Downriggers
Here’s the story on downrigging generally, and our downrigger specifically.
Many years ago I was fishing for barramundi on Bathurst Island, in the Northern Territory. My guide for the week, Brett, didn’t have much formal education, but was wise to the ways of fish. He had been brought up on a mackerel boat based in Wyndham, and had packed thousands of hours of fishing into his young life. Each morning, Brett and I would leave before dawn to fish for Spanish mackerel around the rocky headlands just offshore. The mackerel came on the bite at first light, and disappeared about an hour after sunup. One day, I asked Brett why these big predators were so predictable, as regards their main hunting period.
Brett opened his tackle box and picked up a long minnow lure to explain. ‘Andy, all bait fish, no matter what type, have something in common: a dark back, blue, black or green. And a light coloured underside- silver, white, or cream. The sea birds that hunt them from the air look down from above, and find it hard to distinguish the dark backs from the dark coloured water. The big fish that hunt them from below look up and find it hard to distinguish their silver bellies from the bright light above.
It’s only at dawn and dusk, when the sun is at an acute angle to the water, that light reflects off the side of the bait fish, making hunting them easier. And dawn is usually better than dusk because the seas are calmer, early in the morning.’
Those weren’t his exact words but Brett’s insights were spot on. When the early morning feeding opportunity has passed, mackerel take up station over deep reefs. Yellowtail kingfish, which occupy the Spanish mackerel’s place in the food chain around the southern half of Australia, do the same thing. During the middle of the day they’re the same aggressive predators, but like all predators conserve energy, when not hunting. Yet if a bait or lure is placed deeper in the water, close to where the fish are on station, a strike will usually result.
This is where downriggers come in. By using a downrigger, in combination with a depth sounder, you can present your bait or lure to fish marking on your screen, or at the correct depth where fish are likely to be holding. In waters adjoining major metropolitan centres, or popular fishing spots, predators will tend to hold deeper and get on station earlier, because they don’t like boat traffic. This is why fishing in Sydney Harbour is often better midweek, than on weekends. With downriggers you can still produce fish in the middle of the day, in Australia’s busiest waterways. This technique is particularly deadly on trout, kingfish, Spanish mackerel, and marlin.
Downriggers come in all shapes and sizes. The technique was first popularised in the USA, originally used to target salmon and large trout in the Great Lakes. I went on a downrigging charter on Lake Michigan, near to the Illinois / Wisconsin border. That kind of fishing is radically different to Australian conditions. With cheap fuel, much larger boats are used. We fished from a 40 foot express, which had a transom at least twelve feet across. The boat had no marlin board, no motor legs and a shaft drive, allowing the use of multiple downriggers. The Great Lakes are freshwater, so downrigger corrosion is not a concern. And through summer, the Lakes are very calm. Check the pic, it was like this all week.
That’s very different, to Australian conditions. Here, the average size boat is 5 or 6 metres long. The combination of strong sunlight and salt water makes corrosion a serious concern. Our seas are often rough, meaning a strong, robust downrigger is needed. Most boats are powered by outboards, meaning a long downrigger boom is required to keep the gear away from the propeller. That’s why our downrigger is built for the toughest Australian conditions, whether just offshore chasing kingfish;
Or on the continental shelf, fishing for marlin. Two marlin caught this day on the downrigger, a blue and a striped:
Here’s our best mahi on the downrigger, caught at the famous ‘Carpark’ off Port Stephens, NSW:
The idea of our downrigger is that it’s supplied complete and ready to go, straight out of the box. You don’t need to visit the tackle store for weights, release clips, bases and expensive accessories. Firstly, it features a one metre boom, to keep everything clear of the prop, even when you’re making tight turns;
An up/ down tilting boom arm, which locks in both up and down position with a pin:
making the downrigger easy to store in the boat rod rack;
It has an adjustable rod holder, so you don’t lose a rod holder when mounting your downrigger. . Here’s the procedure. Take rod holder tube in left hand, grasp rod holder mount in right hand:
Pull base of tube away from mount, using left hand:
Rotate tube to preferred angle and release pressure so that detent pin locks in:
And you’re good to go. Note that that the rod holder will have to be returned to the original position, when you want to place the boom arm in the upright position. I have mine on quite a steep angle. There are two options for mounting the downrigger to your boat, the first being a gimbal base which slides straight into your rod holder. Note this is solid alloy, not tube;
If you want the downrigger arm to stick out the side of your boat, rather than point out over the stern, just loosen the four screws on the base and rotate the downrigger 90 degrees. The second mounting option is a three piece detachable sliding base. With this system, one plate is mounted on the transom of your boat, another up the front or in the cabin where your downrigger will be stored. The third grooved piece is bolted to the bottom of your downrigger. A locking pin is fitted to ensure secure storage or use.
