06-12-2003, 10:22 PM
Hey Eric,
Are you and Neal still fishing together a lot? I haven't heard from him in a while.
The best way to figure out the releases is to mess with them. I personally don't like the rubber band releases, but I know guys who swear by them. I bought a handful of releases in varying tensions when I bought my downriggers to play with tensions. You've got to find the balance between having them loose enough to release when a fish strikes (it's no fun reeling in a fish with your downrigger) and tight enough so you can load your rod (you want to bend that baby as much as possible so that when a fish strikes it will pop up and take some of the slack out of line inherent with downrigging).
I have some Cannon and some OffShore releases and prefer the OffShore releases--which are the same as are on their inline planer boards. However, I use Cannon's stacker clips when the fishing isn't super fast so I can fish two rods off one downrigger and cover multiple depths at the same time. I usually throw out a couple leadcore rigs too, since they give a different look to the fish, but that's a different story. You'll want the same releases you'll use for walleyes.
When fishing for macs, I use a heavier tension release since I'm usually pulling some heavy homemade pop gear. Again, it's just finding the balance.
Are you and Neal still fishing together a lot? I haven't heard from him in a while.
The best way to figure out the releases is to mess with them. I personally don't like the rubber band releases, but I know guys who swear by them. I bought a handful of releases in varying tensions when I bought my downriggers to play with tensions. You've got to find the balance between having them loose enough to release when a fish strikes (it's no fun reeling in a fish with your downrigger) and tight enough so you can load your rod (you want to bend that baby as much as possible so that when a fish strikes it will pop up and take some of the slack out of line inherent with downrigging).
I have some Cannon and some OffShore releases and prefer the OffShore releases--which are the same as are on their inline planer boards. However, I use Cannon's stacker clips when the fishing isn't super fast so I can fish two rods off one downrigger and cover multiple depths at the same time. I usually throw out a couple leadcore rigs too, since they give a different look to the fish, but that's a different story. You'll want the same releases you'll use for walleyes.
When fishing for macs, I use a heavier tension release since I'm usually pulling some heavy homemade pop gear. Again, it's just finding the balance.