Downriggers and Lund Sport Trac

[rknott]

Just placed an order on a new Lund Rebel 165 and have a few final details to work out. I am going to buy some downriggers that will mostly be used in Lake Washington for Cutts along with various lakes for Kokanee. Secondarily I will go hitting the sound for salmon and maybe even Chelan for the lakers.

Question 1: Cannon or Scotty? I relly want electric after cranking for years and years. I am looking at either the mag 5 or 1099. Went to Outdoor Emporium over the weekend and they highly recommend the Scottys, but I couldn't really understand why. Appears to be a regional preference? Does the positive ion feature make a difference or that that just a marketing thing?

Question 2: Is anyone using the downrigger mounting brackets offered by Lund that attach to the Sport Trac system? I have heard they have a limitation of 24 inch boom. For $100 more you can get the riggers with built in swivel, but they have longer booms. Since swivels cost nearly $100 doesn't make much sense to buy the separately.

[hewesbob]

I have a set of Mag 5's on our Hewes and we love them. I ordered ours from Johns Sporting Goods in Everett, even after shipping they were cheaper than any body else. I'm not sure about the Ion thing but I know that since we started using the Mag 5's we have caught more fish by far then any other method I have fished. I personal think the downrigger preference is a regional thing, it seemed that west of the Hood Canal bridge you can't find anything for a Cannon, eastern Washington is kind of a mixed bag, this winter we fished the Colorado river and its lakes, nobody had scotty it was all cannon. I went into a bait shop in northern California all they sold were penn downriggers but when we were fishing Lake Shasta we saw other folks using cannon and never did see a scotty. I like the separate swivel mount, I can remove the units in just seconds and store them away. Good Luck

[rseas]

Just saw your post this morning and congratulations on your upcoming event. You will love your Lund and as a new Lund owner you will not be alone. There are a number of other Lund owners here on the site that will be more than willing to offer advice and answer any questions that may pop up.

On that note; I’ll give you my two cents on your downrigger question. I own a Lund Renegade 1650 and went through the same “What am I going to do about downriggers?” decision process. I know that there is a huge personal or even regional preference thing going on with the purchase of downriggers but both the major manufactures, Scotty and Cannon offer a quality product. If you’re a tech person a few of the Cannon models will interface with your marine electronics, offering bottom tracking and other cool bells and whistles. I am a Scotty guy, I like the no frills, less maintenance approach. If you decide on Scotty electrics they only power up, deployment is via an adjustable clutch where you can control the freefall rate. I have the High Speed Scottys but you really want to consider your usage before you make your purchase. If you are primarily fishing lakes for cutthroat, trout and kokanee I would go with the standard speed Scotty electrics. Although manageable, the high speed downriggers are almost too fast to make the precision depth adjustments often required when fishing freshwater.

Lund offers two Sport-track downrigger mount options. One is a formed sheet metal bracket that interfaces with both the inside and outboard side of the Sport-track. It is secured by a series of screws and inserts on the outboard edge of the gunnel. The other option is a machined extrusion that locks into the inboard grove of the Sport-track gunnel. In my opinion neither option is adequate for the larger downrigger balls and faster trolling speeds associated with our local saltwater salmon fishing. I customized the machined extrusion version to try to transfer some of the torque from the gunnel to a structural member of the boat. Not perfect but it works with the longer downrigger booms and heavier downrigger balls I often run. With the pictures I tried to show the different mounting options and yup I tried them all…

Finally, be sure to rinse the entire boat, inside and out with a Salt Away type product then wash it every time it is used in salt water. Good luck with the new boat, catch lots of fish and enjoy your on the water time as often as possible.

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[Larry3215]

Scotty/Cannon is like Ford/Chevy. Both will get you there. Im a Cannon guy. We have two Mag 10's on our boat and love them - although Im not sure they catch us any more fish than a set of Scotty's would!

In my opinion, some sort of swivel base with quick disconnects is a must and well worth the extra cost.

[G-Man]

To my knowledge, Cannon downriggers still require the use of steel cable to activate their auto stop feature when retrieving the weight. Also, steel cable is required, for any manufacturer of downrigger if you want to be able to vary the charge your system gives off in the water.

Running a black box/positive ion feature is not going to do much for you when fishing for cutts on lake Washington, as your setback is normally around 100'. Where it comes into play is salmon fishing when you are only dropping back 10' to 20' from the clip. I run braid instead of steel on my Penns and the charge generated by my gear isn't an issue. I've been on boats, especially aluminum boats, where running steel cable killed the bite to the point where we deployed deep sixes and banana weights to catch our fish.

[Hunter757]

rknott, I am a cannon guy and yes you need SS cable for the auto stop to work as well as the black box. I have used both for fishing salmon on PS on my buddies boat. All I can say is you need to fish them both then make up your mind. It's true on the chevy ford thing some guys will only run one or the other for me I like the ease of use and the power down option.

I have a mag 5 on one side and 10 on the other both are high speed up and the 10 is high speed down for me I really don't like that a bit fast but easy to get used to. You can pick up the mag 5 and add a extened boom at a later date if you find out you need it for about 55 bucks.

I like the swivel mounts easy to store your downriggers out of the way. Make sure what ever brand you buy get the little pull cord so your not leaning over the gunnel to clip your line makes it really nice they make them for both brands.

Congrats on the new boat!

[rknott]

Thanks for the welcome and large number of responses! Between the auto down and positive ion seems to me the better choice is cannon. Only advantages I see to scotty are auto stop with braid and better local parts support given regional preference. Possible auto down isn't a benefit?

What is the advantage of the longer booms? Used 24 inchers on my old manuals for 15 years and never tangled.

Nice pics on the different setups. I like that bracket that attaches to the boat as well as the gunnel. Does that come off easy if I decide to take the riggers off?

[Hunter757]

The cannon is not auto power down but power down vs scotty manual release with a lever. Think of a cannon like a power windows in your car, power up and down you can also put them down manual as well if needed. L&D cannon repair is in Auburn and Larry is a great guy, they have a drop off service at Auburn Marine if needed.

Boom lenght just get the ball away from the boat and if you want to run 4 DR you would need the boom out there as well. The last thing you want is a 12 lb ball hitting the side of your boat when your resetting your lines. Again this is not a must just options and scotty has them as well. Scottys are great set ups and just carry the extra belt because if that breaks your done so most guys carry a few of them.

Take it all in and go to the store and look over both of them really good and see how they work and go from there.

[G-Man]

The Cannons are like the Penns, they have an adjustable drag knob that you can adjust to allow the spool to slip and pay out line, once you reach the desired depth, just tighten up the drag. I use this method quite a bit with my electric Penns as it can get the gear down quicker than the running the downrigger in "reverse." Also, this way I know that the drag on the downrigger is set to allow line to pay out if it snags on the bottom. On the Scottys, the drag is not as easily accessible, and is more of a set it once and leave it alone.