Fishing Forum

Another recent post and my own curiousity make me ask these questions. If it's the other recent post I didn't see it but from reading it confirms I may never be down that deep and always kind of wondered if I was when moving.
If I am using a "light" setup say, 6-12 lb test, appropriate M-MH 7-8 foot rod, about an ounce of flash and/or weight combined, going around 1-1.5 mph how much line will I let out to get down about 20 feet? 30 feet? I guess I really never know just how deep I have my stuff down behind me. I know, lead line and all that trolling stuff but really not wanting that.

How does that change adding or deducting weight? Speed? Is the difference between the 6 and 12 lb line a big factor in the calculation? I have read there is a point you reach of letting out line your rig starts to rise rather than decend with line drag in the water.

Will a deep diving Rapalla or similar be the go to lure for trolling with set ups like that?

How about using a 7 weight and sinking fly line and going around 1 mph? Just a big streamer, maybe a bit of weight but I was more thinking of just trolling and not casting so more weight would be ok if needed. How deep could I expect to go?
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In my experience most mono doesn't make that much difference in line depth if you get into the super braids they tend to go deeper than mono. It all depends on what your pulling flashers and pop gear tend to want to float unless there used with weight. 1 ounce of lead will get you down around ten feet 2 ounces around 20 and so on so im told but never fished with that much weight. I know you said you didn't want to go lead core but it really has its advantages. you can plan on 5 foot per color depending on what your pulling. the deep diving crank baits can be a chore to get in to change when pulled at the optimum speed for the lure, especially on spinning gear.

This is the only chart i could find


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[quote drowning_flys]In my experience most mono doesn't make that much difference in line depth if you get into the super braids they tend to go deeper than mono. It all depends on what your pulling flashers and pop gear tend to want to float unless there used with weight. 1 ounce of lead will get you down around ten feet 2 ounces around 20 and so on so im told but never fished with that much weight. I know you said you didn't want to go lead core but it really has its advantages. you can plan on 5 foot per color depending on what your pulling. the deep diving crank baits can be a chore to get in to change when pulled at the optimum speed for the lure, especially on spinning gear.

This is the only chart i could find

[.img]http://rednekoutfitters.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/www.rednekoutfitters.comweightchart3.jpg[/img][/quote]


Do you mean "faster". All line will eventually hit bottom, just some faster than others, right? I make the furled leaders out of Mono and Thread. The thread I would imagine, is like the braided lines. It will absorb water.
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Well what I meant is there so fine and absorb water given the same speed same lure they will go deeper sooner and further in the water column, not a lot but some. Mono doesn't make tons of difference unless your comparing 4 pound verses 15 pound. Again this is my experience. I tried all kinds of stuff before I went lead core
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Same with fly lines. But doesn't bigger diameter sink slower? Resistance. I know my Type VII is very thin. My mono furled leaders are slow sinking. Actually make good dry fly or emerger leaders.
Never thought of the material used to make different leaders is the same in fishing line. Interesting topic.
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Current, boat speed, diameter of the line, length of line out, weight and lure all affect how deep the lure will run. The best you can do without a downrigger is guess.

If you're serious about trolling, you need a downrigger. The manual crank models run around $100 to $150. You can probably find cheaper ones used. Besides, who wants to fight kokes with several ounces of weight attached?
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lucabrasi,

Easy test for your depths so you need a pad of paper to write down your results or a lap top I guess.

Find a gentle sloping sand bar and mark your depth and work up the hill until your lure drags the bottom. Test a variety of speeds and then do the same test with other rigs and keep track of the results. This is how I know what my trolling weights combined with different lures will accomplish. We use this info to run a mast and planer boards out both sides of the boat. I can fish 6 lines per side not counting the down riggers and know what every lure will do at speed and set back.
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Exactly. When I used to fish for macs with lead core line....because they hadn't invented sports fishing down riggers yet....I always used the sand bar technique. I discovered that the type of lure can have a significant effect. If I was pulling a large, and I mean large, flatfish, it would pull it down about 5-7 feet deeper than a dodger/squid combo. Mike
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You would think a bigger diameter line would sink slower because it displaces more water or has more surface area you could also argue that smaller line would sink faster as it cuts threw the water faster and displaces less. In fact a lot depends on the density of the line. you could also say the greater the depth the line is it becomes more dense as its compressed 1 atm at 33 feet 2 atm at 66 feet and so on. You could also argue that more surface area would create lift when pulled threw the water such as airplane wings more area more lift. There are so many variables.
Archimedes' principle and Fluid mechanics (Displacement ) would be a good place to start but i would rather fish [fishin] lol
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Thanks for the chart and all the input. I knew there had to be something out there, my google capabilities didn't seem to find it.

Checking depths while going uphill on the bottom is pretty slick, and easy too. Thanks for the input all.
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I used to do a lot of trolling with crankbaits for walleyes in ND. I used the Precision Trolling book which is really cool. It has a variety of different crank baits listed with dive charts showing how deep they'll go with 10 lb mono or Fireline and how far back the baits need to be etc. It's dead on accurate. You can pick it up on Ebay pretty cheap usually. They also have some info on trolling with snap weights using a 50/50 method. 50 feet of line out, various snap weights and another 50 feet of line then they list various trolling speeds and how deep your lures will go. Hope that helps.
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I had this same question last week when I was taking 7 other people fishing on Henry's lake. I had 3 lead core rods but for the others I needed to rig my spinning rods with some weight but didn't know how much. I found several other pictures but nothing that was what I wanted. What I did was buy 0.5, 0.75, 1, and 1.5 oz weights and experiment with them. I tied a 0.75 oz weight on and then added 6-7 feet of line which was then tied to a fly. I can say trolling at 1.7 to 2 mph and giving a nice easy cast gave me about 10 to 12 feet in depth. I didn't try other weights to see how deep I would get since what I was using worked. It depends on how much line you want to let out to get to the depth you want, like the chart shows.

Lead core line is pretty good for depth but the rule of 5 ft down per color changes as the line weathers and gets older. I have some lead core line from 20+ years ago and it will not do the 5 ft per color, it is about 4ft per color.

When I have trolled with my fly line in my pontoon boat, an easy cast of say half my overall fly line length using a 7 weight fly line at 1 mph would give me a depth of about 10 to 12 ft. This is on my electric trolling motor speed 1. Now if I go up to speed 3 which is about 1.8 mph, I need to cast/let out all of my sinking fly line get down about 15 ft.

Like others have said and what i can say is experiment and see where you want to be. I use points that entend out where it will be shallow very quickly like the west end of island park for depth experiments. Also, remember that what lure/fly/other you are trolling will have an effect on depth as well. I hope this helps.

Justin