Northwest Fishing Reports

Does anbody use a poor man's downrigger or has come up with their own design?

Anyone have pictures of what you use?

That would be called a meat line. A pole about 6 ft long with a tip about as big around as your finger and a 3 in pully on the end a reel the looks like a giant fly reel or wench and a 10 lb. window weight to take the wire line down. They used to hook the flasher and plug directly to the set up. Before I had a down rigger I used my Grandfathers meat line and hooked a downrigger release to it. It worked but was cumbersome. You can sometimes find them at garage sales or swap meets. Good luck.

Splitshot,
Comb Craigslist all the time for this type of thing. I usually see home made downriggers. (I just checked and it is fresh out of supply on CL)
BTW,, nice avitar you got there. Careful which side of the vessel you put that d.r. on....

Obviously I don't know squat about downriggers.

Could you just tie a line to the back of the boat with a release? How long a leader do you use behind the release?

Chris, I ususally throw a sand bag in the front when I go out alone. I looks like either I need to loose some weight or take another sandbag[lol]

You have to have the extra weight to take the line to the depth you want. So tieing a release to the boat will not work. Plus you need to be able to pull that DR line up when you got a fish on. Or it might wrap around the DR lin and snap off. Granted i have the downrigger lines down plenty of times and haven't had much of a issue. I think I have only lost maybe 1 or two fish do to leaving the line down.

If you Google "Homemade downrigger" a bunch of stuff comes up - might give you ideas anyway.

Splitshot, what type of fishing do you plan on doing once you have your downrigger set up? I ask because I have an old Luhr Jensen mini troll downrigger that I'd be will to give to someone in need. My guess is that it will handle a weight of around 5 to 6lbs max, which would be more than enough for most any lake trolling situation. If you are interested let me know and I can post up a picture.

Edit - I found a pic on ebay. Mine looks just like this one except it doesn't have the rod holder attachment. Counter and SS wire line, and weight clip are included.

I used to have a set of those L-J downriggers, and they work fine. What I would do if I didn't have a downrigger would be to scout around for a linecounter reel. Then I'd find a trashed salmon rod, shorten it to say, three feet, make sure there was a good guide of some kind on the very end of the rod, and use it. For lake fishing a one or two-pound weight is all you need to keep your gear in the zone. Downriggers have two virtues in my mind: they get you to a specific depth and do that every time (that's why the linecounter function), and they let you fight the fish free of any kind of weight.

Running distance from the ball (or weight in this case) is up to the fish. I've run 60 feet when I wanted to be away from the ball, and I've run 10. It depends upon whether or not you think the fish are being spooked by the ball...or attracted by it.

Thanks for the offer G-Man, that was really nice. But that looks like a real downrigger and I don't have a real boat, so-to- speak. Seriously it would be overkill. I don't even have a trolling motor yet.

I was thinking about trying for Kokanee in Roesigner, it's only about a mile away and there was a good report a few days ago. It made me itch.

Splitshot, I undestand your hesitation. Keep in mind that this downrigger is designed for small boats. It is less that 24" long and weighs around 2lbs. If you change your mind let me know. I'm going to post it in the classifieds section as, "free to good home".

G man,
Do you still have to old L-J downrigger hanging around the garage? I would love to take it off your hands and take it fishing again!

I am want to start Kokanee fishing and spent to much money on a rod and reel today. My bass and fly fishing gear would not do from what the sporting goods store told me. Thanks for considering.

It is entirely feasible to use a rope, cannonball lead, and snap release to make a TRUE poor man's DR. Just wrap some duct tape around the rope every 10 feet, then attach it to a 4-8lb ball and drop it over the side of the boat and tie it off. Put your rod in a rod holder and load it with tension like you normally would. Works just fine with 100% effectiveness. Just don't drop it over too close to the stern of the boat to avoid fouling with the prop of the motor.

See people doing this from time to time fishing for Kokanee and Sockeye in Lakes, but it was a lot more common a few decades ago.

I've got a home made downrigger made of aluminum. Pretty cool. It came with my Livingston about 30 years ago. It's kind of funky but I used to use it quit a bit out in the Sound. Figure out how to mount it and I'm sure it would work just fine. (I might have a mounting bracket) If anybodys interested in taking it off my hands and bringing it back to life let me know. I haven't figured out how to post pictures on here but I could send a picture thru text message, or come check it out. I'm sure you wouldn't be dissapointed