Stacking downriggers

[ActionJackson017]

Hi everyone - bought a boat earlier this spring and finally am able to get back out in the salt like I was able to growing up. Anyway, we have outfitted the boat with a couple downriggers and I'm hoping someone can offer some advice on fishing multiple lines off a cable.

We're not going anything extraordinary here I don't think, looking to fish 4 rods w/ 3 people in the boat with strong-arms on each side of the boat. Unfortunately, we've not yet mastered the technique in dropping lines and usually end up fouling the lines a high percentage of the time.

Any tricks-of-the-trade that one can offer would be much appreciated!

 

[danthewire]

Okay lets assume your fishing for pinks,no more than 20 pulls clip your release on the line drop it about 18 feet and put your next release on and drop it down.Sounds simple huh?How wide is your boat?How long are your downriggers,what type of flashers,are you using bait or hootchies,what depth do you fish,how heavy are your weights what type of currents are there ,is there a lot of boats fishing near you,and finally how much experience do you and the first mate have?On occasion I'll run 4 rods for sockeye but I've fished for going on 5 decades,and it can get pretty busy back there,Give us some more info and we can give you some rough guidelnes.DAN

 

[sandybar]

Okay I'll bite, I'm also interested in stacking. I'm pretty much a rookie but have fish with downriggers with just a single setup.

Danthewire, here are some of my answers to your questions.
Boat width is 86" Downriggers are 30" long. I will be using hot and tots and alvins flashers, Preferable bait but will use a hootchie once in a while, Depth about 100' 120' I'm using 10# weights, My mates are very experienced fishing with wingle setups. oh and currents will be fast but planning on trolling with the currents.

Any advice?

Thanks

 

[danthewire]

Well heres my 2 cents worth I'm sure everyone has a method to it also.If you are going to fish bait put it on the top rod so you can check it without having to bring up everthing,have a cleat or something you can clip your top rod release to when you have to bring up the bottom rod,that just clears up room in the boat by not having to bring the rod in.Preferably with the cleat near the center of the stern,I fish with the bottom rod in the most forward rod holder.That way you can move the top rod to the center when having to go to the bottom rod I also clip my deep rod about 5 feet back of the top rod out behind the boat it kinda keeps them clear of each other,when you're clipping on the top rod.The bottom gear does'nt always go under right away . My downriggers are about 17 feet tip to tip apart,I would use bigger sized downrigger balls than 10lbs but they may work,AVOID tight turns,I personally would not fish more than 75 to 80 feet deep, I usally do very slow lazy turns,cause when it tangles its a mess,if I do tangle I just usally cut all the gear off,so have back up gear tied and ready to go.I don't use big revoving flashers like ab and al's they always tangle.Plugs also seem to tangle so i don't stack them,Keep in mind springs and coho are hard to control and will on occasion wrap all your gear up usally resulting in a bunch of finger pointing with your crew.Also it will take some experience to figure out which rod to grab because they will both be bouncing at the same time.Proably a good idea to have 2 nets handy,time and time again double headers will arrive at the back of the boat at the same time resulting in chaos.I would say pick your times to do this, rough and fast water days are not fun.Its not hard to figure out but be prepared for the tangles.I'm sure some of the other guys will also have some good suggestions.DAN

 

[Dogbreath]

One important thing to do is have your boat going fast enough so the gear doesn't tangle on the way down, it's a poor idea to slow down to deploy gear-Keep Moving!!!

 

[flytyer]

also try to keep the boat straight while you do you second setup. This is were most times things get tangled. When you get god at it you will be able to cover close to 80 feet of water with 4 lines in the water

Good luck
[8D]

 

[goodoutroo]

I love the tip about putting bait on the top rod to make it easier to check!

One thing that I often do is to run a flasher + lure setup on the bottom rod and then on the top rod don't use a flasher - just the lure - this results in less hits on the top rod but the battles are great since that fish isn't dragging a flasher through the water!

Consider puting the rods 20 feet apart so then it is easier to do the math; if you put one side down at 70 feet and you are hunting for the schools you can put the other side down at 60 feet (or 80) - now you have hooks at 40, 50, 60, and 70 feet. Once you find the zone you can concentrate on it. Don't forget to put a release trigger (or two) on the downrigger wire for the top rod.

With a careful driver and slack tides you can run stacked lines very deep...

 

[Tsquared]

Excellent posts from the boys. Only thing I can add is if your fishing pinks, shorten the distance between your release clip and the flasher as it doesn't effect their bite. We used to only have 5 or 6 ft between wire and flasher when I used to commercial troll, enabling us to stack 15 to 20 flashers on one line. Every once in a while you'd pull up a flasher and there was a 30 lb spring on the end of 6 ft of line instead of a pink. Made for some interesting action.
T2

 

[ActionJackson017]

Thanks everyone for the advice so far! We're in a 20' boat with a 7.5' beam and fishing 30' strong arms and hunting for springs out around T10 fishing down to the south arm. Usually we drop a 70 & a 50 foot off one side using 12# balls, trolling at approx. 2.1 to 2.6mph. We normally drop a 35 or a 90 off the second side depending on where we're marking fish.

Flashers on both, and spoon at the bottom with anchovies up top. I think the flashers are Gibbs.. the UV holographic/shattered glass ones, and definitely not dodgers.

Probably doing 15-20 pulls off the back before I clip to the downrigger (bugger seagulls swoop down and steal your chovies so you gotta be quick!)

Couple more questions: Do you shorten the number of pulls as you get higher? IE.. 20 pulls for the bottom, 10 for the top, etc. As well, I'm curious how loose you allow the drag to be while you drop the ball; do you allow the lines to balloon far back and then wind them down.. if so, which order do you tighten up the slack, etc.

 

[Rum Buddies]

what we do is run one side bait and one said artificials. You'll always have to check bait more often then plastic or metal and if you're checking one you might as well check both.