Cannon Downriggers

[sly_karma]

When I started out I bought a pair of used Cannon Mag 10s. The auto-stop feature was slick, but otherwise I did not like them! I sold them on again and bought a pair of brand new Scotty 1106s.

The final straw to get rid of the Cannons was this: the brake is controlled with a knob on the side of the unit....and the knob turns when the spool is turning (when retrieving) Several times I ended up having clothing or other items get tangled up with the knob, and the last event was my net getting tangled up while I was playing a fish solo. I couldn't get the net untangled and I lost the fish at the boat due to my confusion and frustration.

Besides the knob issue, my older Mag 10s had painted steel booms and while the paint seemed pretty good, there was little rust spots where the paint was scratched. The collars for telescoping the boom were fiddly and took a good grip to tighten them up. Not easy with cold, wet hands.

Also, the swivel base had a small tee handle that again wasn't great with cold wet hands.

I feel like the Scotty 1106 is a more rugged, easier to use unit, and spare parts are everywhere. The design of the Scotty seems crude until you use it and then it's just simple and tough. And, Scotty is a Canadian company eh!

That's my take on this.

Real world experience. You tried them, they had limitations. Thanks for the post.

 

[mikep]

The digitroll series is much better than the previous versions. I agree with Nog, once you understand how to use the cannons and take advantage of their benifits scotties cant touch em.

 

[wishiniwasfishin1]

The digitroll series is much better than the previous versions. I agree with Nog, once you understand how to use the cannons and take advantage of their benifits scotties cant touch em.

genuinely curious.... how does digitroll enhance the fishing experience? is it because the rigger is raised and lowered automatically?
I mean if we are getting to the point where working contours is too much trouble to do manually we might as well just go one step
Further and get the rigger to reel
In the fish as well.
Intuitively it seems like the spool
Is in a better position with the orientation the way it is on the Cannon vs the Scotty. Is the motor better? Scottys always seem to have issues cropping up but then again are easy to fix. Have you ever had any mechanical failure with the cannons on the water?

 

[wildmanyeah]

My brother bought a used electric Scotty rigger that was really old of face book for cheap. He phone up Scotty and told them it did not work. They said ship it to them they rebuilt the entire thing and only charged him shipping.

 

[Whole in the Water]

Like I said, very hard to find better customer service than at Scotty!

 

[kingblazer84]

Where cannon has the upper hand and its the only upper hand on scotty is the manual riggers, their side crank handle system is far superior to the scotty horizontal rotation setup IMO.

 

[mikep]

scotty downriggers are great for the 99% of users they have great customer service and are pretty bulletproof. I think the 1106 downrigger is the best unit they build as long as you are fishing 15# weights or less. They can take a brutal amount of punishment and will keep going. Great for guiding or people who just want to use it and walk away from it every day. low maintenance....

the 2106 high speed is really fast, great if all you need to do is fish deep all the time. I think they are totally overkill fishing shallows with less than 15#. They have one speed up and its real quick. good drivetrain. Their digital counters truly suck. We always had failures on the set of 4 which we had. It got really old having to take a bunch of extra lids fishing because you knew they would fail. super annoying. Sold those things because it got annoying...

bought cannons digitroll 10s and a 5 in 2016 because of the following reasons:

1. They can pull a 20# ball
2. power decent
3. preset favorite depths (choose your depth hit run and the unit takes your gear there and stops). Super useful when you are fishing really deep or alone running 2 rods.
4. ability to run braid without stopper beads. just tell it where water zero is and it figures out the rest.
5. adjustable decent and retrieval speed. this is really nice. If your fishing lighter balls or shallow or BAIT you can slow them down
6. digital display that actually works, we have not had a failure on them yet.
7. bottom tracking (never actually used it but if that your thing it has it)
8. cycling can move your bait between two user defined depths at a user defined timer intervals. example cycles between 50 and 75 ft every minute or 5 min or whatever you want. ( works great in terminal fisheries with picky biters)
9. can get a stainless steel spool which will never warp or split.
10. never had a rod holder snap off losing my 1500$ combo
11. rod holders are located inside the gunnel of the boat so they are easier to reach than the boom mounted scotty.
12. worm drive gear box with no belts to snap

Is that enough reasons?

what has failed on us in the last 5 years...
one controller has died (300$)
one case developed a crack (fixed under lifetime warrenty)
one thermal breaker died last trip out (4$ part) that would be covered under warrenty

I think that's it....

yes they are expensive and no they are not quite as fast as a 2106.....but they are close

I think that you really need to have three for the just in case moment....we bought 2 digitroll 10s and a 5 for the spare. The 5 has a few less features but the same drive train.

just some of my thoughts...

