Downrigger cable composition

[Dr. Oc]

I have a question for the forum concerning what type of cable is best for use on downriggers for Kokanees, and how many do y'all usually run? I run a pair of Penn Fathomasters off my boat at present. I originally had a single downrigger with a stainless steel cable and an 8 lb. ball, then added a 2nd downrigger a year later that came spooled with 150 lb. PowerPro. The PowerPro is 1/2 the diameter of the steel, runs at the same angle/"blowback" with only a 6lb. ball and is nearly completely silent even up to 2.0 mph which I initially really liked. The steel cable starts to hum at about 1.3 and is quite loud over 1.6mph. Interestingly, I seemed to have noticed that I have had more bites on the steel cabled downrigger than the PowerPro one and that I have had fewer bites when running both than when I had only the one steel cable one. Coincidence or does the PowerPro setup and/or a 2nd downrigger in general spook fish? I have not ever measured the electric current on the steel one but I intend to do so. I would assume that the PowerPro one has no measurable current and therefore should neither attract nor repel them, but I'm not sure that something about it has changed my success.

 

[dragonfly]

DR. don't know why the cable does better than the plastic. it is probably just a coincidence I run 4 downriggers with ss cable and don't see any problems with 4 ss stick weights in the water at once ( I try to run at least 40' back or more from the weights ). as far as noise, that is covered in another thread ''downriggers''. when it is just my wife and I, with 2 pole tags, we don't have to stack. dfly

 

[SilverBullets]

I use ss cable on both riggers. Having them both set up with ball trolls even at the same level works really well most days and doesn't seem to spook them. I start out with a short setback/ball trolls on one side and farther back without on the other to see what they want. The majority of the time the ball troll side with a 10' set-back wins. If your getting more hits off the ss side you might be attracting them with the cable. I do have a black box but being that the boat is set up good it really doesn't seem to make that much of a difference. I run Scotty 1060 manuals on both sides and don't get any hum noise... use 8lb weights.

 

[SuperD]

I run 4 and sometimes 5, all with steel cable because the downriggers are Cannons. How many years have you been running the 2 downriggers? Without changing anything, I have bad years, good years and better than good years. It's why they call it fishing instead of catching.