Downrigger balls

[Walleyehooker]

I just mounted a couple of Cannon Easy Troll downriggers on my boat and they came with 8# balls. Is that what most guys run on LOW? Also how far do you run these off of the bottom going about 2 MPH with 5-7 shadraps and roughly 10 feet line back from the ball. Going up to LOW in about a week to try them out.

[kfk]

8# balls are perfect for LOW. To determine where to run your cranks, look at your depthfinder to determine how deep the fish are holding and then run the cranks just above them or even a few feet above them. Wlleyes won't strike down but will go up to feed. You may want to run more than 10 feet behind the balls, maybe 20 feet, because on some days it seems like the balls may spook the fish. A #5 runs about 5 feet deep with 10 feet of line and 6 feet deep with 20 feet of line, while a # 7 runs about 6 feet deep with 10 feet of line and about 8 feet deep with 20 feet of line so you have to add these depths to your ball depth. I varies slightly with different lines but it'll be close. Keep experimenting until you get it dialed in. Often times increasing speed or changing speeds will also trigger strikes. Good fishing!

[slammer]

I run 8# also. Usually 5-6 off bottom. Baits distance will vary but in that 20-25 ft back.

[Walleyehooker]

Thanks guys that should get me started and I can dial in from there.

[Ballyhoo]

The biggest thing is play around and find something that works for you. Don't set them at exactly What someone else is doing because of boat, transducer placement, sonar set up etc. what is working for someone else might not work for you. It is a good starting point but play around with set up. My buddy and I have found that we can't duplicate each other but always need to tweak the set up.

[SM1]

Agreed with jkb. I like 4.5 ft off bottom and 17 back from release since my sr7's seem to dive 3 ft with that much back. I change this based off which crank is used. I use the trollers bible as a guide and adjust from there.

Also good point to make sure your ball "zero" is set at the level of the transudcer, such as the ball being a foot or so under water and not at the top of water level or what have you.

[Walleyehooker]

Wouldnt at least the ball on the ducer side show up on the locator? I was also thinking of stoping and letting the ball to the bottom and see what the counter reads then just subtract how much I want to be off of the bottom. I also know a locator has a keil offset adjustment that also might help. Probably a lot of ways to do this. I like to experiment so this should be fun anyway. I run leadcore a lot and also have the dive charts so I have a good idea how the cranks run for depths. And even with leadcore every day is different and just little changes can make a difference in how many fish you catch.

[Ballyhoo]

That's kind of what I am getting at. Everyone has a different way of zeroing their counters and keel offset etc. so you don't know how they do it compared to how you do it. I personally don't do the keel offset on my transducer and I zero my counters at the water level and I know where I have to set to catch fish. If someone else tries my set up it might not work for them as they might be a foot or 2 off. One thing I have done is when it is calm is to lower the balls down until they touched bottom and compared the rigger counter to the depth finder to see if they matched.

[MN Mike]

The biggest thing is play around and find something that works for you. Don't set them at exactly What someone else is doing because of boat, transducer placement, sonar set up etc. what is working for someone else might not work for you. It is a good starting point but play around with set up. My buddy and I have found that we can't duplicate each other but always need to tweak the set up.

Couldn't have said it better myself!

If you can, set your depthfinder to 83khz, the downrigger balls should show up just fine like the pic below. They don't show up hardly at all on my Humminbird at 200khz. These are 10 lbs., too heavy in my book but that's what Cabelas had in stock when I was shopping.

You'll notice one has more red in it, that's the one directly below the ducer, red in this case is the stronger return.

We finished the day and were winding up the riggers when this snapshot was taken.

Mike

[SM1]

Nice pic!

[Walleyehooker]

Thanks for all the great tips. Cant wait to get up there next week and play with my balls.lol