I wanted your opinion on what size Downrigger balls to get for walleye fishing in less than 40′. My main target will be 25-36′.
I was thinking 4 or 6 lb would do. I’ll be fishing clearer water and pulling shallow diving cranks. I’ve only got 12 lb balls and don’t think it would be the best to use those.
I may even try spinners and spoons for the heck of it.
Nothing wrong with 12 lbs’ers in my opinion. The 4-6 lbs’ers will have considerably more blow back than your 12vs. I use 10 lbs’ers for everthing.
I can’t find any blowback info on anything under 8 lbs. According to Cannon, the 8lbs seems to have almost no blowback at 80′ and 2 mph. I’d have to imagine that a 6 lb would have nothing at 40′ and a 4 lb would be similar.
What were they smoking when they published that info? 8 pound weights will have significant blow back out 80 feet at that speed. Heck, 12 pound balls have significant blow back at that depth.
At the shallow depths you want to use them, your current 12#s would be nearly vertical below the boat. Perfect in my opinion.
I agree on the cannon study being a joke, 8s have a ton of blow back. So much you can see it when it is just below the water and when it’s down it’s out of the cone. I would only believe that if you are trolling at .002 mph. With said said, with less than 40 ft I doubt it will matter much. I only tried walleye on the rigger once and had trouble matching the clips to anything with a lip.
Let me know how it goes!
I don’t think I’d mess around with 4 pound, but 6 or 8 would work fine for your application provided you’re not speed trolling. I agree with above posts; 8 pound balls have significant blow back at 2 MPH and 80 ft down.
…..or you could just stick with your 12 lb balls. They will work fine too. If you’re worried about fish being ball shy, you can run long leads, or run an SWR.
If you’re worried about fish being ball shy, you can run long leads, or run an SWR.
I was just thinking about doing that.
Thanks for the input guys. It really changes my mind on this.
But for argument sake, when you guys say blowback, are you simply looking at the angle and making an assumption? Or are you actually calculating the angle into a reduction in depth?
My thought is that even though the angle looks severe, you may only be talking about 3-5′ of depth variation. A 30 degree angle only yields 5′ variation at 30′ of depth. But it also puts the ball 17′ back from the boat and maybe out of sonar range.
I only tried <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye on the rigger once and had trouble matching the clips to anything with a lip.
Let me know how it goes!
Have you tried the Scotty clips?
I use 12lb as I prefer the ball to be as close as directly below the boat as possible. With blow back you are dealing with an unknown of how much more depth you need to run to be at your preferred depth. Its an ever changing calculation due to boat speed currents etc. Slow down ball goes deeper etc. What if you slow down to avoid hitting bottom with blow back now for sure you are going to hit cause the slow down to turn causes the blown back weight to go straight down.
Mwal
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Johnie Birkel wrote:</div>
I only tried <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye on the rigger once and had trouble matching the clips to anything with a lip.
Let me know how it goes!Have you tried the Scotty clips?
I used to struggle with down rigger release clips being too tight or too loose. I got turned on to Chamberlain releases years ago and haven’t had a need for anything else since. You can adjust tension both up to your rod, and back to the fish. I can adjust so just a tiny fish will trip the release and still have plenty of load in the rod, or tighten them up to only release on large fish when targeting Salmon, etc.
Is am familiar with the Chamberlain releases. For right now I have the Scottys and the mini Scottys and will probably use those until I have issues with them.
I am relatively new to downriggers with my only experience being last fall out at Isle Royale. Everything went well except I only had the Scotty mini releases and found them to be far too light for f/f.
I still think I’ll pickup some 6-8 lb balls to see how it goes. Might lean toward 8 then. I figure if I can live with the blowback I can benefit from easier setup and maybe scare away fewer fish in the process.
biggill if your interested in trying some I have a half dozen 8 pounders and maybe even a 4 pounder you could borrow if I can find them
Tats a great offer. What would you think of selling a couple? I’ve been actively looking for a deal on a couple used ones.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>to_setter wrote:</div>
If you’re worried about fish being ball shy, you can run long leads, or run an SWR.I was just thinking about doing that.
Thanks for the input guys. It really changes my mind on this.
But for argument sake, when you guys say blowback, are you simply looking at the angle and making an assumption? Or are you actually calculating the angle into a reduction in depth?
My thought is that even though the angle looks severe, you may only be talking about 3-5′ of depth variation. A 30 degree angle only yields 5′ variation at 30′ of depth. But it also puts the ball 17′ back from the boat and maybe out of sonar range.
Run your down riggers over a sandy bottom or snag free clay, at the speed you want to troll and let the rigger out until you bounce it on the bottom, give it time to stabilize and bounce it again, then do it again and you will have an idea how much to let the rigger out for that depth. Do it over multiple depths, chart it and off you go. I know when I troll 8 pound balls, or my 12 pounders, on the great lakes at 50 feet on the counter, I am no where near 50 feet of depth.
I only tried once for walleye baits on the down rigger on the St Croix. Only had the off shore light and medium clips at that time. I thought the light would be better for walleye, but still had trouble with them tripping when I used traditional walleye lures. Again I only tried once but quickly lost confidence with small spoons or sticks as I had never really tried them.
I’ll have to pull out some old school geometry to see what my estimated angle actually means, but based on the graph, I feel like even at 40-50 feet I have gone significantly shallower than the counter and not touched pulling single spoons. I usually troll around 1.8-2.2ish and in Canada where there is no current if that helps.
Have you looked at “Torpedo Divers”
http://www.torpedodivers.com/photos.asp
FixedSliderSetupMain.jpg
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
