Down Riggers

[Shade]

If there are any suggestions on this problem please respond. I have 2 riggers off the back and I use 12 LB weights. The riggers are at about 10 degrees when I am trolling and both rear riggers are on a SnT units. The unit has about a 4 foot difference then the counter. My problem is on my side riggers. My rear riggers have a 24" booms and my side riggers have 30" Booms. The only 2 things I thought I could try is to either extend the booms to 4' and run 13LB balls. I hate to buy 2 13 Lb balls and that not help, so I was trying to buy the 1LB led balls and hooking them to my weights I have but I can not find 1LB leds. Does anyone have any suggestions? I did find a chart that shows how far down you are at a certain degree and cable out but I would really like to decrease that degree I am at now. Right now for me to get down to lets say 60', I have to let out 78' of cable. Thanks.

[ray koziatek]

some blowback will always occure and line out wil never match .usually 115to120 out will give you bout 100 down at 2.5 mph add a stacker and you need more line out,run a spinny and more line so there is no way to eleminate the blowback within reason.throw in some mixed down currents and now your learning .there are so many varyations and suttle differences in rigger dia ,line used die is huge for blow back,currents wind and on and on ,you just gotta bounce the lead a few times at various depths and learn what is going on in your spread with my 12 lb fish and double staked with 17lb test i get a 40 ish deg. blow back ,,,,,,,,trolling next (at a distancematch speed) to some good charters and observing your cable blowback or dypsy pull will help a lot after that thats one of those areas you just gotta kinda figure out with your own setup...... 16 oz weights are available at any salt water bait shop or on line ....... hmmmm there is a guy about 3 miles from my house that makes surf weights for a living ill stop and see him for what he makes .Ray K.belive it or not i got a bunch of them in my basement..........if it made i got it ......if i ant got it you dont need it...............

[Shade]

Thanks Ray. The only thing I am worried about is the side riggers are old, brain fart, forgot their name. The 2 in back are new Scotties. To much wait may burn out the motors. The only reason I asked is I was reading some tips on the Oak and it said you should not have more than a 30 Degree angle on your riggers.

[ray koziatek]

could be i just sorta got used to my setup 10 ft down and there straight 100 ft and the blowback happens ys sorta work with what you have.

[CBish]

The main thing is to know where your balls are, not how heavy they are or at what angle. The only way to do this is with a wide angle fish finder. If you can see your balls you know where they are relative to each other. The other thing is if you have a temp unit it will usually blow back a bit farther then others, again if you know the depth on the finder, you can adjust all lines to the fish zone.

CC

[ray koziatek]

cb that will get you in the ball park but the wider your cone the less accurate your depth estamate to a fish or your ball because of the way a fishfinder works .unless your at a dead stop .the reason a "good hook" shows on the screen is not because some guy in a office decided to make a fish like a hook, but as th fish enters the cone it hits the fish at the outer edge of your cone as you pass over and the fish is centered in the cone its closer and as you pass away it is still in the cone but further away,thus a good hook is almost under the boat a dot or flat line is too the edge of the cone .this is another way to sorts figure if the fish are spooky lots of hooks the fish are staying put,, short leads would be a good guess to start,all lines or 1/2 hooks (assuming your transducer is at correct angle)and the fish are squirting away from the boat thus "spooky" longer leads and a good dypsy day, fish react they dont think ......thats your part ...i think...what was i saying? question of the day........How can you use this theory to determin the way a fish is heading or facing? i will be scoring you on your answer.

[Shade]

Thanks gentlemen. I know how much more wire I need to get to the depth I want. What happened is on the new riggers the boom is 24". On the old riggers the boom was 30". This was the first time I was using all 4 riggers and i got tangled with the rigger on the port side. A mess a you can imagine especially with a slider on the front rigger. This never happened and the only change is the boom lengths. Once I got the mess cleaned up I put my front rigger on a slite angle and no more tangles. I think if I extend the boom on the side riggers I should not have a problem. I just thought this happened to someone else and they came up with a better fix.

