# Need some help with trolling equipment



## Mr Muleskinner

I am looking to purchase four new trolling rods and reels for Lake Trout and really have no idea what to get. I would like to get the lightest setup that will do the trick for The Gorge that will also be effective for koks, bows, stripers and so forth on other lakes such as Strawberry, Bear, Powell etc.

Our new boat has 3 downriggers and one rod holder that we will be fishing with lead line. The boat also has what seems to be a pretty good fish finder.

I have read many times that a lot of people use 20 lb test setups but is that really necessary? What you you guys recommend for the 3 rods that will be set up with the downriggers and the other rod with the lead line. Reel and rod preferences that you guys prefer that don't break the bank? I would like to keep each rig to around $100.

The vast majority of fishing that I have done is stream fishing and when I have trolled on lakes it has been with smaller rods, pop gear and sinkers with no downriggers.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated with regards to trolling. Thanks Gents.


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## Mr Muleskinner

OK.......maybe $100 is a bit low. I don't know.....maybe those in the know are fishing right now instead of thinking about it.


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## Grandpa D

You will probably be using a different set up for Big Macs than you will use for Kokanee.
I don't troll for Macs but for Kokanee and Trout that are under 25" long, I like a light or medium light rod in 7' to 8' length. A good trolling rod will have at least 8 eyelets on a 7' rod. This helps the rod bend with the downrigger.

Many Kokanee anglers use bait casting rods and reels. I still like the old spinning set ups myself.
I use 8# or 6# line on my reels. Others will use heavier line.

For your long line set up, get a stiffer rod. Use 12# to 20# line on these reels, or leads line.
This set up is better for pop gear. I have a trolling reel with a line counter for this set up.
I don't use it very much though. I love the downriggers.
Remember that you can stack 2 lines on each downrigger. I use a shuttle hawk for this but you can also use a stacker clip.
Both are sold locally.


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## k2muskie

Well for us and we troll I'd strongly recommend trolling reels with line counters. We have Daiwa Sealine 17 and 27 and two Daiwa Accudepth 27s. This will take the guessing out of how much line you have out behind the boat. Also another tip is point the rod tips down and if they are in the water so be it. This will ensure lures you run you'll get them down to the lures running depth. Trolling is all about knowing your lures get down to the stated running depth with line out. We'll also ensure our lures are getting down to the stated depth range by running them in water first with stated line out and see if they tic the bottom.

If you plan on doing a lot of trolling you can't go wrong with an investment in this: _Precision Trolling The Trollers Bible_ Great book and covers a whole bunch of lures. A bit pricey but hey again for use has proven its $$ and paid for itself 10Xs over.

Looks like Cabelas is having sales on Daiwa line counter reels.

Heres a link to the Daiwa Sealine Reels:

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Daiwa-Se ... l+Products

Another link to Daiwa Accudepth:

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Daiwa-Ac ... l+Products

Again for trolling, reels with line counters for us at least are a must. Good Luck and with trolling you cover a whole lot of water...line counters will ensure you know how much line you have out


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## Mr Muleskinner

thanks for the help. Headed to Cabelas this afternoon. I prefer Sportsmans but their selection was not the greatest right now.


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## mzshooter

I use the Lamiglas Jared Johnson Team Kokanee Red Rod and the Tica Kokanee special reel they run $75 each or $150 Combo. They will handle any fish that Utah has even the big MACK’S. Look up rocktmountaintackle.com give Jared a call he’ll hook ya up.


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## DallanC

mzshooter said:


> I use the Lamiglas Jared Johnson Team Kokanee Red Rod and the Tica Kokanee special reel they run $75 each or $150 Combo. They will handle any fish that Utah has even the big MACK'S. Look up rocktmountaintackle.com give Jared a call he'll hook ya up.


I have two of those... one Tica reel has been fantastic, I've had NOTHING but trouble with the 2nd. i've sent it in for repairs but they've yet to fully fix it. Initially the line guide would stop on one side instead of moving back and forth (causing like to stack on one side of the reel... if too much stacks up it slips off and causes nasty backlash).

Now after the "repair", the line guide will get hung up and litterally lock up the entire reel.

I am *extremely* unhappy with Tica at the moment.

The poles however, are fantastic... absolutely fantastic!

-DallanC


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## swbuckmaster

You will need several different rods and reals. Different require different set ups. 

