Moving to Electrics...

I have a Scotty manual, a Cannon Manual , and a Penn electric. Love the Penn. It is so easy to use and the memory is a great feature. I am looking for another Penn for the other side and then I will be set.
 
I got out to Detroit Lake yesterday and used the new electric downriggers. Oh my gracious!!!! These things are nice. Gone are the days of cranking like crazy when you have a fishing rod in one hand, a barking dog running around the cockpit, and General Confussion in charge of everything.

BTW, there was a terrible accident on the lake. Nine rainbow trout and one kokanee died.

Steve
 
I've heard really good things about the new Canons. Glad they worked out for you!

Now you will continually be asking yourself why you waited so long to convert over to electrics!

Gone are the days of ...General Confussion in charge of everything.
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You obviously haven't had a chance to tangle with a hot Chinook with multiple lines in the water on a rough day yet! :lol:

Last time I got the chance to go out to Sekiu for Kings, we had 12 foot swells with 4ft wind waves on top of them. Luckily the swells were about 10 seconds apart. Even so it was ROUGH. My son and I were in the old NR Sled. We were on our way back in to call it a day but decided to go for one more troll past the caves. I got my line down to 65 ft and took over the helm so he could put his line down. Just as he finished my rod started screaming! The fish was pulling so hard that I couldn't even get the rod out of the rod holder. Justin frantically starts pulling in his line and flips the switch on the down rigger to bring it up. All this while we are both frantically trying to stay upright due to the conditions. Once I finally get the rod out of the lousy Fish-On holder the fish is already at the surface (12 feet above the boat mind you) and I can see it through the waves highlighted by the sun behind it as it tears across the back of the boat. I yell at Justin to get on the big motor and to try to keep the fish off the port side so I can fight it. After several good runs I finally bring a nice 30+ lb Native along side and release it to go spawn in the river somewhere.

That fish left me with a bent reel seat and some great memories of fishing with my son. I just wish I had been able to take a picture of it. But it was just too lumpy to even think about. We were lucky to be able to stand up! Let alone take a picture!

From that experience, I truly changed my mind about having an engine box inside the boat. It was no longer "IN THE WAY" it was a safety feature. Without being able to wedge myself between the engine and the gunnel I never would have been able to stay in the boat to fight that fish. Several times I lost my footing only to get it back when my feet slid into the engine box. Plus it was a built in seat/work table.
 
Good choice with the Cannon's. Of coarse I am biased. 20 some odd years ago my first riggers were Scotty's. I vowed never again. The brake handles on both of them broke off. (at different times). Yes Scotty has a wonderful lifetime warranty but it is absolutely useless when you are so far off shore.
I have had two very dependable Cannon Mag 10's for 20 years and they are still strong. Even with the slow retrieve. One day one of them went overboard because it wasn't locked down. Thank God the power cord saved it from going to the bottom. It had been completely submerged and was put right back into use. (this time I screwed it down into the mount). :oops:
I also own a pair of the newer Mag 20's with the high speed retrieve. Very nice.
Other than cable, of the four riggers, only one up/down toggle switch has had to be replaced.
The Mag 20's do have the bottom following feature and they will also jig. The jig feature is more important I think. The other advantage of the high end Cannon riggers is that you can control up to as many as six from your Fishfinder.

Three out of four Downrigger Manufacturers use direct drive.
 
Going to chine in on this subject again. I have used everything but the walkers. I currently have two scottys and would like to replace the both of them. I think that the auto following on the cannons is great and don't really understand what people don't get about it. So here's the drill. You are fishing for kings, like I did all week end-caught two, and you are running a line on a drop off at 100 ft with 200 off one side and 75 of the other. The fish are between 110 and 90. So you set the low limit on the cannon to 120 and the high end to 40. now as you cross back and forth dodging ten other boats, the tide line and a bunch of floating weed matts, the down riggers will stay with in 5 ft of the bottom but not go over 120 deep or 40 feet shallow. yes you have to keep reeling up and down on the reels ( YOU HAVE TO ANYWAY) but you don't have to reel up the down riggers before they hit the bottom. And to tell the truth as long as you don't move more then 20-30 ft up or down you don't have to reel in the slack at all. So you are getting to do half the work and don't have to worry about hanging up the bottom. I fish in areas where if you are not on the bottom you are not fishing. I also like the cannons as they take up less room horizontally and that would make fitting my canvas over the down riggers easier when on anchor as I was all weekend. The best downrigger would be the walker with the built in camera.
 
