Downrigging

[JSK76]

If you have 10' of line out after the ball and the ball is lets say 28' and your fishing in 30' and you put a diving Rapala on that dives to lets say 13' is the Rapala going to drag bottom?

I would think to get your bait at the same depth as the ball you would need to use a countdown or a non diving lurer or have more line out after the ball then the Rapala dives to.

[SpecialK]

I would think that your lure dive to rating is going to add on to what ever depth the ball is at. Your example uses 28' for the ball and a rap that dives to 13' so I would think it would be 28 + 13 = 41'. With only 10' of line after the ball will probably cut that 13' down to somewhere around 4' - 6' of dive. That is just a guess though.

I am interested to see what the experts have to say about this as well.

[matthothand]

What size ball? What's your speed? If you have a lighter ball it won't track as deep the faster you go. If you're plan is to run a crank 10' behind the ball and you want to know how deep that particular crank runs with that lead let out ten feet of line and hold the line where it enters the water. Do this at the bow with the speed where you want it. Have your buddy stick a yardstick (any solid measuring device) in the water until it bumps the crank and there's your depth to add to the rigger setting. Make sure your rigger counter is zeroed at the height of your transducer (unless your sonar already has accounted for the difference from transducer and water line). Have you tried boards, snapweights, leadcore, etc.? You can get to that depth with more stealth without the cannon balls.

[MN Mike]

In the setup you describe on the original post, you will more than likely be running on the bottom of the lake.

I run a 10# ball on my downriggers, if I am pulling what I consider to be an aggressive diving lure like a TDD9 or a bigger Wally Diver, I'll keep those on a pretty short string, maybe 5 - 7 feet behind the ball, sometimes it's short enough to where I can actually see the lure leaving a line just like the ball does on the depthfinder.

If I'm running a less aggressive lure like a Countdown or a Rapala SSR, then I'll put out more line, something like 15 feet or so, they dive a little bit but not much.

Those lures will run deeper than the ball so adjust your ball height accordingly. Lots of trial and error go into getting the ' feel ' for downriggin.

If I'm dealing with a new lure, I do just as Matt said, put that lure in the water and hang on to the string with your hand and watch it dive at trolling speed, just so you know how far down it goes, that way you'll get a good idea of how much line to let out behind the ball.

Mike

[Cicada]

According to my North Dakota math, you can't get a lure to dive 13' if you have only 10' of line between the lure and the ball.

[JSK76]

According to my North Dakota math, you can't get a lure to dive 13' if you have only 10' of line between the lure and the ball.

I was talking about a Rapala that was built to dive 13' not to trying to get it to run 13'.