Kokanee need a long soft rod so you dot pull the hook out if the mouth. We use 20 lb test because you will catch an occasional big fish mack that will spool you if you dont. 

Lake trout need a long rod that is stiff but flexible and strong. I like 7 foot ugly sticks. We use up to 80lb test because if you are fishing properly you dont want to loose 20+ bucks worth all day long. 

Both set ups will do well with real counters.

Spin caster reals suck for trolling.


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## Mr Muleskinner

Thanks again. I was looking at the reds rods yesterday and was kind of leaning that way not really knowing much about them. I have read a lot of good things though since. I have never fished with downriggers before other than for tuna, dorado and marlin on salt water.

It sounds as if you typically want a lighter rod and don't run any pop gear. Is that a fair statement?


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## Mr Muleskinner

another question: How much line are you typically running behind the downrigger?


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## swbuckmaster

You can run pop gear. The blades we use for lake trout are as big as dinner plates and pull harder then a ten lb trout. 

You wont land much with light gear when it comes to those fish.

Down riggers can be hard on line if you are using light line. The clips tear it up. You wont break your line as much pulling the line out of the clips on hook ups. Sure you can find lighter clips but it seems all you do is spend all day hooken them back up. This sucks if your double stacking your riggs and cuts the time you have your lures in the water.

By the way my long line is made out of 120 lb steel line. You use gloves to handle it. It catches the crap out of the fish and they still fight plenty hard. 

leave the light line for fish that eat bugs in streams. If you use one big fish it simple isnt worth it if you ask me.


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## swbuckmaster

The deeper you go the closer you can get to the ball. Dont be afraid to hook it to the ball at the gorge.


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## Grandpa D

I have started to clip a pop gear set up on my downrigger and using a clip to run my rods from. This have proven to be very effective for Trout and Kokanee.
I don't chase Lake Trout so I don't use heavy line.

When I add the pop gear to the ball, I will run my dodger set up as close as 15' to 20' behind the ball. 
You want to see your tackle while the pop gear has their attention.


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## Dodger

DallanC said:


> mzshooter said:
> 
> 
> 
> I use the Lamiglas Jared Johnson Team Kokanee Red Rod and the Tica Kokanee special reel they run $75 each or $150 Combo. They will handle any fish that Utah has even the big MACK'S. Look up rocktmountaintackle.com give Jared a call he'll hook ya up.
> 
> 
> 
> I have two of those... one Tica reel has been fantastic, I've had NOTHING but trouble with the 2nd. i've sent it in for repairs but they've yet to fully fix it. Initially the line guide would stop on one side instead of moving back and forth (causing like to stack on one side of the reel... if too much stacks up it slips off and causes nasty backlash).
> 
> Now after the "repair", the line guide will get hung up and litterally lock up the entire reel.
> 
> I am *extremely* unhappy with Tica at the moment.
> 
> The poles however, are fantastic... absolutely fantastic!
> 
> -DallanC
Click to expand...

I hate to disagree with DallanC because he is very experienced and very good at downrigger fishing. When he, in particular, has something to say about downriggers, I listen.

I think what he said above is mostly accurate. Some Ticas work great, others are total junk. Jared (at RMT) likes them because they are levelwinds even though the parts they use are not the greatest quality. Ticas are cheap (relatively) and they will and do fall apart. I think there is a high profit margin on them and that's why they are the preferred reels at RMT.

In my opinion, you'd be much better off with a shimano calcutta or cardiff, if you want the levelwind features.

In the last couple of years I have purchased some Avet SXs for downriggers. Once you use a lever drag for downriggers, star drag reels will be as clumsy and painful to use as spinning reels on the downrigger. My Avets are tanks, have incredible gearing, comfortable handles, are butter smooth, and use top quality bearings and a carbon fiber drag washer. They will last for life.

I load them up with 12lb line for kokes, 15lb for macs at the Gorge. They have not disappointed.

The RMT rods, on the other hand, I have a lot of issues with. I bought one of the red rods a couple years ago and was really really disappointed with it. The best thing I have to say about it is that the lamiglas blank is a little stiff (probably because they are 2 piece rods) but otherwise great. The construction on the rod was awful.