Thanks for the help and info. I still want to see the response on how you know the direction of the fish.

[ray koziatek]

i look at getting tangled as a learning process ,yup it can happen to anyone and has happened to almost everyone (the rest lie).thats where the learning curve is and unless your pushing it in the curve you arnt learing too much .thats what i ment by learning your program for your boat.some things can be tought others learnd or never learnd (like my spellin) enjoy each tangle and dont do it again.

[Shade]

Thats why I said message clear. I got enough info from you guys and now and now its trial and error. Just need to get the basics back and what has changed over the years. But it never hurts to ask when you run into situations.

This is a great site with great fisherman......just keep it safe

[fosterm22]

I run all cannon mag 10s on my boat. My back riggers at about 2 foot boom, side riggers at about 3 foot boom. I too had MANY problems with my cables crossing, especially in the wicked currents off Braddocks Point.

After a few trips, I finally figured out that my back riggers must run deeper then the sides. My rigger with the probe- always being the deepest. Becuase of the blowback from the depth and the probe, my other back rigger is between 7-10 feet above it. When I catch a fish on one of the deep riggers, I clear and re-set the adjacent side rigger. I have not had my cables cross or any other problem since- including lure tangles. I can run my side riggers within 5-10 feet in depth to my back riggers without an issue to get all the lures in the strike zone

Some guys will argue that it might be "overkill" but it literally takes less then 1 minute and you would be surprised how many times you will pull a rod to find some seaweed or garbage on the hook. I would rather take the extra minute to re-set that troll for an hour with a chunk of garbage on my hook.

[Shade]

On the left side of my boat I have a Ray Jefferson speed and temp probe that runs off a transducer so I need to keep my cable kinda tite to the boat to get my reading. This year we out a Cannon SnT on the right side. The nice part of the cannon it tells you the depth as well. What this told me is my rigger says 50' in reality I am only at 42' using 12 LB balls. On the side riggers, which I always run deeper that the rigger shows 60' In reality I am down 49'. I went out to the boat and on my side riggers I exstended the booms from 30" to 42" plus I added one pound to my side rigger balls and 1/2 lb to my rear rigger balls,now when the rigger shows 60' I am at 55' and the rear 50' now 45' now I can make my adjustments to put them in the strike zone. This will also allow me to make the necessary turns when the traffic is heavy. All 4 riggers are now running about 20 degrees or less at 3.0 troll speed and less when I run 2.2 - 2.5. Hopefully no more tangles.........

[Zebedee]

I could never figure out why I don't seem to have more of a variation. I run 2 Mag 10's off the back and if I have an extra 5 ft of line out (beyond my fishfinder depth reading), my balls bounce. I run about a 25 deg angle....I'm no trig expert but I thought the difference would have been more than that.

Speed-n-temp....I've never run one but I've been on a boat with a Fishhawk. What seems to be the best? I gather from most of the posts that Moor Sub-troll 900 seems to be most popular. I was talking to a kid at BPS and he said the Canon S-n-T also reports light at the ball....I thought that was kind of interesting. I haven't heard too many reports on that, but I imagine that would affect color selection.

[Shade]

Zeb,

The amount of blowback is different from each boat I would think plus, speed and ball weight. I run a Thompson and I put down 3' cable before I hit water. Why I run 7 1/2 - 8' med - light rods so I can get my tips closer to the water.

Having 25 degree you should be about 5' difference.

[emtystringer]

SHADE, a cheap way to help your problem is purchase a piece of 1 inch alluminum conduit cut it in half insert your rigger ends and you will have 6 foot booms off the side of your boat for a bigger spread ,thats what i did and no problems.

[Shade]

Ray,

Did you ever get a responce to How you know what direction fish is going?

I am curious, because I have no clue.

[ray koziatek]

i dont have a frigging clue either>>>>>>>>>>>>........unless they bite