Welcome aboard the 'rigger express 'Creek!
I realize there's a learning curve but like anything else, practice makes perfect!
One way to view downrigger fishing is that it's just one of the tools in your box and I'll bet that your mooching background has put you on the fast track to trolling success. In other words, there are aspects to mooching that have taught you things about trolling and vice versa.
While trolling, I always have mooching and jigging in the back of my mind so in a way, the low-effort, long duration technique of trolling is a way to finding opportunities to employ the high-effort, high-yield vertical techniques of mooching and jigging.
One key slide in my salmon angling PowerPoints has this statement and I stand by it:
"There are times and tides every day that one technique will out produce the others. Our challenge is to recognize the conditions that indicate the use of a particular technique"When you learn the best times to mooch, to jig and to troll you're on your way to becoming consistently successful as a complete salmon angler.
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