I called Lami to match some of the guides and found out that they are the lowest quality guides made by Fuji. Look at the way the string wraps around each of the feet on the guide. There are places where you can see through the thread to the red blank underneath. There are places where you can see the guide feet underneath the thread. With the size of guide feet they are using, the attachment of the guide to the blank is structurally compromised. That makes the rods pretty fragile.

The cork is the lowest grade of cork you can get. The reel seat is too small for most reel feet (except Ticas, I wonder why?). When I removed the reel seat from mine, I found that the factory used twine as a bushing to epoxy the seat to the blank. The twine was not fully permeated with epoxy and there wasn't enough epoxy to hold the reel seat to the blank under any pressure at all. In short, the construction on these rods is awful.

I rebuilt mine into a spinning reel setup and gave it to a friend. It's a much better rod now, but that's because I basically rebuilt it from scratch, including re-wrapping all of the guides even though the silver/black color scheme looks like the stock rods did. Since I was giving the rod away to a buddy, and it will only be used once or twice a year, I didn't invest in nicer guides, opting to just match the stock guides to convert it from a casting setup to a spinning set up. (Spinning reels with a rear drag is my buddy's preference).














































Unfortunately, there is nothing on the market now that I like for kokanee. So, I build all of my own rods on the Batson RDR76L blank. It's a 7' 6" one piece blank. I use 11 Forecast UD guides on the 7' 6" blanks. I personally hook up about 90% more hits than I did with downrigger setups using tackle from other companies (including a Shimano Talora, TDR, and Compre rod with a calcutta 200b, Ugly Stick, Abu Garcia, and W.W. Griggs.) Those that I take for the first time to use the downriggers probably hook up about 50% more of the hits they get with my rods than with the stuff I used to have first-timers use.

With kokanee, nice rigs are pretty expensive and there is no rig that I am aware of that will work well for both kokanee and lake trout. My light kokanee rigs are too soft to set the hook on large lake trout and my lake trout rods rip hooks right through kokanee mouths. I built other rods for lake trout.

I hope that's helpful.


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## Mr Muleskinner

Great help folks thanks.

Well.........we picked up some gear and headed up to Strawberry yesterday. Very windy but we caught ALOT of fish and had a good time overall but had some highly frustrating issues. Hopefully somebody can help us out here.

First off here is the gear that we have now:
2006 Crestliner 2485 Sport LX Pontoon with 2 captain chairs up front (115 hp outboard with a trolling plate)
3 Cannon Mag 20DT/HS down riggers. (2 are mounted up front with the chairs and one in back behind the captains chair)
One rod holder mounted on the stern, port side for a lead line rod (can't mount the a downrigger there)
3 Lamiglas red rods
3 Penn 9m reels (15 lb test)
1 Fenwick HMX Casting Rod (for the lead line reel)
1 Penn 209m (loaded with 18# lead core)

OK....here is the list off issues that we had in spite of the fact that three of us caught well over twenty fish. (released them all but kept one bog fat Koke)

1. The line clamps would rarely release the line on the strike unless we clamped it at the very tip of the clamp, in which case, it would generally release the the line before we even got it to trolling depth. This meant we had to watch the line very close for a strike and if we got one we either had to yank on the pole which most often just meant that we were folding our new rods in half or we would have to raise the downrigger and release the line by hand. This most often meant that we were going to get tangled with the other lines or worse yet, we were going to be bring the line up into the prop in the event that the fish crossed under the boat once hooked. This was major problem. Tangled lines several times and 4 trips back to the prop to unwind line. Fortunately every time there was also line caught on the trolling plate or elsewhere so that we never lost any tackle and in fact pulled the fish in by hand that was still on the line. 

I assume we need to purchase some different clamps.....? The last owner fished only for Macks at Bear Lake.

2. The drag on the Penn reels is junk and setting the drag to the least amount of resistance still meant that the line had to be pulled buy hand when lowering the line to depth with the downrigger. This meant that we would loosen the downrigger clutch and control its descent with one hand while pulling line with the other, all of the while hoping that the clamp (which barely had the line clamped would not release the line prior to reaching our target depth). Not impressed with these Penn reels at all.

I am most likely going to to see if I can return the reels that we bought.

3. The cannon downriggers (electric) lower and raise the weight at lightning speed. With the other issues that we were having this compounded every problem) I don't know that this can be changed or if it needs to once the other problems are addressed.

