x
Please confirm your account in order to be able to send messages.
Forgot Password?
NPS Logo DISCOVER SPONSORSHIPS MAPS
NPS Logo
Montagu Lee
2018-10-04 02:34:47

Fishing with Downrigger Effectively


Downrigger fishing angles for salmon Why are downrigger angle and depth very important to get those trophy salmon? Here are two tricks of the trade that can make you fish more effectively for salmon when you are out on the water. When you are trolling, most people troll at 1.5 to 3.5 mph. How do you know if you are at the right speed? Sure, you can look at your GPS speed over ground readings but you see your downrigger lines are almost straight at 2mph. Here is a simple trick. Remember the days with steel line downrigger lines; you can hear the humming sound when you are trolling at the correct speed. With 15lbs cannon balls, the general rule is 45 degrees angle between the downrigger arm and line. With 18lbs cannon balls is roughly 30 degrees angle. If you are looking for Coho salmon, you want to troll faster. Which means the downrigger angle will be greater. It can vary from 45 to 60 degrees on the downrigger for 15lbs cannon balls and 30 degrees to 60 degrees on 18lbs cannon balls. Now you wondering are we looking at dreadful blowback of the downrigger cable as gauging speed. Yes, blowback angle is like a feedback of speed you are trolling. All downrigger wire and braided cables give you blowback when trolling. You can use blowback to your advantage to find more fish. When you troll with the tide, you can control how fast the lure is travelling and judge by the blowback angle. When you trolling against the tide, the tide current is already providing the lure action but causing you to have more blowback. They more you try to push ahead (trolling faster), the more blowback angle you will have. Try playing around with downrigger angles with the tide and that might improve your success rate in finding salmon. Now with these angles, how do you know you lure is fishing at the right depth. Do you think your lure is at 150 feet depth when your downrigger is at 150 feet with blowback angle? I doubt it will be at 150 feet. You thought you can ignore math from fishing but trigonometry is a useful tool that we can apply to fishing. When you have a downrigger angle, your lure depth will be slightly above your downrigger counter depth. We will use cosine math rule learned in high school to calculate our lure fishing depth. Take the cosine of your downrigger angle and multiply with the downrigger counter depth. That number is your lure fishing depth roughly. So for example you saw fish at 150 feet and you put your downrigger at 150 feet, 150ft x cos(45) = 106ft. Looks like you are fishing at 106 feet and that is why you are missing the fish. To be fishing at 150 feet depth, you need to put your downrigger at 212 feet and trolling at 45 degrees angle. The reverse equation is fishing lure depth divided by cosine of downrigger angle. 150ft / cos(45) = 212ft. Because blowback is a feedback of how much drag force you have while your lure, cable, and cannon ball is moving in the water. With laws of physics in the studies of fluid dynamics, you will have fluid resistance. We do not know how much drag force we have with all the stuff we are trolling in the water but this equation does tell you that we will have blowback. The cannon ball and cable is almost like a pendulum, therefore we can look at the downrigger angle as speed. ω = θ/ t ω = angular speed in radians/sec θ = angle in radians (2π radians = 360 degrees) t = time, sec Speed is proportional to angle. That is why downrigger angle can be look at as trolling speed. Now how do you put these two tips to use? Answering the question from the beginning, by using the downrigger angle to judge the speed of your lure trolling and calculate the depth of your lure will be fishing. By adjusting your trolling speed, you will adjust your downrigger angle. Then look at where the fish are with sonar and use simple trigonometry calculations to set your downrigger how deep. On the other hand, use the chart I have created. Try this and you will find more fish. From your Scalely Friend (Montagu Lee)
5 anglers like this post
CONTACT US
© National Prostaff    Terms · Privacy