Newbie Questions: DR's / Trolling

[Beefcake]

My parents retired and bought a little 16' boat for lake fishing. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about lake fishing. We did okay at Merwin a couple of months ago, but they went back last month and couldn't get deep enough to catch anything but pikeminnow. I had them rigged with 30# braided line with a 3 oz banana weight and a wedding ring. They tried adding another ounce of weight to each, but the bulk seemed to increase drag and raise the lure to the same height as without it. Their 25 hp motor was trolling too fast, so I loaned them a sea-anchor, but it was still too fast to get down to the fish. Therefore, I have two possible solutions (besides changing lakes; I've read the threads here saying that Merwin isn't hot, so we'll try somewhere else next time). Solution #1 is to mount a bow-mount electric trolling motor in order to troll slower (I have one here, I just have to mount and wire it on their boat). Solution #2 is to mount my spare downriggers on their boat (I have a set of Scotty Strongarm 30" manual riggers that I can loan them). Any opinion of which is the better solution?

If the downriggers are the key, I have some questions. I have only ever used downriggers in the ocean for salmon. The riggers have the heavy steel cable, and the only weights I have for them are over 10lbs. Is this overkill? Do I need to re-spool them with thinner line and use smaller weights? Would the 4# cannonballs that I have for halibut fishing work? Also, I think my release clips are too big... I'm assuming I need something like the Scotty mini-releases. Finally, where should we go for a day-trip from Portland to try it out?

Thank you for any help. I'm trying to get them setup to go catch fish on their own, but I spend all of my time chasing bigger fish, so I'm probably the wrong mentor for them.

[FishTy]

Those downriggers just the way they they are will work great!
I have 10lb balls and sometimes wish I had more to keep that cable straight down. as far as your clips, most likely they will work fine too.. you just set you line right at the tip of the clips, instead of in the back of the clips.... I don't know how big your clips are but mine are the SCOTTY clips and they are about 4 inches,and they work OK I do have smaller ones but have found I have alot more premature releases with my smaller clips.. so I use the big ones! sometimes if it is a small fish I have to give it a little jek to release it .. but that don't seem to be any big deal!

I used to have a smaller downrigger with 5lb balls and the balls were never straight down.. not only do you not know you exact depth , BUT you can get tangled when this happens

Another thing You could do is only use a 10lb line Like spider wire or snall diameter super line
and 3 or 4 oz. of lead! and a line counter.. I think that you problem with what they were doing is the heavy line they had.. to much drag..not letting the line get down.. I use 10lb braid with about 10feet of about 10lb of mono then the flashers and a weddingRing..
With the lline counter you just try to keep you trolling speed were you can keep your line at a 45 degree angle and just figure about about 1.5 to 2 foot for about every foot deep!

You could go to Detriot or Merwin I've even used them at Hagg before for trout!

Hope this helps!

[Doc_Rhen]

The answer may be both, depending on what you are fishing for, you really need to control the speed downrigger or not. If you have 'riggers hook them up, 10 lb cannonballs are fine, I like Shasta tackle co. release clips but any other clip has a degree of adjustment inherent in where you place the line in the clip pads and with smaller lines that you use for lake fishing the clips lose some of their grip. Measuring the trolling speed and adjusting accordingly is an important part of the process, that could involve the electric motor, a trolling plate or a "kicker" motor.

[Bandy76]

As stated above speed is important.
If you are pulling a water skier that is to fast to troll.
On my 16' boat I used a 2hp or 6hp motor for kicker.
found these to work fine on any lake. The 55 was to fast unless you ingaged / disingaged to hold speed with a bucket(still to fast & unable to control).
Rather trout or kok's I like to troll slow & have best luck when barely have the big blade turning over. I adjust leader length from 12" to 72" depending on lake clearity & or temp. This also comes into play on sunny or cloudy days.
On th e25 hp motor you may be able to turn down the fine air/fule needle to help on speed, as I find this a needed adjustment depending on lake evelation also.

[adobe wall]

For the little boat, there are some mini-trolls at Fishermans' for under $40, with a downrigger ball (3 or 4 lb) and a release (I think). I got one and the package said it had a release, but there wasn't one in there.

Works great.

My depthfinder will pick up every downrigger ball- even if I've got three going- unless I'm going too fast. That takes the line drag/downrigger line straight issue right out of the equation.

I'd slow the boat down with a trolling plate, buckets, sea anchors, or anything combination of the above. Your heavier gear isn't overkill but isn't necessary, either. I don't worry about trying to get the release so light the kokes release it because then I end up popping the line loose a lot when I'm setting up. I use a really limber rod and watch for it to bob then manually pop it out of the release clip.

hth, aw

[packer]

they make some small divers that should cure all your problems we use them all the time for silvers but i know they make small ones for freshwater

[Beefcake]

Thank you all for your input. I will think about the mini-downriggers, and I had forgotten all about the little divers; I'm going to look through the garage to see if I have any that small.

AW- Will you be there tomorrow? I think we're going to give it a shot with two sea anchors and more weight; we'll be in a tan 16' side console boat - I think it's a Lund.

[Rick on Rogue]

Beefcake......... I have a 16ft boat with a 40 horse motor. I have a trolling plate, Happy Hooker I think. I use that and a downrigger with 8 lb ball with the ford fender hooked to the ball then the clip on the end of that, then a #4 lure with a wedding ring and usally worm for bait. This past Sunday I tried lead core line for the first time. I bought Coutland 14lb test and because I use a small bait casting reel I could only get 5 colors on the reel (50 yds) and then about 30 ft of 5 lb leader then my stuff, and that seemed to work just as well as the downrigger. I can troll between .3 to 1.5 mph with this set up. I hava a bow-mount electric but have to sit in the bow seat to control it and sometimes that is not convieninet. Hope this helps.

Rick