4. Trolling on a pontoon boat that has the fishing chairs on the bow is a challenge. One must be very careful releasing the line so as to not get it caught up with other lines that are on the stern. The other issues that we had with the clamps compounded everything with regards to this. We can not mount the downriggers on the stern other than the one that is already mounted there due to the seating arrangement. We did have the bow downriggers extended as far as we could (about 5-6 feet) and ran the back downrigger straight back. (coincidentally the back downrigger seamed to also interfere a bit with the fishfinder)

We never did use the lead line since there were only three of us fishing and we had our hands full anyhow.

While we did still manage to have a great time in spite of the terrible wind and our own idiocy, there were many times that I was wishing that we had opted for a river and a fly rod yesterday.

Thanks for any help and all that you have given.


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## Dodger

Mr Muleskinner said:


> Great help folks thanks.
> 
> Well.........we picked up some gear and headed up to Strawberry yesterday. Very windy but we caught ALOT of fish and had a good time overall but had some highly frustrating issues. Hopefully somebody can help us out here.
> 
> First off here is the gear that we have now:
> 2006 Crestliner 2485 Sport LX Pontoon with 2 captain chairs up front (115 hp outboard with a trolling plate)
> 3 Cannon Mag 20DT/HS down riggers. (2 are mounted up front with the chairs and one in back behind the captains chair)
> One rod holder mounted on the stern, port side for a lead line rod (can't mount the a downrigger there)
> 3 Lamiglas red rods
> 3 Penn 9m reels (15 lb test)
> 1 Fenwick HMX Casting Rod (for the lead line reel)
> 1 Penn 209m (loaded with 18# lead core)


That's quite a setup. The Penn drags will be a little sticky for what you are doing. Plus, it is nice to have a button to push on a star drag reel that will let you pay out the line a little quicker. The Penn 9s will work but that may be something you'd like to upgrade in the future.



Mr Muleskinner said:


> OK....here is the list off issues that we had in spite of the fact that three of us caught well over twenty fish. (released them all but kept one bog fat Koke)
> 
> 1. The line clamps would rarely release the line on the strike unless we clamped it at the very tip of the clamp, in which case, it would generally release the the line before we even got it to trolling depth. This meant we had to watch the line very close for a strike and if we got one we either had to yank on the pole which most often just meant that we were folding our new rods in half or we would have to raise the downrigger and release the line by hand. This most often meant that we were going to get tangled with the other lines or worse yet, we were going to be bring the line up into the prop in the event that the fish crossed under the boat once hooked. This was major problem. Tangled lines several times and 4 trips back to the prop to unwind line. Fortunately every time there was also line caught on the trolling plate or elsewhere so that we never lost any tackle and in fact pulled the fish in by hand that was still on the line.
> 
> I assume we need to purchase some different clamps.....? The last owner fished only for Macks at Bear Lake.


You'll get a hundred opinion on releases. I personally hate the clamp kinds. They squeeze the line too tight, in my opinion. I use the large scotty releases (not the minis) for all fish. You'll have to get a feel for how deep to set the line in the jaws. About even with the black stripe on the releases works for me.

You also need to get a LOT of bend in your rods. And when I say a lot, I mean like an upside down U. Like this, in fact, these are my rigs in action:










When you snap out, tighten the drag slightly (or put your thumb on the spool). Reel down, bending at the waist as you gain line, and then stand up. You should snap out of the release easily. It takes some practice but getting smoothly out of the release is the difference between hooking the fish and missing the hit.

Fixing your problems with the releases will fix your problems with snags in the prop.



Mr Muleskinner said:


> 2. The drag on the Penn reels is junk and setting the drag to the least amount of resistance still meant that the line had to be pulled buy hand when lowering the line to depth with the downrigger. This meant that we would loosen the downrigger clutch and control its descent with one hand while pulling line with the other, all of the while hoping that the clamp (which barely had the line clamped would not release the line prior to reaching our target depth). Not impressed with these Penn reels at all.
> 
> I am most likely going to to see if I can return the reels that we bought.


Yeah, the Penn 9 isn't the best choice for downriggers. You need a butter smooth drag that you typically only see in higher end reels. If you can take the penn 9s back, I would do it.

But, getting the right releases will help a lot here too.



