Downrigger weights?

[J.Brower]

Has anyone messed around with the stick style downrigger weights? What was your thought on them? I’m having a horrible problem with interference on my fish finder giving me a 10’ tall path of disturbance that won’t go away. Thinking about making some 12# stainless stick weights. My only concern is I like having a 40* blowback angle typically fishing the sound to monitor speed to water and I won’t have that with a lower profile weight. I guess I could balance it out with a lighter stick weight to get the same blowback. What are thoughts on cable angle being more vertical?


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[Crunchy]

Weird cant say I even see my ball on the fish finder.  I think my sonar cone is pointed a bit more forward than yours to give me more time to adjust depth of my gear if I see a bait ball coming up

[lokidog]

Hanging a stick vertically or horizontally like a torpedo?  I make some 10# fish shaped weights that have way less drag than 12# balls. Personally, I prefer my downrigger cable to be as vertical as possible.  Depending on current direction, I can occasionally see my weight on the depthfinder, I like it so I can double check the accuracy of my counter occasionally.  I've thought about pouring some lead in a pipe to see if I can streamline it even more....

[J.Brower]

Vertical hanging sticks. Basically a pipe filled with lead and an eye in one end to hook to the cable. I’m thinking 1-1/2” stainless bar 14” long with a welded eyebolt on one end. Need to see what length I would need going the stainless tube filled with lead route to get the same weight. The fish shaped ones I fear would be worse than the balls as the surface area looking from the top is larger. I’m fin going to try kicking my transducer forward a bit and seeing if it gets better. I’m getting really solid arches as it is right now and don’t want to lose them lol. 


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[lokidog]

Vertical hanging sticks. Basically a pipe filled with lead and an eye in one end to hook to the cable. I’m thinking 1-1/2” stainless bar 14” long with a welded eyebolt on one end. Need to see what length I would need going the stainless tube filled with lead route to get the same weight. The fish shaped ones I fear would be worse than the balls as the surface area looking from the top is larger. I’m fin going to try kicking my transducer forward a bit and seeing if it gets better. I’m getting really solid arches as it is right now and don’t want to lose them lol. 


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If you are getting that much of a signal, any solid object will return likely the same. Don't forget, your sonar will not be pinging off of the inch and a half top profile of your weight, it will be the face of the weight towards the boat. So, unless your angle is so steep that the pipe is in line with your cable, I don't think you would get much of a reduction in your signal return. Have you tried adjusting the signal strength? What depth are you trolling at?

Try a pancake weight versus a ball, it will reduce both top and front profiles.

[J.Brower]

If I reduce the gain on the sonar I lose all detail. I am going to try kicking the ducer forward in angle a little bit and see if that will help but still give me the arches I was seeing. Also going to try pancakes and see if they help any. Yesterday was the first day with it in the new boat so still have some playing to do. Downrigger depths were from 20’ down to 75’ and gave the same results at all depths.


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[Skillet]

Has anyone messed around with the stick style downrigger weights? What was your thought on them? I’m having a horrible problem with interference on my fish finder giving me a 10’ tall path of disturbance that won’t go away. Thinking about making some 12# stainless stick weights. My only concern is I like having a 40* blowback angle typically fishing the sound to monitor speed to water and I won’t have that with a lower profile weight. I guess I could balance it out with a lighter stick weight to get the same blowback. What are thoughts on cable angle being more vertical?


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This is not a downrigger weight issue as much as it is a sounder tuning issue.  What brand and model of sounder do you have?  What transducer?

[Stein]

That sounds strange and I would agree to work on the sonar instead of the weight.  Nearly everyone runs big weights without issue.  I run 16 pound steel ones and they are huge.  I can see them on the graph, but it doesn’t impact seeing fish or bait.


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[WAcoueshunter]

Like others, my preference is to use big weights so they hang as vertically as possible. Feel like I don’t know where my gear is if the angle gets too big.

[CP]

I adjust my sonar so I can see my DR weight; it beats trying to do trig in my head.

[J.Brower]

Skillet, garmin 840xs with a gt23 ducer. I’m ok with seeing my ball and am used to that, not so used to losing 10’ to clutter. Going to do a software update and play around on the lake tomorrow to see if I can get it dialed in


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[lokidog]

I adjust my sonar so I can see my DR weight; it beats trying to do trig in my head.

 

[Crunchy]

Drop til you hit bottom and bring her up 10 feet.  No trig or geometry needed.  I just add 25-30 feet to what the depth shows and that puts me in the money zone.

[Stein]

That works for chinook but not so well for coho in 400-600 feet of water.

You should only see a thin line where the weights are.  I can see both when coho fishing as they aren’t too far behind the boat.


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[J.Brower]

Well after playing with it more today I have ruled out tuning of the unit. Adjusted everything up and down, combinations, ducer angle and it was just marginal changes seen. Going to get some longer booms to move the balls farther from the boat and make some stick weights to see what they are all about. Here are a couple of photos of different settings/styles. Definitely liking how well it picks up schools of bait/small fish. There was one point I had a group of bait with fish chasing singles around it.



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[Skillet]

That's actually a great chirp image in #3.  A bit frustrating to have the  At that depth, you're going to get a lot of feedback on something as solid as a downrigger ball.

Question - You're really getting a 40° angle on your wire at 24ft deep going 1.1 ish mph?  How heavy of a lead are you using?

[Crunchy]

I cannot tell from the pic but what speed are you going?  If the downrigger wire is not at a 45ish degree angle there probably isnt much you can do other than move the ducer angle forward. 

[Skillet]

I cannot tell from the pic but what speed are you going?  If the downrigger wire is not at a 45ish degree angle there probably isnt much you can do other than move the ducer angle forward. 

He's doing between 1.05 - 1.22 mph in those pics.

[Angry Perch]

Interesting that in image 2 and 3 it's reading the interference depth as water depth.

[J.Brower]

This was just in the lake, so no blow back. To get the balls out of the cone  I had to speed up to about 5mph which was way steeper than a typical 40 degree angle.


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[lokidog]

I would guess there is nothing you will be able to do to reduce the signal of a ball/weight at 24' deep.  You can even see you swivels and other rigging above the ball.  The last image is more typical of downrigger fishing here in the San Juans and looks pretty normal to me.