Favorite Salmon setup

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[AlasKen]

What are your favorite rods and reels for trolling with Down rigger.  I tried some inner flow rods from Cabelas with Penn 209's.  Seemed to work OK.  Reel is bottom of the barrel but it was cheap.  I got 4 for $100.  I like the inner flow rods but would like to find them a little lighter action.  I got medium action.  I may try them for halibut with Penn 113 or GT 330.  How do you rig your trolling setup?  I tried a Flasher followed by cut plug herring.  I also used a flasher with a hootchie. 

Can anyone tell I am ready for the snow to melt and I want to go fishing.

[mschlechter]

I just picked up two Cannon Uni-Troll HP downriggers this weekend, for about half price, like brand new, one was still in the box. The seller decided he wanted electric downriggers instead.

Wish the boat was ready to use them.

[AlasKen]

I also got a couple of Cannon's last year, or at least my son bought them for the boat.  I don't remember the model but they work pretty well after getting them adjusted.  They have an automatic retrieve option so you can just hit the button and the down rigger comes up until it clears the water then stops automatically.  This is nice when you get a strike as you can hit the button and then grab the pole.  It does take some adjusting as it comes up fast and uses the wire and the saltwater as some type of switch.  There is a plastic swivel between the wire and the weight that tells it to stop.  With the smaller free board on the Tolman I needed to use 2 swivels in order for it to stop with the weight at the top of the water and not banging the side of the boat.  It is still a nice feature.  It does prevent you from using Spectra for down rigger line if you want to keep the auto feature.   

What are your thoughts for mounting?  I mounted mine toward the transom.  The mount allows you to mount your down rigger out or back.  In hindsight if I had of mounted them about 4" further back I could use them off the back or out the side.  As it is I still could but I am concerned getting the wire in a prop on a hard turn or if a following wave hit from an angle and caused the boat to skew.  I am happy with them in the back as it gives more room toward the cabin for stacking poles on the D/R.

[mschlechter]

The models I picked up are manual, I did not want electric downriggers at this point. I go with the other school of thought... I like to place mine as far forward as possible ( in this case about 2.5' aft of the main cabin bulkhead), this way the wire stays clear of the props as you manuever. I generally do not use a downrigger behind the boat, not to say it does not work, just another school of thought. Often if  fishing more poles then downriggers the aft poles will be used running shallower with a diver over the transom.

[walknbob]

I like to place mine as far forward as possible ( in this case about 2.5' aft of the main cabin bulkhead), this way the wire stays clear of the props as you manuever.

I hadn't thought about placing the downriggers forward but I can see the logic. Another positive aspect is that if you were thinking about putting any stainless rails along the shelves towards the rear they would not interfere with down riggers in the rear corners.

[tananaBrian]

The models I picked up are manual, I did not want electric downriggers at this point. I go with the other school of thought... I like to place mine as far forward as possible ( in this case about 2.5' aft of the main cabin bulkhead), this way the wire stays clear of the props as you manuever. I generally do not use a downrigger behind the boat, not to say it does not work, just another school of thought. Often if  fishing more poles then downriggers the aft poles will be used running shallower with a diver over the transom.

I agree with this and I like rotating the downriggers aft while underway better than forward.  You can put a downrigger weight holder on the inside of the hull too.  The only downside that I can think of is that I also like to have a crab/shrimp davit behind the house... but no big deal if it's in an aft corner.

Brian

[gmclain]

I fish here in Lake Michigan, I run 4 downriggers mounted towards the rear of the boat, I setup my inside downrigger so the cable enters the water just outside of the boat wake, have found this to improve my number of strikes (or maybe it just seems that way). Here in Michigan I am allowed to run two lures off each rod so my main line of course runs to my cannon ball, then once the downrigger is to depth a "slider" is place on the line from the rod, this will travel to a depth roughly half the distance of the cannon ball. The slider tends to pick up alot of steelhead. I run this basic setup on all 4 downriggers, if I do not put a stacker on my long arms, I run dipsy divers on two rods, one off each side with the weights turned out. If I set my downriggers at 45-65 feet and the dipsy at 160-180 back any fish from 65 feet up to about 22 feet should see a bait, (well thats my logic) works good for locating fish, once found mark with the gps and keep going in cirlces till the bite stops. If the bite is slow, I do not troll with out a strike for more than a half hour then I start changing baits and depths till something is a go.