Trolling question

[MMDon]

Those numbers reflect the correct voltage on the wire (the wire that your downrigger weight is suspended from) when in the water at the lake you are fishing. Most of us carry a voltage meter and either have a PIC (Positive Ion Control) feature in our down riggers or a black box, which allows you to adjust the current. The process of reading the current is very easy. You simply use a digital multimeter set at volts. Place the red lead on your steel cable and the black lead either on the side of your aluminum boat or in the case of a glass boat, the negative pole on the battery. This will give you a reading that will test for a "hot" boat. Boats become hot due to improper grounding. Electronics should never be grounded to the hull of your boat. All electronics should have a negative wire that runs to your fuse block or back to the negative terminal on the battery. Even with the proper grounding some boats test "hot." A boat that has a multimeter reading above the numbers suggested there will actually repel fish with the down rigger wires in the water. If you use downriggers, testing your voltage on the wire should be one of your first concerns. Remember that mineral content in the water is one of the components that effects the reading and can vary from one end of the lake to the other. If I'm fishing all day I will take a reading every few hours.

With the correct reading on the wire fish are actually drawn to the wire versus being repelled and you can see the fish on your fishfinder as they bump against the wire with their noses. When it all comes together it's a great day of fishing!
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