Mr Muleskinner said:


> 3. The cannon downriggers (electric) lower and raise the weight at lightning speed. With the other issues that we were having this compounded every problem) I don't know that this can be changed or if it needs to once the other problems are addressed.


The problem isn't really with the downrigger, you are right. The problem is with 1) the smoothness of your drag on the reel and 2) the releases. You'll need to set the line a little deeper in the jaws of the release with electric riggers but you still shouldn't have any problem snapping out. You just need a little practice snapping out. Reel down, bend at the waist, stand up and you're out. A little practice and you'll be fine.



Mr Muleskinner said:


> 4. Trolling on a pontoon boat that has the fishing chairs on the bow is a challenge. One must be very careful releasing the line so as to not get it caught up with other lines that are on the stern. The other issues that we had with the clamps compounded everything with regards to this. We can not mount the downriggers on the stern other than the one that is already mounted there due to the seating arrangement. We did have the bow downriggers extended as far as we could (about 5-6 feet) and ran the back downrigger straight back. (coincidentally the back downrigger seamed to also interfere a bit with the fishfinder)


That's a little tough because it's not just the angle of the downrigger, it's the angle of the line after the fish hits it. The fish would probably just bring it up into the prop. I don't have any riggers on the bow so I'm not as familiar with this. My best suggestion would be for the person fishing in front to move to the back as quickly as possible after snapping out of the release. Either that, or leaving the rod in a rod holder in the back of the boat while snapping into the release on the bow rigger on the front of the boat. Neither is a great solution. But, that's the nature of trolling from the front of the boat. Can you get rod holders in the back even if you can't get the downriggers themselves back there?

The only other solution I have is to keep the back downrigger much higher or much deeper in the water column than the front downriggers. It might prevent a couple of tangles.

The back downrigger will read on the fish finder, that's normal. It can also be really helpful at a place like the Gorge so you can see exactly where everything is happening and if you are too close to the bottom, or not close enough in some cases. It's just something to get used to. If your fish finder shows you the actual fish arches instead of little fish figures on the screen, you can see anything that is there through the line on the fish finder if you look closely.



Mr Muleskinner said:


> We never did use the lead line since there were only three of us fishing and we had our hands full anyhow.
> 
> While we did still manage to have a great time in spite of the terrible wind and our own idiocy, there were many times that I was wishing that we had opted for a river and a fly rod yesterday.
> 
> Thanks for any help and all that you have given.


It takes a little practice to get used to the downriggers. Some of it, as you found out, is hard earned. But 20 fish is still a good day for a first trip. I run stackers of 2 riggers (4 total lines) and lead core out the back. It took a while to figure out how to do that without getting any tangles.

Keep at it, you'll see bigger and better fish from downriggers than anything else.


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## Mr Muleskinner

Thanks a ton Dodger,

We did have a bend on the rod like you have shown and will look at relocating the rod holders as well. I will also read up on how to rig stackers. At the very least I thing that we could run two lines off of the stern downrigger?

Excuse my idiocy but it is correct in what I have read then that the clamp is not supposed to release upon the fish striking? That the fisherman is to release as you have said by bending at the waist, reeling in and standing up during the strike and set the hook? I just want to be clear. All of my trolling experience is with sinkers and pop gear.

The fishfinder is set up to show either fish characters or the arches. It is a hummingbird 788CI HD DI. Fairly simple to use but it seemed as the wind pick up and lake got more choppy it wasn't show fish near as much as clutter. A learning curve in of itself.

BTW......we did catch a couple of real hogs yesterday but decided to release them all. We normally catch and release just about everything other than what we plan to eat within a days time. When we were inspected by the game and fish they were real surprised that we caught so many fish but only kept one big fat koke.


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## Dodger

It's my pleasure. The curve on fishing with riggers is a little steep. I started from nothing when few, if any, here did it actively. There was a lot of trial and error back then. I feel like I have it down much better now.



Mr Muleskinner said:


> Thanks a ton Dodger,
> 
> We did have a bend on the rod like you have shown and will look at relocating the rod holders as well. I will also read up on how to rig stackers. At the very least I thing that we could run two lines off of the stern downrigger?


