Fishtank:- if you are using braid on aluminum boat , you will not really be affected by the voltage issue:=
However.......if your boat is not up to snuff electrically (bad zincs, leaking voltage from connectors yada yada yada...)
It may affect your fishing in really shallow water and also if you are fishing a trailing rod really close behind the boat.
All boats give off a voltage "footprint' regardless of whether it's running downriggers or not.
But......by itself the "field" does not extend too far from the boat hull.......when you add wire lines to the equation that changes the outcome because the voltage extends down the lines. The hull and lines are positive /negative.
Good idea to keep everything "Up to par" anyway.......
Dave S.:- yes ...you can adjust the volatge up or down from .65 if you have wire lines and a black box.
You can only adjust it as much as the box itself will allow......but you can go either side of .65
Englishman:- for the wire line to work best you need the ball isolated. As long as there is some kind of non-electrical conducting isolation between the ball and the line you are o.k. Some guys do the run the ball connected to the line....but doing this will eff-up your line voltage.
If your natural voltage was .35 at the surface and you were fishing over 150ft deep you are no longer .35 on the bottom of the wire......you have probably fallen to about .25 or..30.
That is extremely low voltage anyhow......it may not have scared salmon away...but it wasn't in the "attractor" zone either.
How can you tell if your voltage is "off" on your lines or boathull without a meter?
If you play a fish and it seems normal until you get it to within 5 feet of the boat and then it goes snake-crap ballistic............your voltage is probably too high or it's at some point where the fish absolutely does not like it......duly noting that if you're voltage is so messed up, then why did the fish bite in the first place......
Wire line that is new out of the package will have the highest electrical response.
Over time as the wire is used, it will lose some of it's efficiency due to the salt water glazing and corroding the surface of the wire........even though it's called stainless.
Algae can leave a coat too.....
Lines that are never hosed off with fresh water after use will fade even quicker.
So you might find that certain settings on the box that worked with new line, do not work so well with line that has been used a lot for a season.
You COULD say that this is a good thing if you don't run a blackbox on your wire.
Your wire is so used, glazed, etched and coated with crap that it doesn't give off much of a voltage charge at all......therefor your voltage will never be too high.
You have to ask yourself....if wire was so damn good........why did they come out with braid?