Home of "The Poor Man's Downrigger™ "
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DEPTH DETERMINATION
By Bill Vanderweken
The fish finder shows them at 60 feet, and you want to get down to a little above that! HOW DO YOU DO IT?
Well, with a traditional downrigger, you can get pretty close, but we don't all have one. They are expensive, cumbersome, not very portable, and can break down for a variety of reasons. Downriggers won't do for kayaks, float tubes, canoes, boat rentals, bank fishers, surf fishers and many others.
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Don't get us wrong. We love downriggers! In fact, my grandfather used a handmade one in the 1920's. Dad always said, "If I had only patented that thing!"
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Hopeless without a downrigger? Well, not really. The answer may be the SINKER-DROPPER!
Think of the variables in determining depth! Speed, drag, line diameter, length of line, weight, wind, current, lure characteristics (weight, buoyancy, drag), and more! What to do if you want to get to the depth of the fish?
Well, we can control the most important of the variables mentioned above, and then to a reasonable degree, estimate how deep we are.
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Knowing certain of the variables is essential, and you'll need some equipment. A fish finder with a speedometer (if money is a problem, an inexpensive speed estimator from Luhr Jensen can be hung on the gunwale, or some of us are good at estimating speed) and a line counter (Shakespeare, $12), or mark your line. Then you need to know the approximate diameter of your line, and - of course - how much weight you are using. Otherwise, it's pretty much a guess. Guessing is OK, too. It's what we all did before all the gadgets, and we still had great fun. There is a lot to be said for finding fish without technological help! Kayakers, float tubers, canoeists, etc. do it all of the time. However, a SINKER-DROPPER can help a lot!
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A very common way to determine how deep you are with your particular line, weight, lure and speed is to take a glance at your depth finder and line counter when you inadvertently touch bottom (I do it that way a lot!)
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One of our best finds is a book by Ray Rychnovsky called The Troller's Handbook. Ray not only is a renowned fisherman and author, but he also taught engineering mathematics in college, and has developed and solved equations dealing with the configuration of a line when trolled which, when coupled with the weight and speed, are used to determine lure/bait depth. He knows whereof he speaks!
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This very interesting book has graphs for your use. For example, he shows that trolling with four ounces of weight at 2mph with 100 feet of ten pound test super-braid line results in a presentation depth of 60 feet. This can be extrapolated, so that two ounces of weight at 2mph with 200 feet out would result in about the same depth... and so on. We carry his book with us. It is small, but you could simply copy a page or two and just put them in your pocket. I always use the same diameter line when trolling for trout or landlocked salmon, so I do not have to adjust Rychnovsky's equation. We also found a fascinating calculator at www.cleavebooks.co.uk. It would work great if there were no variables, but the concept is helpful.
Personally, I believe that much of the fun of fishing are the unknowns associated with the sport. Maybe I am naive, but for me, knowing just where to cast or just how to troll would detract from the anticipation and then the delighted surprise that is such a big part of why we fish! That said, though, I really don't want to spend hours and hours without a decent chance of hooking up. That is where the SINKER-DROPPER can help.
We look upon Matt's invention, the SINKER-DROPPER, as an addition, as well as an alternative, to traditional downriggers.
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