Absolutely. That shouldn't be too hard at all. The farther back in the boat you can run your lines, the less you are going to be in your prop. I usually keep my stackers at least 10 feet apart on the same line and at least 5 feet above or below any other line on the other side of the boat. The farther the better, but when the bite is on, you have to do what you have to do, right? You'll have to get a stacker release which attaches to the steel cable on the downrigger rather than the weight. There are a lot of stacker releases. But, here too, I prefer the scotty releases. Most stacker kits will slide down the cable. Scottys don't.

Also, typically on the stacker lines, you don't let your line out as far as you would with the cannonball release. And, how far to let out is determined by the type of fishing and time of year. This time of the year, I keep my lure close to the rigger ball for macs but well off (100-200 ft) for kokes. It's not an exact science. (We joke about letting line out in "ages and days." For lead core, you want at least a couple of ages. For kokanee, you want about a day and a half. And for stackers you want about a day. For macs, you want about 10'."



Mr Muleskinner said:


> Excuse my idiocy but it is correct in what I have read then that the clamp is not supposed to release upon the fish striking? That the fisherman is to release as you have said by bending at the waist, reeling in and standing up during the strike and set the hook? I just want to be clear. All of my trolling experience is with sinkers and pop gear.


No idiocy. Don't feel bad at all. There's a lot to downriggers. Ask everything you can think of.

To answer your question, yes and no. How's that for helpful? You want just enough tension that you won't snap out while dropping your line. In theory, the tension should be just enough to have a fish snap you out when it hits. In practice, only the biggest fish will do that. I have caught several that snap me out of the release and they were all hogs. (I caught a 4+ pound rainbow last year at the Gorge that hit so hard, he picked up a 10 pound downrigger ball 2 or 3 feet before the line snapped out of the rigger. When it snapped out, the downrigger ball fell 2 or 3 feet and shook the whole boat. ) Generally, it is normal that the fisherman has to snap out himself. Every time I take someone new out, the first thing we do is drop to 20 feet and I have them practice snapping out. It is critical to snap out well and smoothly. The better you do it, the more fish you'll have in your boat. Get a feel for it, it will pay off.



Mr Muleskinner said:


> The fishfinder is set up to show either fish characters or the arches. It is a hummingbird 788CI HD DI. Fairly simple to use but it seemed as the wind pick up and lake got more choppy it wasn't show fish near as much as clutter. A learning curve in of itself.


That's normal too. The more choppy things get, the less accurate your fish finder will be, especially towards the top of the water column. You might need to adjust your sensitivity a little bit. One winter I downloaded an emulator for my lowrance fish finder and played with it for the whole winter. It made a big difference in helping me learn to read the finder and get it set up the way I want it. Now that I "get it" a little more, I can predict, fairly accurately, when we will get hits. I did it 10 or 12 times this past weekend at the Gorge. It really weirded my buddies out until they realized how I was doing it. :mrgreen:



Mr Muleskinner said:


> BTW......we did catch a couple of real hogs yesterday but decided to release them all. We normally catch and release just about everything other than what we plan to eat within a days time. When we were inspected by the game and fish they were real surprised that we caught so many fish but only kept one big fat koke.


That's great. They put a lot of rainbows in Strawberry because they expect people to come out with a stringer full of them. Not too many people are excited to put them back, especially at Strawberry. I'm really glad you got that big koke. They are an exciting fish to catch.

We caught about 70 at the Gorge this last weekend. We had our limits on the first day in 3 hours. Downriggers work and are a lot more fun than pop gear and sinkers!


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## wyogoob

Grandpa D said:


> I have started to clip a pop gear set up on my downrigger and using a clip to run my rods from. This have proven to be very effective for Trout and Kokanee.
> I don't chase Lake Trout so I don't use heavy line.
> 
> When I add the pop gear to the ball, I will run my dodger set up as close as 15' to 20' behind the ball.
> You want to see your tackle while the pop gear has their attention.


Dangit Dale. Are you using those downrigger weights I give ya?


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## Grandpa D

wyogoob said:


> Grandpa D said:
> 
> 
> 
> I have started to clip a pop gear set up on my downrigger and using a clip to run my rods from. This have proven to be very effective for Trout and Kokanee.
> I don't chase Lake Trout so I don't use heavy line.
> 
> When I add the pop gear to the ball, I will run my dodger set up as close as 15' to 20' behind the ball.
> You want to see your tackle while the pop gear has their attention.
> 
> 
> 
> Dangit Dale. Are you usinjg those downrigger weights I give ya?
Click to expand...

