sherman brown

well said!

I think you would be much better off using 2 riggers. and a matching set would be the best. go on ebay and check big jon, cannon, penn, walker, and scotty. all these makes cheaper manuals. but you might find a good buy on a couple of electric ones.

a new gimble mount is like 60.00 and the weight is about 40.00 so your paying 50.00 for the rigger. its not much of a rigger but should get you by.

you should already know the basics after going out on a charter a few times. get some of the lures that caught fish on the charter. you can check out all the riggers on ebay. I would check out penn if you want manual riggers they have one for sale with a gimble mount. or you can but new gimble mounts for around 80.00 then get a nice rigger to mount on it. good luck with your adventure.

we started salmon fishing lake Michigan with home made riggers using the pully's of old washing machines and had a ball learning to catch them.

i'm with the others. take a charter out and see if you like it. then you can decide if you want to start investing money in doing it on your own. when I started fishing the central basin of erie I didnt know anything about running dipsy divers. went out on a charter 2 days and was running 3 divers per side on my own. what I learned on the charter was priceless. I learned more in those 2 days than I would have learned in yrs going out without knowing anything.

I would check out ebay for some used electric riggers for not that much more money. I used manual for some 30 odd yrs. but as I got older the balls got heavier. so I finally invested in electric. now I still kick my behind for not having them long ago. but even if you justify not getting electric I would check out ebay for name brand manual riggers. I have never seen or heard of a sears rigger. so I checked ebay and those look like cheap headaches to me. cannon makes a easy troll manual rigger that serves its purpose. but big jon. penn, walker, scotty, just to name a few all make manual riggers. penn being my favorite manual. but I like big jon electrics for the money.

congrats on being the owner of a nice boat.

I would have bought it when posted but to far away.

the beam only gets one side farther away from the other side. it doesn't get your divers farther apart. the best way to keep them apart is to do as I said in another post. don't start reeling the fish in until the rod is brought to the middle and allow the fish to come over the other lines then reel the fish in.

I don't use dipsies any more I use the lite bite slide divers and use then like a dipsy.

there is a lot more to running more than one per side. set on 3 I let the front rod out first to the desired length. I run the middle rod out 15' less than the front rod then the back rod set on 1 out 15' less than the middle rod. if I get a fish on one of the outside rods I just keep tension on the fish and walk to the middle of the boat and let the fish come over the other rods then start reeling the fish in. it you start reeling early it will get tangled in the other rods. when I let the rod back out I start by letting the diver back out as far over to the other side of the boat as I can get without getting tangles in the lines. I let it out slow. when it gets to 5 feet beyond the rods that will have to go over. like say you bring in the front rod and the middle rod is set at 120'. then I let out 125' then take the rod over the other 2 rods and set it in the holder and check the counter. if you allowed the diver to keep going while you take it over it should be close to 135. sure hope this info helps you be a better diver fishermen. I learnt to use divers by going out with a charter 2 days. I learnt more on that charter than I would have learned in yrs by myself.

congrats on selling the boat. I would love to have your/his boat. but I was under what you sold it for.

I run 3 per side. with a dipsy I run 3 for the front 2 on the middle and 1 on the back. with the lite bites I run 4.5 on the front 3 in the middle and 1.5 on the back. since they are close to a dipsy I figure its as close as I can get to a dipsy set on 1 2 3.

that bottom is just the way I have mine mounted.

I put mine just low enough that its just at the bottom of the boat. I angle it up in the front so it doesn't get turbulence under the transducer. I don't care where my riggers balls are. thats why they put counters on the riggers. I use 13# pancake weights so I don't get a lot of blowback.