Your macerating pump suppliers talk about how fish often concentrate in a specific stratum of the water column, held there by food, temperature, and other conditions they find to their liking. This can challenge anglers who want to keep their trolling baits or lures in the zone. 

Follow Your Fish Finder

Use your fish finder to look for schools of bait and fish, as well as thermoclines that often mark as a steady line between the surface and the bottom. Any of these can signal the depth to set your lines. 

Test the Waters

Until you figure out at which level the fish are holding, run your downriggers at different depths. You can also stagger-stack two or more trolling lines on each ­downrigger by using adjustable line releases that clip onto the downrigger cable. 

Consider the Conditions

Don’t rely solely on the downrigger’s depth gauge, because boat speed and the speed/direction of the current can affect the actual trolling depth of your lure or bait. You can often observe the actual running depth of your gear on the fish-finder display and raise or lower the downrigger to get into the strike zone.

What is a downrigger & how do they work?

We pulled up on the reef at around 7 in the morning. It was a popular reef on the Gold Coast well known for its mackerel fishing. We were keen to try for a Spanish mackerel so had opted to forego the early morning bite period to try and catch some live bait that we intended to slow troll. We run 2 large live wells on our charter boat, RU4 ReeL, and they both had a good number of live slimeys swimming around in them, so we felt quietly confident even though the prime bite time was already over. 

We Continue Talking About the Benefits of Using Downriggers

What do they do?

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A down rigger is similar to an outrigger in that it places your bait where you want it away from the other baits or lures. An outrigger lifts your bait up to the surface and moves it out of the bubble trail created by your propeller and into clearer water. A Downrigger simply drops your bait down into the water column to a depth of your choice and as with an outrigger when a fish grabs the lure or bait your line pulls out of the release clip and your are thus able to fight your fish weight free and unhindered. 

How does it work?

Downriggers were originally used in large lakes to target trout and salmon. As we fisherman are an inventive mob, we eventually worked out that we could use them in other fisheries and they found there way into the saltwater. Whether they are used in fresh or salt the principle around their use remains the same. 

Once you have the line in the clip you will need to let the ball down progressively while controlling the line coming off your spool. This takes a bit of practice as the initial start up can yank the line off your reel with a sudden jolt. I apply a bit of finger pressure to the spool of my reel to ensure that I don’t get a tangle. 

When to use the Downrigger

You can catch just about anything on a Downrigger from snapper to marlin; and their uses are not limited to offshore fishing. On our charter boat we predominantly use them for targeting pelagic species like mackerel, cobia, marlin, and yellowtail kingfish; but snapper, various species of tuna and a variety of reef fish have been making up quite a respectable by-catch. 

The down rigger offers a very natural presentation and can also often tempt fish into biting that will refuse a similar bait that seems unnatural to them. 

What to use

You may have noticed that I keep referring to baits or lures when talking about down rigging. You can fish just about anything out of a down rigger either on anchor, on the drift or trolling. 

On our charter boat we use our Canon Downriggers quite closely in conjunction with our Humminbird sounders. You can clearly see the Downrigger ball on the sounder (if your transducer is mounted on the transom) so it can simply be a case of adjusting the depth of the ball to the depth that you are marking fish on your sounder. 

Downrigging is a technique that can catch you a lot of fish when others fail to produce. It is not the be all or end all of fishing techniques and as with everything will not always produce fish, but if you have never tried it or own one but don’t use it. It may well be worth the effort and you will be pleasantly surprised at the results.

So don’t forget these helpful benefits to using a downrigger on your next fishing trip. 1) You can catch just about anything on a Downrigger from snapper to marlin;  2) the down rigger offers a very natural presentation and can also often tempt fish into biting that will refuse a similar bait that seems unnatural to them;  and 3) downrigging is a technique that can catch you a lot of fish when others fail to produce.

Dolphin Tangled In Fishing Line Swims To Shore To Get Help

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