You bet I am.
I love them. 
Guess I shouldn't call them balls.

I have had some people ask me where I got them.
Should I send they your way?


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## Mr Muleskinner

Returned the Penn reels today. Sportsmans didn't have any shimanos to play with so I took off and will look elsewhere. Still looking at all options. That said......*Do any of you use bait casting reels for trolling?*

Picked up some new releases and a couple more dodgers. Excited to fish again. Hope to fly fish this weekend as well.


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## Dodger

By baitcasting reels, you mean low profile reels like the Shimano Curado? Or do you mean baitcasting reels like the Shimano Calcutta?

I have not used low profile baitcasters. But, I have used several calcuttas. Take a look at the Avet SX too. You won't be sorry.

Dodgers for me are like shoes for my wife. I just can't stop myself when I see one I like. 

They can also get a little unwieldy in the tackle box. I bought a 3 ring binder and some 4x6 plastic 3 ring picture album pages from staples and put some little velcro sticky dots in each one. They are the perfect size for #00 and slingblade style dodgers. It keeps them all in one place and lets you see the selection easily. 

Good luck this weekend.


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## Mr Muleskinner

Great idea with the velcro. 

I was referring to the low profile reels. I was going to snag a few calcuttas but none were in stock. I'll look at the Avets. Thanks


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## Dodger

Honestly, I don't think the low profile reels are going to hold enough line for you. If you tie into a big lake trout, line capacity is the last thing you'll want to worry about. It just isn't worth the stress.

I just sold a couple of used calcutta 250s on KSL that were great little reels. But, I only sold them because I upgraded to avets. :mrgreen: 

I made a hoochie binder the same way (for all of my squids) except I used the plastic pages for trading cards (baseball cards, etc) to keep those in. I'm really happy with that one too.


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## Moostickles

I've trolled with my bait casters and they worked fine for what I was doing, but if you are looking to use them exclusively for trolling, don't do it. As Dodger said, they do not hold enough line if you are fishing deeper and hook a big one.

Of my trolling reels, my favorite is my Okuma levelwind w/ line counter. Very smooth drag and it has held up well. It also has couple saltwater trips to Alaska for king and silver salmon under its belt.


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## Mr Muleskinner

Ended up by three shimano cardiffs. Good reel but not overly impressed with the drag on them much better than the penn 9m though. New releases worked great and the bend and stand method worked excellent. 

We spent the day at strawberry yesterday. No prop catches and only tangled our line together twice. Not bad at all I thought. Netted 36 fish between 3 rods. One of them was a decent koke that we kept and we kept one rainbow. Released the rest. There several fish that we could not distinguish whether they were bows or cutts but we were releasing them anyway. Great day of fishing. Thanks for all of the great tips. Need a lot more time on the fish finder but it does seem to do the trick.


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## Dodger

Mr Muleskinner said:


> Ended up by three shimano cardiffs. Good reel but not overly impressed with the drag on them much better than the penn 9m though. New releases worked great and the bend and stand method worked excellent.
> 
> We spent the day at strawberry yesterday. No prop catches and only tangled our line together twice. Not bad at all I thought. Netted 36 fish between 3 rods. One of them was a decent koke that we kept and we kept one rainbow. Released the rest. There several fish that we could not distinguish whether they were bows or cutts but we were releasing them anyway. Great day of fishing. Thanks for all of the great tips. Need a lot more time on the fish finder but it does seem to do the trick.


That's great. The cardiffs are not a bad reel at all. Sometimes the shimano drags can be a little sticky but compared to the Penn 9, well, there is no comparison. If you want to upgrade the drags, you can get new drag washers from smoothdrag.com that are slick as slick can be. It's an easy upgrade.

Very glad to hear that the releases treated you right and that bend and stand worked. Once you get the feel for it, you won't have to be as deliberate in your snap outs. When I have folks on the boat with me, they will get lazy and stop bending over but then they don't get out well and miss their fish. I have to remind them, frequently.

Congrats on a great day on the water. I hope the tips made for a better day for your boat, that's the goal.


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## Mr Muleskinner

those tips made all of the difference in the world. Instead of a great day fishing in spite of things it was just a great day of fishing. Thanks!


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## Dodger

My pleasure. Let me know if you have more questions. PMs are cool too.


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