURBED water! Think about it - the lure on the side you turn toward will track further away from the boat prop wash while the other lure will be tracking into the prop wash.

I usually like to put one downrigger at (for example) 15 feet and the other at 18- feet if I'm downrigging in 25-30 feet of water. Then when I make turns and I have a floater-diver on the 15-foot downrigger, I will make the turn to that side (it will rise while the other lure will dig in and dive deeper keeping separation between the two and reducing any tangles that could occur. That's why I like to keep my downriggers at 90� (perpendicular) to the boat so I can maintain a wider spread between the lures.

BTW, my personal bests in Texas have all come from downrigging:

Hybrid - 9-10 lb. Cedar Creek - 1-oz Stump Jumper jig
Striper - 18-lb. Whitney - small 1/8 oz. big body jig with 6" trailer
Freshwater redfish - 26-0 lb. Tradinghouse - Ripplin Redfin

Those are my boat bests - clients took them when I was guiding part-time back in the mid-90's to early 2000's.

Now, so we don't overload you, if you have further questions, ask them. I will happily answer as many as I can.

I have had success w/o downriggers. I usually use a slip sinker above a swivel(carolina style)to control depth. Depending on the depth you want to acquire you may need up to six ounces. I use a fairly long leader (4'-6'). I drag crankbaits or curly tailed grubs. The grubs seem to work best. You can let line out until you hit bottom and with some simple geometry you can adjust your depth and keep yoour lure in the desired zone. Or just guess and play with it until you have luck.

Wow, great info redfin.

i have the manual crank models, these to be exact:

http://www.turtlemarine.com/cannoneasitroll2.html

i dont have the swivel bases, but my mounting base is identical to the ones you have mounted on your swivels.
(awesome looking boat from what i can see in the pics by the way)
i have the quick release bases mounted with the booms straight out at 90 degrees, as you mentioned above. i also have the strike releases that are adjustable.

i have two round ball weights that i think are 8 lbs, and two flat saucer type weights, that i just thought were nifty due to their possible hyrdrodynamic advantages, and i think these are 8lbs as well.

in the few times ive tried using them, i was just pretty much shooting in the dark. one thing i do remember about them was that i was getting this crazy harmonic phenomenon with the cables, they were singing, is the best way i know to describe it.(no kidding, like spinning your moistened finger around the lip of a crystal wine glass) i figured maybe i was going too fast or something, and didnt have a gps at the time, but i do now. so now i will know how fast im giong.

i was towing white roadrunners with a spinner on the head, with a white trailer. i dont recall the weight of the jigs, but they were fairly heavy, and the whole rig with trailer was prolly 4-5 inches long.

when you decide at what depth you want to fish, do you have to consider the diving of your lure in addition to the depth of your weights? like if i want to be 20ft down, and i think my roadrunners will trail 6-8ft below that, do i set the downriggers at 12-14ft?

and also, if i see what i think are fish at 20ft, do i want to run at 20ft, or slightly above, like 18-19ft??? i know that predatory fishes usually strike from below??

sorry for all the questions at once, but i shouldnt let you get away and still wonder these things. :-D

FlyinBryan
The first two downriggers I ever owned were Easy Troll hand cranks.

Here's a pic of my boat - a Tracker Targa 185 SC before I mounted the downriggers and rod holders


Yes, the cables will sing. That's good because you can use them to tell when the line is out of the release (fish on?) if you're not a good watcher (monitoring depth and speed is a full time job, eh?). The "melody" will change to a higher pitch when the line is out of the release. I got to where I could listen to the cables and when the pitch changed I knew I had a fish on or the line came out. I also use baitcast reels with the clickers and set the drag a little lighter than normal, epecially with redfish.

The roadrunners (1-oz.) with 100-feet of line out will sink about 5 feet at 3.0 mph. In the heat of summer for stripers at Tawakoni/Whitney the thermocline usually sets up around 20-25 feet so I set the ball anywhere from 15-18 feet (allow for cable drag angle - about 1-foot or so). I have had stripers take the line out of my hand on Tawakoni just as I was trying to set it in the release (boat moving at 3 mph) - then I just quit using the downriggers and free trolled the 1-oz jigs.

Sometimes while downrigging and I see fish on the depth finder a little deeper, I'll just stop the boat and let the jigs drop, then power back up to 3 mph and watch for the strike.

Z71 likes to run Bill Norman DD-22's on his downrigger (he probably has to clamp the release shut 3 times or set the line back in the release a little further) but he doesn't put so much line back behind the ball either.

Experiment, use one DR to play around with if you have 2 down. Some people call it a lazy man's fishing but it produces well for me and I'm the only one I need to make happy.

Where are you from and what lakes do you fish? Just have to be careful with submerged timber. There's a knob on your DR's that sets the clutch tension so if the ball gets hung up it will slip cable off the DR spool instead of bending the booms like Whitney did to mine when I first started DR'ing. It's a fine line adjustment somewhere between slippage and freefalling the ball, so check it once in awhile.

Proline19_
Yes, correct depth is everything. I haven't used dipsy divers but I do use the HellPet combo and jet divers (the other Proline19 introduced me to jet divers) and both have produced well for me but I usually reserve them for sandbass fishing/trolling. However, I like to make a lot of turns and less straight-line downrigging - running lures thru undisturbed waters can get you bit. My next venture will be planer boards. I searched the TFF for Hellpet topics and had no luck - maybe someone else is better at the search feature than me.

Hey, I don't mean to scare off the other trollers on the TFF - they can chime in anytime with their methods/findings as well. I'm like JD Lyle - I just get all excited with all the trolling talk!

GReat info Redfin. I also use ez troll dr's and have had some luck out at tawokani and ouchita. Nothing big yet but my fishing buddies don't really care for the noise so I don't fish them as much as I would care to. Have you ever pulled any big spoons?

Big spoons work well for me at lake palestine. If you can find a #15 pet spoon they work really well.

I would suggest using a swivel between the spoons and the rod to prevent line twist. I've learned the hard way.

I have such great luck with ShadRaps I dont use a Hellpet anymore. I'm sure that downriggers work well, maybe even better I don't know, I just have such luck with ShadRaps I cant see changing. Plus they float. If I have to stop the boat to reel in one line the other will float up and I dont have to worry about it sinking and getting snagged.

BTW always the silver ShadRap.

redfin, why is the stretch of monofilament important in trolling?