The Outdoor Line Forum

First off, good show this morning
Second, I heard a little snip it of you saying you have switched to braid for downrigger fishing. What benefits have you found to make the switch and what weight braid do you run?

not sure what Nelly is running, but I've got braid on my Scotty's for a few reasons; less blowback, easier to re-rig on the water if you snag a ball (tie Palomar knot vs. getting your crimping stuff out), and it lasts a lot longer that cable, like many years. seems like cable corrodes pretty quick and has to be replaced yearly. the downside of braid is it's less durable if you snag a derelict pot or the like, and you have to be careful handling it under tension or you can cut the crap out of yourself. I run 200# Power Pro, each rigger is loaded with 450'. couple seasons with cable, now a couple with braid and I will not be going back to cable.

I am already running deamia cable on my Scotty's . They were talking about on there rods I think.

Call me crazy but I used braid for 2 seasons. I honestly feel like I lost opportunity's at fish. Obviously when you use cable its gonna put off some sort of a electrical field. If its to hot...(Bad Ground)... your probly gonna scare some fish away. But if its grounded properly i feel that some current down there is good thing. Getting a drive by from a fish and your cable is spittin out the right current I think your gonna get some interest from some fish that may not be interested if your runnin braid. My personal opinion is that if your usin it right cable will out fish braid in the long run. Just my 2 cents.

As for braid while downrigger fishin... I think my favorite part of fishin off the rigger is my hook sets. I see myself yardin hooks out of mouths if I was using braid.

Good morning y'all and congratulations Brandon in your win in the Northwest Salmon Derby Series event yesterday at the Everett Coho Derby!!!

We were talking about braid on our reels with a 25 foot top shot of high vis mono.
With this line combination, the mono fits in traditional downrigger releases, but the smaller diameter and lower stretch of braid helps to read strikes more easily and adds to your hook setting effectiveness as well!

As far as downrigger cable goes, well,... I'm a stainless steel Cannon Camo Cable kinda guy. I've tried braid on one side of the boat and wire on the other and voltage controlled wire wins every time.

Incidentally, the Cannon Terminators are far superior to crimps to attach the downrigger ball hook to your wire.

Thanks guys... You just gave me a great blog idear!! I will get cranking on that real soon!!

What do you mean by voltage controlled or grounded stainless cable? How would you ground the cable?

WABOWMAN wrote:I am already running deamia cable on my Scotty's . They were talking about on there rods I think.

whoops. teaches me for butting in. thought you were talking about on the downrigger.

as far as on the reel, I used both on reels last season, 20# mono on one and 50# braid with 40' of 25# fluoro topshot on the other. i think i like the braid a bit better because once again it has less blowback when trolling and it seems like i can load the rod up more, have less slack when the fish hits and pops it out of the clip and get a better hook set. that being said, with pink season coming up, i want all the shock absorsion i can get, so those rods will all be mono.

WABOWMAN wrote:What do you mean by voltage controlled or grounded stainless cable? How would you ground the cable?

Hey WBM, first off... You said "grounded"... Not I.
I said "voltage controlled" and I do owe you an explanation.
All Cannon Downriggers have Positive Ion Control which imposes a fish attracting -or a non fish repelling- voltage on your downrigger wire.
Similar to the various aftermarket "black box" accessories available, Positive Ion Control reduces the natural electolysis which occurs between the stainless 'rigger wire and your boat's zinc sacrificial anodes while your boat is in salt or brackish water.
Boats without a black box or Positive Ion Control can repel fish and reduce your catch

T dub, Thanks for your input on both ends of the braid line up.

Nelly, that is very interesting and i will look into that a lot moor..I was down at my friends commercial
fishing boat a couple weeks ago and noticed how many zink's he had. i asked him about it and he said something along the same line as you did.I think i will ask him more about it.
Thank you both,
Mike