[fishon2407]

My brother has this idea in his head about putting a downrigger out while drifting for shark.Idea being that when the downrigger is set down about 75-100 feet you can set the bait back 100 feet and the current will keep it back behind the boat.I don't think this will work at all.Any of you tried this.

 

[Bruno1]

I've never done it but why would you want that extra cable in the water. Just something for a shark to wrap itself around. Why don't you just lower your bait down and watch it on your FF, put one just below and one above the thermocline.

 

[MakoMike]

fishon2407 wrote:
My brother has this idea in his head about putting a downrigger out while drifting for shark.Idea being that when the downrigger is set down about 75-100 feet you can set the bait back 100 feet and the current will keep it back behind the boat.I don't think this will work at all.Any of you tried this.

We've done it with an extra chum bag on the downrigger. But the bait won't be behind the boat, basically it will still be in the slick, unless you have some weird current situtaion where the current 75-100 feet down is different than it is at the surface. If its the same the bait will be out in the slick s the boat drifts.

 

[MakoMatt]

fishon, you can usually get the bait down to the depth you want just using a weight. I don't think you want all that downrigger crap in the water.

MakoMike wrote:
We've done it with an extra chum bag on the downrigger.
I ASS-ume you mean a chum pot, not a bag, the sharks would rip that to shreds, but that aside, why did you put whatever you used on a downrigger while drifting??

from another thread MakoMike wrote:
We usually catch one or two big blues a year and many more whites.
Is this the technique you use to catch the 1 or 2 big Blue Marlin and many more White Marlin every year, drifting with a downrigger??

MakoMatt


This post edited by MakoMatt 03:33 PM 04/22/2008

 

[CaptainFweddy]

More trouble than it's worth for chumming, unless you have a 2+knot drift. For all intensive purposes, you'd then be "trolling"...and there's nothing at all wrong with that!

 

[fishon2407]

Bruno1 wrote:
I've never done it but why would you want that extra cable in the water. Just something for a shark to wrap itself around. Why don't you just lower your bait down and watch it on your FF, put one just below and one above the thermocline.

I thought it was a bad idea from the get go because of that issue.Usually I like to try to jig something up right below the boat while waiting for JAWS to show up,and the downrigger will get in my way.

 

[MakoMike]

MakoMatt wrote:
fishon, you can usually get the bait down to the depth you want just using a weight. I don't think you want all that downrigger crap in the water.

MakoMike wrote:
We've done it with an extra chum bag on the downrigger.
I ASS-ume you mean a chum pot, not a bag, the sharks would rip that to shreds, but that aside, why did you put whatever you used on a downrigger while drifting??

from another thread MakoMike wrote:
We usually catch one or two big blues a year and many more whites.
Is this the technique you use to catch the 1 or 2 big Blue Marlin and many more White Marlin every year, drifting with a downrigger??

MakoMatt


Matt, yes I did mean a chum pot. I have a big wire one that can hold a whole can of shark chum. It was an experiement and we only did it twice. It didn't seem to improve the sharking so we stopped doing it.

I think we have only caught one white marlin while drifting and chumming over all the years. Almost all of our marlins came on the troll, either on natural or plastic baits.

 

[captainlarry84]

Traffic

Traffic in the slick

Once again slicks must be kept simple and clean with only fine chum and two or AT THE MOST three baits equally spaced so they all sit in the chum slick at different depths.
A downrigger bait which puts a bait deep and out of the chum is just a land mine waiting to cost you a trophy fish.
Every really good thresher or mako we have even taken or hooked up always came in hot, high, and hard! Grabbing the close bait and then darting into the sea as we in full panic mode reel in the two far baits.
The odds of clearing a downrigger in time during this very tense moment of the trophy hook up without a fish that got away story is very strong!
Slow trolling or power drifting with a downrigger and a Ballyhood lure and top baits is acceptable. During a hot hook up with the boat in gear the odds of a tragic tangle are thin to none.
If the downrigger is hit and a mako goes air borne the surface baits would be well out of the way as they are placed close to the boat in front of the rigger bait. If the opposite occurs the initial run of the thresher or mako is usually on the surface, giving the crew plenty of time to clear the downrigger.
Trophy bites are getting harder & harder so keep things simple!

 

[fishon2407]

I couldn't agree more.Again,my brothers idea,not mine.