a few downrigger questions

[Hoffer]

I will just add a few comments - but by no means am an expert at this...I just started last year!

I used an 8 pound weight for the trips I made last Spring and Fall. We were at Manitou and mostly fished from 35 to 50 feet down. It worked great! I have the same Uni-troll 10 that you do. If you are fishing deeper - you may want to consider a heavier ball - but at the speeds we were doing and the depths - the 8 pound worked just great. The lake easily reaches 200 feet and deeper where we fish - but most of the fish were concentrated where we would find the "bait balls" and that was usually around 30 to 500 foot range. We had no issues catching fish. This year we may try to get it down deeper and see if that makes any difference with the size of the fish. But even when we fish the real deep waters you still can come up on some underwater reefs that come up quick from 100 feet to 30 feet. So we are still getting to know the lake and where the "trolling runs" are. Until we get to things better I kind of like just going down to around 50 feet or so maximum because if I do come up on a reef suddenly I can crank it up a few cranks real easy and get the ball up safely.

[gortonsfish]

Thanks for the info... always fun to pick up something new to try out. Even funner when the fish join in on the action

[tacklejunkie]

The OP also asked if he should try bigger spoons.

I use just the standard size spoons and I've caught some dandies.

[tunrevir]

+1 on the standard spoons, I have had many outings were the standard and small spoons have out produced the mag spoons when on Lake Michigan.

Tunrevir~