Traxteck Downriggers

[Don Supon]

They looked good when I saw them at the LOTSA show in Feb. Anyone have any experience with them? Hundreds have been ordered, me included, but I'd like to hear from anyone who has received his and had a chance to use them.

[Neo1945]

They gotta go a long way to beat Scotty downriggers.

[carpedium]

I think jax has them, maybe pm him?

[ Post made via Android ]

[Neo1945]

Old Vector downrigger company ... was purchased by Jeff @ Traxtech & updated.

http://www.traxstech.com/Downrigger_-Vector_parts.html

[Yankee Troller]

I have a few friends who are running them. One has had no issues, the other has had two of his three go down a few times. Like with any new product line there will be bugs. They look to be built extremely well, and when the kinks are ironed out I'm sure it will be a great downrigger.

[Don Supon]

Thanks for the input, guys. Jeff at Traxteck has told me basically the same info. As bugs come up, he finds a correction and incorporates that into the ones being produced. Was hoping to have mine for the spring LOC, then for the summer LOC, and now am still waiting and the fall LOC started today. Starting to think this may have been an ordering mistake on my part.

[ontherise]

My buddy tryed putting a traxteck system on his boat. the custy service was not good. As i understand it the phones got shut off and they couldn t be contacted anymore. I dont know the full story but thats what i understood.

[Raaven]

My buddy tryed putting a traxteck system on his boat. the custy service was not good. As i understand it the phones got shut off and they couldn t be contacted anymore. I dont know the full story but thats what i understood.

They answer the phone when I call...So I'm not sure? Getting Jeff on the phone is a different story..... Melody, I think? Still waiting for ours, but they are coming!

I hope to have them by Musky season....

[machzrcr]

i know someone running them and have used them a little bit on his boat. They dont seem bad the jigging function worked pretty nice. he has had one control unit go down but was quickly fixed. and where the cable runs along the arm it gets pretty close near the spool and is wearing marks in the aluminum housing piece in front of the spool so i think something should be done about that, cant be good for the cable. And i know its like the big john which have the little arms but seeing the arms bounce when the ball comes up scares me ( i use scottys) but it may work just looks funny to me. But other than that he is likeing them so far.

he is waiting for one of his too ( only running 2 and one scotty now) and he is sponsered by traxstech so i dont think its an ordering issue just maybe him trying to work out more bugs before sending more units out? not quite sure.

[machzrcr]

let me know if you want more info i can talk to him and ask.

[Don Supon]

Thanks for the reply. I'm just going to sit back and wait some more. Looks like I won't have them for this season. Maybe by the spring.

[HONDAM]

Right now the only dealer that is getting them is Calumet Marine. They have shipped out a couple dozen this year and from what frank tells me is supposed to getting another shipment in this week which may or may not be all spoken for.

As far as issues Jeff is confident he's got them solved. He is a perfectionist which is why it's been taking him so long to get the riggers out. He's been working on his version of the vectors for almost 3 years now which turned out to be something completely new.

The last issue was simply a premature wearing of the roller on the tip of the boom so made some adjustments to the machining of the roller block and allowed for a much smoother rotating pulley on the end. All of the controller issues from what I understand have been solved he did have a problem with the screens mainly on some but got on his supplier about that and solved that issue. And once he finds a problem all production stops and nothing is sent out until it is fixed. It's that perfectionist thing again which has made some people wait longer then expected for their equipment and get very frustrated but i bet they'd be happy in the long run that he did.

Another thing is the old vectors outsourced all the machining to different machine shops and anadizers to whomever could do it at the time. Jeff does all the machining in his facility and uses the same anadizers that he has for years so quality control on his stuff is really tight and once it fixed it pretty much stays that way.

And you guys waiting on them not that pulley issue I mentioned above is what initially held them up and then once he engineered the fix and machined all the pulleys he sent them to the anadizers which had a power outage with them sitting in the acid bath and ruined a whole batch of them so Jeff had to start all over. Now that's some bad luck.

[Jax]

I apologize for missing this post.

I allready PMed Don Supon, but if anyone has doubts on these riggers let me just say they were 100% worth the wait. He IS a perfectionist as he should be taking pride in everything that comes out of his shop. They are built to last and with the fisherman in mind.

You can not compare them to a Cannon or a Scotty its all a matter of preference when purchasing downriggers. These are an elite brand of handmade in the USA downrigger with many great features.

He is a very busy man so if there is any problems with contacting him, be patient or let me know maybe I can help.