There is a lot more to downrigger fishing than just attaching a cannonball and dropping it into the water to your desired depth. There are many factors to concider - the weight, shape or style and of coarse the color of cannonball are all factors that can contribute to your success or lack thereof.
Most anglers buy into the theory that cannonballs need to be as unobtrusive as possible. Most anglers use natural lead, black or other dark-colored cannonballs because they believe that they become invisible or inconspicuous at certain depths. I have a friend that directed me onto colored DR balls aboout five years ago who swears by chartreuse cannonballs. He claimed that they helped to attract fish to his gear. The number of fish he puts to the boat each trip would seem to lend some credence to that theory. I asked him to work with me to see what effect color would have at different depths, speeds and light conditions[ie, overcast or bright clear days] and water clarity.
We tried colors like black, red, white, orange and chartreuse...our best balanced results were on white, chartreuse and a 50/50 chartreuse and flo. orange colored ball.
Orange will not be visible in the deeper depths as it is the second color to turn black and almost disapear underwater. The silhouette of the ball will be what the fish see. After having success with colored balls - I decided to do glow...as my smaller glow balls and dink wieghts as well as sliders for cut plug, were successful on salmon, hali and other groundfish...born the 12lb. and 15lb. glow ball, and they work.
Listing colors in order of preference; chartreuse, glow, 50/50[chart-orange], and white - after these, we did not find that there was much difference between that and a plain lead ball when opting to use the ball as an attractor. We are now experimenting with UV enhanced colors...
Cheers,
RVP.
