03-16-2007, 06:29 PM
Downriggers are not just for getting your lures down deep. They work well for that, but are useful for much more than that. The value of a downrigger is that the downrigger weight takes your lure down to the exact depth that you want to fish, and when one hooks a fish one doesn't have to also fight a lot of extra weight, or anything else that was used to get the lure down to the desired depth. For trolling at Flaming Gorge 100' of cable would be adequate at times but not always. First off the cable doesn't go straight down, it trails behind the boat, and how much it trails is primarily a function of how heavy the ball is on the downrigger, the shape of the ball, the speed of the boat, and what lures are being pulled through the water. At times, one will be trolling in water that is deeper than 100' at Flaming Gorge. I use a downrigger on my boat when I am trolling Strawberry. Most of the times I only have it down 15 to 25 feet and I have never had it deeper than 65 feet at Strawberry. I have even used it occasionally on Willard, which is definitely one of the shallower reservoirs. I also own a Porta-bote and probably won't ever add a downrigger to it. I don't want the extra weight of a downrigger on mine, but if it were my only boat I might reconsider it.
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