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How to fish for Salmon with Downriggers
Apr 2, 2023
Downriggers are the most popular and effective method to fish for Salmon in open water. If you aren't fishing with downriggers, you may be missing opportunities to hook more king and coho salmon. This video starts by explaining the absolute basics, but quickly moves into more advanced topics like braid vs wire, improving your hook-to-land ratio and optimizing your electrical current output (if you are using wire) for a specific salmon species. Also, we would love to hear from you what kind of questions you have about downrigger fishing for salmon, where could put out another video on the topic addressing your questions.
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0:00
what's up everybody today I want to talk to you about downrigger fishing for salmon we're only a
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couple days out from going to CQ get in on that March 1st blackmouth opener could be an awesome
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time at CQ I love fishing there in the summer and one of the most important things you got to be
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equipped with fishing for salmon these days is one of these downriggers. Downriggers are
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the most popular and effective way to catch salmon in open water. Whether you're in the Puget Sound
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the Strait, the Ocean, or even the Great Lakes, where downriggers were invented
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it's all about the downrigger. I get it. Downriggers may feel like cheating a little bit
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downrigger patrolling you know when you're not catching it's not super exciting but if you're
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not fishing with downriggers you're missing out on opportunity to hook into more king and coho
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salmon and this video this video is going to show you how to get it done how to rig up your downriggers
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how to fish with them and maybe even some pro tips at the end here sort of the 201 level of
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downrigger fishing for salmon. Let's get right to it
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Okay so now let's talk about a few of the components of a downrigger that are important when you're fishing it and when you're rigging it up. Alright let's
1:43
start with the wire here. So I like to use 180 pound Scotty downward wire. You can also
1:51
use braid. I'll talk about the difference between braid and wire later in the video as there's
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advantages and disadvantages to both in different situations. Alright so I connect my wire to
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my terminal gear using this Canon Terminator kit. This is some awesome stuff because with
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With this Canon Terminator kit, you don't need any knots or any crimping or anything like that with the wire
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It all just is secured here underneath this rubber stuff here. You can make that change really fast out on the boat if you were to break off your wire for some reason
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Super, super helpful. Then I attach one of these releases. This is probably the most popular release style
2:32
You squeeze this. You put the line in and slide it to where the black line is
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You can put it behind the black line for more release tension. We'll talk about release tension and fishing with these things a little bit more
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I got a rubber snubber here I use because I want some bounce in this thing
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I don't want it to be completely inflexible. Give it a chance to flex and come free if it's going to get stuck on a rock or something versus get stuck or break off
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I got this trolling snap as part of the rubber snubber. and I attach my downward weight using these zip ties here
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And I'll explain why I use zip ties. It has to do with using wire and metal-on-metal contact
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You know, you've got this ring here, and when this trolling snap and metal-on-metal are together
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they put out a current. And depending on the species of salmon you're fishing for
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we'll talk about that a bit more, but you may be repelling some of your salmon that you're fishing for
3:33
based on how you connect these things together. One of the reasons people like to use braid is that not even an issue The wire not putting off any current so you don have to worry about that as much we talk about all the pluses and minuses let take a look at a
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couple of the controls here with downrigger operation so here we have your electric downrigger
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retrieve so you push it right and that's like that's more like a one-time retrieve i can also
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turn it to on I'm not gonna do it now but if I turn it on which is really handy
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when you have a fish on and you want to retrieve your gear while you're fighting
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the fish you switch up to on and it'll come up all the way till it hits this
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auto stop beat that's why the auto stop beat is there and it'll stop this is
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your break as you put this as you release this right you notice it starts
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to spin, the spool starts to spin and you drop your weight down
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Push the button, bring it back up. That's how easy it is to operate a downrigger
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Let's talk about how we actually fish with this thing to hook sandals more effectively
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First thing you're going to do is let out about 15 to 30 feet of line behind the boat
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here before you try to attach your downrigger release clip. There's several different styles of release clip
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Here's probably the most popular one. Squeeze the body there and you slide the line into the black mark
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You can move it forward of the mark for less release tension to trip, or behind the black
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mark for a little bit more. And then as you see here, we're dropping down
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Before I explain exactly how to drop your downrigger ball down, I'm going to talk about
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another release clip style briefly. All right, so here we are again
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We're letting out about 20 feet of line behind the boat, and then I'm sliding the rod
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I'm going to slide the rod back towards the front of the boat
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because I want to get to the tip right here. There we go. And this is a different kind of release clip style
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where you do a twist six, seven times, and then there's a little notch in there that you slide the line in
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and there's a tension screw that can control exactly how much tension is required to trip
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the release. So you can make it really tight or really loose. It tends to work with lighter line
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like a smaller diameter mono, right? It won't slip as easily as the other style. So
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if you're fishing some lighter mono, this style might be helpful, or you just want to really tighten that release tension
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All right, so here we go again. I'm letting line behind the boat, and now I'm attaching it to that other style release clip
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and I'm going to drop it down. We talked about dropping it down. So you're going to see I get the rod up here
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and I'm going to hold the rod in my left hand, my thumb on the spool
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and then I'm going to control the downward rate with my right hand. And as I'm dropping it, it's really important I got my thumb on the spool applying just enough
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pressure to keep slack out of it, but still allowing it to drop down
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Alright, so I want you to watch and pay attention to what I'm doing with my right hand as I'm dropping down
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I am pulling the brake back and then moving it forward slightly, backing it off slightly
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It's because I'm letting it start to spin, but then as it spins it actually picks up speed
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So I start to back it off by moving it forward slightly. I don't want it to drop too fast
