©2006 Tsunami Fishing Systems
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View From The Helm
Recent news items and commentary...
Deep Jigging Seminar
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Downrigger Seminar
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PLBs vs. EPIRBs
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Recent Articles
Along with the seminar on the Shimano Butterfly jigging system, we attended
a seminar by Cannon on downrigger setup and use . It also proved
to be very useful, providing some great tips. The highlights:
Use a snubber to attach the weight -The speaker
uses a polyurethane shock cord (similar to the one shown to the
left) to attach the weight to the wire. The reason - if the ball snags on the bottom,
the cord stretches and hopefully pulls the ball free without the massive shock that
would occur it the ball was attached directly to the cable. If the ball does not
pull free, the snubber will break - better than ripping the downrigger off the mount!
Clips and Grips - Rather than use a permanently-attached release
clip, the speaker uses a clamp like the one shown on the right to
attach the release clip to the cable. The release clip is crimped to a short length
of cable which is attached to the bend of the clamp. The clamp jaws go over
the downrigger cable at the desired location above the weight. This arrangement
has the advantage of allowing for removable and vertical adjustment of the release
clip.
How Low Can You Go? The speaker offered these easy guidelines
for depth control:
Rather than sweat the details of blowback angle on the depth of the weight
(you do remember your high school trigonometry, right?), just let out the amount
of cable for the depth you want to fish.
Won't the lure actually be running higher than that? Yes, but the
logic is that predator fish look up, so it is bettter to err on the side of being
too high than too low. If you want, add a bit more, but not too much.
- The speaker's rule of thumb: at speeds of 2 - 4 knots, you will get a maximum
of 10 feet of depth for every pound of weight. Thus, a 10 lb weight
will be able to run 100' down. If you want to go deeper, you have to add more weight.
Can't you let out more cable? Yes, but it won't do you any good.
Letting out more cable causes more drag, which just causes more blowback, which
prevents the weight from travelling any deeper.
Lure Setback - The speaker sets the lure back no more
than 20 feet before clipping in . The downrigger cable already places the
lure away from the boat, and in his experience, fish were not spooked by having
the weight and cable that close to the lure. Keeping the lure close makes it much
easier to maneuver the boat.
Spectra vs. metal wire for the downrigger cable - The
speaker felt that Spectra instead of wire would work, but he was also a proponent
of using positive ion control systems such as those sold by Canon and Scottie.
Obviously, you can't use these systems with Spectra, since it does not conduct electricity.
- Lever drag reels - The speaker confirmed our conclusion that lever
drag reels make setting up downriggers much easier. That's because when you drop
down a downrigger ball with a star drag reel, the water drag on the line tends to
pull line off the reel, even with the clicker on. With a lever drag reel, you can take
off enough drag to allow the downrigger ball to pull out line, but not enough
to let line drag pull out line.
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