The third grooved piece is bolted to the bottom of your downrigger. A locking pin is fitted to ensure secure storage or use. Our downrigger is fitted with tough Carbontex drag washers, the same kind used in premium game reels;
Components are heavily factory anodised, to protect against corrosion;
The downrigger is fitted with a swivel boomhead, which rotates on needle bearings. This tracks the downrigger weight on hard boat turns, meaning you can do a 180 and go back over good marks, on the sounder;
It’s supplied with a Du-Bro shock kit, fitted to the end of the line. This prevents the downrigger weight striking the boom head, on retrieve:
Four Du-Bro downrigger release clips are included;
We include a 4-pound weight. That works well with braid line, because braid is much smaller diameter, than multistrand wire. So, less drag. A detachable resettable depth counter is also enclosed. It measures in metres;
The downrigger is pre-spooled with 65 metres of 200-pound braid. We prefer braid to nylon-coated cable, for several reasons:
1. braid has narrower diameter so, less drag, meaning we can use lighter weights which are easier to wind up;
2. no corrosion;
3. no hum. Metallic cables hum in a loud and annoying way, as they move through the water. Not so noticeable in a fibreglass boat, but really bad in aluminium boats of the type very popular, in Australia.
Lastly, the downrigger is supplied with a 4-pound lead weight. Everything you need to start is included in our downrigger package. There’s no need to go to the tackle shop for bits and pieces, it’s all ready to go. Price is $425 for everything mentioned above, including delivery by registered mail to Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. Other destinations a little extra. Okay, you’re ready to go downrigging, how do we do it?
Firstly, check out this video, How To Set Up A Downrigger. This shows how to assemble all the items included with your purchase. There’s nothing difficult involved. Operation of the downrigger is pretty much similar for all types of fishing, but in this how-to we’ll focus on two of the most popular species, kingfish and Spanish mackerel. Firstly, the bait. There are three preferred options. Live squid:
Live yellowtail or slimy mackerel:
Check out our Web page for a photo essay on how to rig live bait for downrigging. Lastly, dead bait rigged on a Head Start:
If you haven’t heard of the Head Start system, they are deadly on mackerel, dolphin fish, and marlin. Check this 10-second video to see how well they work Send me an email if you’d like pricing and full details, on how to use Head Starts? To see a typical morning’s downrigging for smaller inshore kingfish, click here. Four pages of instructions are included with your purchase. For a short film showing larger NZ kingfish being downrigged, check this out. We get some great feedback from downrigger owners.
Here’s a selection.
Andrew I went out for a solo trip off Noosa last weekend here are pics of my day out – it rained a lot onshore all weekend but nothing much offshore, just passing squalls. Got one hoo, three stripies and bag limit of pearlies (returning the pearlies due to the green fishing ban ?)
I use the manual downrigger with 3lb weight for up to 5m down and the electric downrigger with 10lb weight for deeper – set up works well with rigged garfish.