 

[IronNoggin]

... just some of my thoughts...

Well Said.

Cheers,
Nog

 

[Gear'n'beer!]

I tried cannons when I guided in tofino....how many cannons you see donated to local charities or derbies? Don't see Many cannons at little fund raising derbies.....don't see many cannon guys volunteering at net pen or hatcheries.
Nuff said

 

[mikep]

Yup thats a good reason not to buy them.............we had a lot of issues with the hp scotties in the beginning and got really tired of being the test subjects. Your lifetime warranty doesn't help when you are fishing in the middle of nowhere....

cannon downriggers work really well for us. They are not for everyone but we tend to like to buck trends...

 

[myles]

One of this nice perks about scotty too is that if you have some spare parts on board you can make quick repairs while out fishing. Some times too much tech, while cool and handy can be frustrating if too complicated and not easy to fix.

I run Cannons. They are machines and they can break like anything else. The important part is knowing your downrigger and having the tools/spares on board to fix them. Not any harder to fix the mechanical components of a Cannon than a Scotty IMO. Both are good systems for different reasons. I like my cannons more personally.

 

[Wondermur]

I went on a friends boat that runs Magnum 10 Cannons. He had never fished from his boat so I went out a week ago to show him how to fish from downriggers etc
QUESTION: The speed was very very slow, can this speed be changed / increased for retrieving the ball. We were using 15lb balls.
He was having some Electrical power issues but the speed was about 1/3 of my 1106s.

made me think maybe the Magnum 10 stood for 10lb max?
These came with his 2007 boat, When he bought is last year. don’t know their age.

 

[SpringVelocity]

Some of the features on Canon are really interesting.

https://cannondownriggers.johnsonoutdoors.com/downriggers/electric-downriggers/optimum

 

[Dogbreath]

The 'power down' feature on Cannons is something a person gets to like PDQ.

 

[Baxter]

Admit that those cannons look very cool and the features are impressive to say the least.

I am not afraid of tech, I work in the tech industry, but I am not sure I want to be dealing with added tech on a downrigger. My 1106's are so dead simple and intuitive to use. I have no need to auto bring everything up and have my riggers synced with the sounder etc. On the other hand, if I were a guide, I could see more reason to go that route. Knowing the exact depth of the ball is pretty cool, takes out some of the guesswork, although isn't fishing nothing but guesswork?

Auto tracking the bottom sounds cool, but how does that work with the rod/gear? That won't auto reel, so would you not end up with all kinds of slack in your main line, or for drops would you not need your drag set looser at all times? I don't get how that would work correctly without also auto reeling the rod?

The HDS is more than enough tech for me. Don't need to introduce tech into all aspects of my time on the water Too much tech while fishing kind of takes the sport out of it IMO. (not to mention the price tag for it!)

 

[sly_karma]

Auto tracking the bottom sounds cool, but how does that work with the rod/gear? That won't auto reel, so would you not end up with all kinds of slack in your main line, or for drops would you not need your drag set looser at all times? I don't get how that would work correctly without also auto reeling the rod?

I asked the same question. Haven't had a direct answer, but I'm assuming that yes you have to tighten up the reel each time the ball raises and set the drag loose so it doesn't pop out of the clip when the ball drops. Now comes the old glass half full/glass half empty quandary. You can be negative and trash the entire concept since it's not as automatic as the marketing makes it sound, or you can be positive and say cool, now I only have to adjust the reel because the ball takes care of itself.

Would you use this feature? Most people will say no, I've never actively followed bottom so why would I start now? Ah, but perhaps you would have followed bottom if you had equipment that made it simple to do so...

Devil's advocate signing out.

 

[Wild Bill]

That's Deep!

 

[Gear'n'beer!]

 

[Gear'n'beer!]

Somewhere in clayquot……late 80’s. My daughter found the pic. Scotty and cannon…..getting along in harmony

 

[Stizzla]

Somewhere in clayquot……late 80’s. My daughter found the pic. Scotty and cannon…..getting along in harmony

Notice how the dog has it’s body facing the cannon though... it’s almost like it knows it needs to keep an eye on it as something is likely about to go horribly wrong with it.
That was a good dog you had there...