New to Downriggers
I live in Fonthill about 20 minutes north of Port Colborne, Ontario, my boat is docked at Sugarloaf Marina in Port Colborne. I've been fishing for 67 years and consider myself a fairly decent fisherman when casting, trolling or jigging for walleye on small lakes and rivers. Last August my wife and I sold our cottage on Rice Lake, after an 18 year layoff I've returned to fishing Lake Erie. I must be doing something wrong because I'm not having much success with downriggers. My boat has 2 cannon downriggers, I usually have one set 10 - 15 feet from the bottom and the other at the halfway mark with worm harnesses on both. I usually fish within a mile or two of the weather buoy. My boat came equipped with a Hummingbird 175, it's next to useless, it rarely picks up fish in deep water. I'll probably upgrade to a better unit during the winter. I've been trailing my worm harness about 50 -60 feet behind my cannonball. I also changed to Walker releases because I was dragging fish around using the Cannon releases. Does anyone have any suggestions?