Ben Lake downrigged the rough broken ground around Wedding Cake Island off Coogee in Sydney, and came up with this beaut metropolitan kingfish:
Dom wrote in from Brisbane, with news of a sensational Spanish session:
Saturday
Headed across the bay in reasonable weather and then out through the south passage bar. Never crossed the bar on the southern end, but had seen a few boats do it before. Dodged a few sharp waves that got the heart pumping, though made it out the other side. Over to the bait reef for a load of livies which took a little while, though managed a dozen or so. It was about 6:30am by the time we had a bait in the water, as it is a 50km run from Manly to the fishing grounds. We had one bait on the downrigger, and one on the surface and within 3 minutes we had a double hook-up and all hell broke loose. We managed to keep the fish away from each other and also get the downrigger up before they tangled with it. We landed both fish and got 2 more baits in the water. Again the baits were in the water for another five minutes and the downrigger goes off again. Another cracking spanish mack. We ended up with 5 fish for the morning and 3 from the downrigger.
Sunday
Still excited about the haul the previous day, and a mate in town keen to head out, off we went again. Water colour was completely different with a green tinge to it, and the fish proved bloody hard to get. We landed a shark mackerel first, then two nice yellowfin tuna all on the downrigger. Things went really quiet for the next 2 hours and no one around us was catching anything. We ventured out into the deeper water and dropped the rigger really deep. In almost 40 meters of water, the line on the downrigger starts screaming and finally we got a blue for the morning.
Grant Rand fished South West Rocks, with two of our downriggers he’s customised:
we went out and crossed the bar straight out to get livies. It was a struggle to get any after an hour and a half we had enough for the day trolled around the gaol for a few hours with nothing happening. We packed up and headed for fish rock, started to troll x-raps about 250m before, and on our first pass we had a double hook up on yellowfin. Lost 1 mid fight, and I lost mine right at the back of the boat it was a good fin around the 20KG mark disappointing but very promising. Next pass we boated a nice mack tuna and for the next 2 hours it was mack after mack. After pulling in a mack I put the x-rap back out, and got smashed straight away by a small yellow fin of 7KG. On our last pass Liams rod goes nuts, 10 mins later we had a 115 cm spaniard on board. Not a bad day for our first day fishing at SWR 15 or so fish in the boat and a good feed of fish for the night. Most of the fish were caught on your braid so a thumbs up on testing it out.
Fred Burley is new to downrigging. He bought one from us, and headed to Jervis Bay with his Quintrex in tow:
Saw water as warm as 24.2 degrees last week 100m off Currarong last week and my brother in law picked up a Yellowfin Tuna trolling. (another first). We have been consistently catching Bonito and Rat Kingfish on trolled lures and downrigging yakkas up and down the Beecroft peninsula. Great fun!!
Thursday though at the Drumsticks was insane. Amongst non stop action with Rats averaging 60cm, at 3.00pm picked up 130cm/18kg Kingie in 30m of water. I was only on 10-15kg rod and 50 pound braid. What an experience!! My brother in law picked up one at 100cm on Saturday too.
Downrigging has really put a smile on my face!!
Beautiful. Downrigging’s deadly for big mahi, Tony won at the Whitsundays comp with a 17 kilo one. He writes:
The Mahi was caught on the eastern side of Hook Island & the reef, about 60km off the mainland. We won the heaviest other game fish & runner up highest combined point score.
Beautiful. Downrigging’s deadly for big mahi, Tony won at the Whitsundays comp with a 17 kilo one. He writes:
The Mahi was caught on the eastern side of Hook Island & the reef, about 60km off the mainland. We won the heaviest other game fish & runner up highest combined point score.
Lastly, no pics available yet, but I’ve heard from a client about an interesting new downrigging technique. The bloke fishes Port Phillip Bay with the weights dragging on clean sand or mud, and sets a four inch squidgie on a short drop back. Flathead – not the smartest fish in the sea, but very alert to an easy feed – think the puffs of sand from the weight are a ray or shovel nosed shark feeding, and hit the soft plastic aggressively. He’s been killing it with this technique down there. Check this flathead video out- pretty amazing stuff.
Call or email me anytime if you’d like to discuss, or if you need a free DVD on downrigging by mail? It’s a devastatingly effective technique which will present new opportunities for you, as a fisherman. Thanks for reading,
