Anyone Made a downrigger?

[Grits]

I fish at Detroit with my son quite a bit and thought it might be fun to try some downrigger action. The only problem is I can't see spending over $100 for a Cannon mini troll downrigger just to catch a few trout/kokes at Detroit.

After looking at the downriggers it doesn't seem like there is a lot to them so I got to thinking maybe I could engineer something to do the task.

Has anyone made a downrigger before? How did it work?

[Flatfish]

Why don't you just get a heavy sturg pole, and tie the downrigger setup on it. Just put it in a rodholder towards the bow and zingo! yer fishin redneck style :dance: .

Mark and the mildly redneck dog

[Keta]

3/16 nylon cord and a downriger ball. Mark the cord with colored water proof markers every 10'.

[MasterCaster]

you may already know this but sportsmans here in Salem has the Cannon Mini Troll hand crank clamp on style downriggers for $59.99 if I remember right. I also saw them online for $50.99 if you would like to know where send me an e-mail.

I have been looking into building my own also.

Jon :smile: :grin: :smile:

[Grits]

Thanks MasterCaster. I have looked at the $59.99 setup and there are still several things that you need to be operational. They sell an accessorie pack for approximetely $50 that has the rest of the stuff you need.

I was actually thinking about a combonation between flatfish and Keta's ideas.

I was thinking of mounting an penn real on a board and then using nylon cord attached to a ball and that hole mess somehow attached to the boat near the rod holder.

Anyone else have any design ideas?

[Walleyed]

Being who I am and having kids I always have a broken trout rod laying around.
A few years ago I hooked up a old level wind reel to one. had some type of thin braded line on it. Took it up to odell lake and had a blast.
Took so playing with but worked fine.


Walleyed

[ChinookSlayer]

A few years ago, I was considering the same thing. I did not want to spend the $100+ for a downrigger. So, I came up with the brain storm of using the butt end of a heavy salmon pole, and a big weight. I took my proud invention up to Green Peter, and procedeed to Kokanee fish. The system worked ok, but was a little awkward in having to control two poles at the same time. Things were a little slow, so later in the day, I put some smelly jelly on my lure. I then proceeded to start letting line out, when all of a sudden my salmon pole sort of did a flip in my hand, then took off like a torpedo over the side of the boat :shocked: The last thing I remember seeing is my pole depth sounding down to the bottom of the lake (~300'). graemlins/1zhelp.gif That day was one to remember. It started with me having a completely full large travel cup of coffee dump out onto my floor board of my truck. Then the fishing pole experience, and it ended with me pulling back into town at the base of a busy bridge, and accidently killing the engine with the clutch, just to have my battery go dead at the same time :hoboy:

Anyway, I also saw the Cannon clamp on model, but I wasen't going to trust anything that clamped on after loosing my pole. I then found in Cabela's a down rigger by Roberts that fits into the same bracket as your rod holder. I have Roberts rod holders, but the same unit will fit into a FishOn rod holder. You loose a rod holder, but gain a downrigger. I have used this thing ton's, and am really happy with it. I would buy one again if I needed a downrigger.

[Lundman]

I heard of a guy that had the most luck catching land locked salmon up in lake Coure' Da lene(?) was a guy who used yellow pee line and divers weights. Good luck and unless your hooked on kokanee go low-tech.

Get a good release and know your depth - just like any lazy fish they only will chase things in their immediate depth range.

[Snapset]

I'd rather fish with something homemade and homely than something shiny and new, so I made a downrigger. For a spool I used a tricycle tire. They are hollow on the inside and you can cut the outer layer off, I used a lathe for this. I made an angle iron frame and welded a mount plate to this. I cantilevered an axle from the mount plate, then drilled a hole in the rim of the tire, put a bolt through this with a piece of stainless tubing on it fro a handle. The mistake I made is in the pulley. You need a shrouded pulley so the downrigger line cannot slip down between the pulley and frame. This is pretty important, because if you are running a boat by yourself, in the wind probably, and trying to control the pole also, you are too busy to be fixing the downrigger during a hot bite. Let me know if you want more details.