I think it's a regional thing. I rarely fish on bottom for kings down here in Oregon. If I do it's in 35 feet of water or less and then I don't need downriggers. The cannons sound nice though. I do know that the scotty Reps have a stronger presence where I'm at plus their warranty is hard to beat.


starcrafttom":3qunvag3 said:
Going to chine in on this subject again. I have used everything but the walkers. I currently have two scottys and would like to replace the both of them. I think that the auto following on the cannons is great and don't really understand what people don't get about it. So here's the drill. You are fishing for kings, like I did all week end-caught two, and you are running a line on a drop off at 100 ft with 200 off one side and 75 of the other. The fish are between 110 and 90. So you set the low limit on the cannon to 120 and the high end to 40. now as you cross back and forth dodging ten other boats, the tide line and a bunch of floating weed matts, the down riggers will stay with in 5 ft of the bottom but not go over 120 deep or 40 feet shallow. yes you have to keep reeling up and down on the reels ( YOU HAVE TO ANYWAY) but you don't have to reel up the down riggers before they hit the bottom. And to tell the truth as long as you don't move more then 20-30 ft up or down you don't have to reel in the slack at all. So you are getting to do half the work and don't have to worry about hanging up the bottom. I fish in areas where if you are not on the bottom you are not fishing. I also like the cannons as they take up less room horizontally and that would make fitting my canvas over the down riggers easier when on anchor as I was all weekend. The best downrigger would be the walker with the built in camera.
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I believe a large portion of the fishing public on the left coast own Scotty's. The reason is price, availability and warranty. Because of this popularity and price point everybody and their brother caries them here. Even
Walmart stores.
The Great Lakes and East Coast would be a different situation. Cannon along with Penn and Walker have a higher market share.
Let's face it, all these different brands are designed to do the same thing. Get the bait down to the level the fish are holding at. Although it would be interesting to see what the rate of return or warranty work percentage to sales was.
 
I don't know that I can provide any stats that would back up claims for any manufacturer's downrigger, but I do know that one of my family members who owns several large outdoor stores here in the west uses nothing but Cannons (both manual and electrics). The stores carry both Scotty and Cannon, and had in the past carried Big Jon. I was told that the Big Jon's were probably the highest in quality (I have a pair of small manuals, and am impressed by the machining that went into them), but they did not sell here in the west. I don't know if the design was the issue, or if they were a little more expensive than the others.
 
Sorry to resurrect a nearly 4 year old thread, but I've been giving some thought to this subject. I have 2 Scotty manual downriggers, and am giving some thought to going to Scotty electrics (1101's). I run 2 group 24 batteries - 1 house and 1 start. Would it work to run the Scotty electrics to the house battery, or would I be better off trying to find a place for a 3rd battery, specifically for the downriggers? My concern is that the downriggers would wear down the house battery pretty quickly. Any thoughts?
 
I run mine off the start battery which is getting continually recharged while the engines are running. Since we wind up trolling off the mains (no kicker on either my previous 22 or the current Tomcat) that pretty much takes care of that concern. If you have a kicker, I'd still run it off the start battery and run the main occasionally to recharge (if needed). While the current draw is large, the Scotty down riggers are pretty fast and unless you go up and down a whole lot more times than I do to fill your limit, I don't think it puts a serious dent in the charge.
 
Thanks for the input. I run my anchor windlass off the start battery for the same reason, so it would make sense to do the same thing with the electric downriggers. Are you running a cranking battery for your house battery, or do you run 2 deep cycles?
 
On the original 22, I started with two deep cycles and replaced them with two cranking batteries after about 5 years of use. I had no problems with either. I replaced the deep cycles proactively and used cranking batteries at the time because they were a little less expensive. On the Tomcat, it came with two HUGE cranking batteries.
 
The scotty down riggers should not use more than 10 amps (for 20 lb weights)I--and you will only be using them a short time each lift. I would also use the start. A good reason to have a charging circuit on the kicker however.
 
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