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You can damage your downrider wire and some of your terminal gear if you do that
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Pay also attention to the angle of my rod. Look at how my rod pointed at the water That where you want that how much tension you want and how much slack you want to move When that fish hits you want it to pop up just like that and come tight When you get a bite or a fish trips the release clip the first thing you want to do is you want to reel out the slack
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as fast as possible. There's a ton of slack between you and the fish right when that release
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clip trips and that's where a lot of times you're going to lose fish, especially big king salmon if
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if they decided to kind of swim with your boat instead of grabbing it and turning
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Let's take a break for a second from all the learning just to appreciate this battle
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with a downrigger hooked King Salmon just outside of Neah Bay last summer of 2020
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I think that's a king. Look at the size right here. Oh, that's definitely a king
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I saw the colors. Oh, he's a big fish, boy. That's a hatch
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It's a hatch. It's a hatch. You drop it in. Alright we gotta talk about driving the boat by yourself with the tiller handle from the
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back of the boat while you're dropping down, managing it down. I want you to watch in this clip what I'm doing
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I got my left hand on the rod on the reel here. I'm dropping it down with my right hand
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And watch what I'm doing with the tiller handle. Half the time, I'm using my backside to drive the bow and try to keep it straight
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because I'm trying to keep it going at 2.5 to 3 miles an hour
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to make sure that I'm not hooking a bunch of blackmouth shakers
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Blackmouth fishing in the early part of the year 2021. So I'm trying to get down to the bottom and avoid shakers, so I'm trying to keep it with
9:26
a good amount of speed and keep it straight. It's okay if your boat's got some wiggling
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As a matter of fact, that actually helps you hook up rather than going with the current
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straight line. But I'm trying to hit bottom, come up slightly, take the slack out, and get to driving again
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About to happen any second. Another thing that's really important when you're downrigger fishing for salmon is when
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you get that hookup, when you get that bite, you got to reel out the slack immediately and
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you want to keep the motor in forward gear at good foot of speed
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Do not set the boat to neutral. You can lose so many fish by setting it to neutral and just creating a little bit of
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slack that allows them to get off, especially when fishing with 11 inch flasher
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Alright, so on my last segment here I want to talk about some downrigger gear
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specifically braid versus wire and which one should you use I can only show you
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what I'm doing here for me it's all about that wire you know I had one of
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the drawbacks to wire those it's got to be replaced every every few season it'll
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rust and it can break and cost you cost you some serious money I mean place all
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your terminal gear for your for your downroar braid on the other hand doesn't
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doesn't have that issue right so unless there's a frayed point in your your braid
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you really don't have to replace it. You can keep fishing it
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Another thing with wire is it has an attraction or repulsion element to it, characteristic to it
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based on the current that's being put out there. Braid doesn have that issue Braid is pretty current neutral When fishing with wire and you got this trolling snap and you going to connect it to the metal here right on the downrigger ball like this
11:13
when you connect it that way, you're putting out a current. And the current you're putting out
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may be helping attract salmon or may be repulsing salmon. I put an article out there on pnwbestlife.com
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where I did a downrigger voltage test with some different combinations of factors
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You should definitely check it out. Here I'll give you the summary. Chinook salmon like about 0.6 volts
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If you go above that, they are repulsed by the current. Coho prefer 0.65
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If you go back above that, they're repulsed by the current. The goal for whatever species, if you're fishing with steel cable
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is to give the right current for the species and not repulse by having too much current
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What I was able to find is if I did metal on metal, so if I did metal on metal with this
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connector, I was putting out 0.65 volts. Now this might be different for your boat than mine
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but I was putting out 0.65. So when I'm fishing for schnook, I use this heavy duty zip tie
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I talked about earlier and I change it probably every few trips because eventually
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that run this in the water this will break snap and it'll lose my downrigger ball so I
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like to put a new one on but if I uh if I if this is attached to the zip tie or plastic covered ring
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I'm putting out about 0.58 0.59 which is perfect for Chinook attraction if I run it like I said
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with metal to metal I'm at 0.65 which is perfect for coho and my fishing results have matched
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this by the way uh at 0.65 i've i've been the hottest boat fishing for coho um but i've struggled
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to hook chinook in that team in that same situation and look if your boat's fishing fine the way it is
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i'm the last person who's going to tell you to change up what you're doing but if you think you
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might be repelling uh fish with your current maybe you just go with braid uh it's simpler and uh it
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also has less blowback because braid's thinner diameter for the the same strength you can fish
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lighter downrigger balls or with a 15 pound ball you can fish deeper than you can with steel wire
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which has a lot more blowback so you're gonna have a lot more of the c-shape in the water where you
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might have a hundred feet of cable out but you're fishing at 90 feet instead of 100 feet of cable
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at 95 feet with braid you might be able to fish 200 feet of water with maybe just 220 feet of cable
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and with wire, you may not get down there, period, because of the blowback
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So those are all things to consider. Last thing I'll say is commercial trollers, they use steel wire
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There's a reason why that, and they use positive ion control with their black boxes
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They want that current dialed in. They make their living hooking salmon, and they want the optimal setting
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which is controlled current with a steel cable. To conclude, what questions do you have? I'd love
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it if you'd like this video and subscribe to my channel, but what questions do you have about
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downrigger fishing for salmon? There's a lot more we could cover. I'd love to tailor next video on
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this topic to the questions you have, any feedback you have. Please drop it in the comment section
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below. Have a great time out there. Good luck if you're going to CQ in a few days. Stay safe out
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on the water. Take care
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