if your going to get serious about kokanee, youll need two things, a good fishfinder that shows speed, and a downrigger. You can get manual downriggers for about $75. If the finder doesn't do speed, get a luhr speed troll I think its called. About $50 and its accurate to within 1 knot. Once you find where the schools are sitting, lower your offering to a few feet above them (they see better above them). Theres so many variables, and if you can get the right speed and the right depth, all you need to do is find the right troll/dodger and lure/bait setup. Without the downrigger, I think the lead core is the most affective way to get down a bit. But once they get down below 50 ft, you wont reach them trolling without a downrigger. good luck, Brian
Downriggers
- Thread starter Charlie_merrifi
- Start date
You'll also need to go deeper for trout when the surface temp gets to the 60-65 degree range. Trolling near the surface will get very few fish in that warm of water. Just getting down 10-15ft can make ALL the difference in your catching or not catching. That can be done easily with just weights or lead line. Later in the summer as the water gets even warmer, you'll need to go deeper yet.
Having used downriggers now for at least 15 years with great success- if I was in zero money mode and was going trout fishing in the summer warm water- I would tie some line to a rock and use a clothespin for a release clip! Seriously- the need to get down to cooler water is that important. Or I'd resign myself to a heavier rod and use 4-6 oz. of weight to get me down there.
Do yourself the greatest good you could ever do for catching trout in lakes- beg, borrow, or sell some thing else to get a good downrigger. $125-$150 will get a manual downrigger that will change your fishing life!
Jim
Having used downriggers now for at least 15 years with great success- if I was in zero money mode and was going trout fishing in the summer warm water- I would tie some line to a rock and use a clothespin for a release clip! Seriously- the need to get down to cooler water is that important. Or I'd resign myself to a heavier rod and use 4-6 oz. of weight to get me down there.
Do yourself the greatest good you could ever do for catching trout in lakes- beg, borrow, or sell some thing else to get a good downrigger. $125-$150 will get a manual downrigger that will change your fishing life!
Jim
Could you use a downrigger plus lead core. If anyone that uses them wouldn't mind letting me sit in on a trip to see how they work that would be great. Would my current medium heavy action pole work
Throbbit _Shane
Well-known member
Once you get some downriggers you can go target some giant Mackinaw trout 
Using both of them together would be fairly pointless. IMO overall a downrigger is more functional. With a downrigger you can use lighter gear and have a much more enjoyable fight than with lead core line. I've even been known to use a downrigger to quickly and easily get down to the fish for jigging. Drop it down, you can see the ball on your depth finder. When you get in the middle of the school of fish give your rod a good tug, when the ball come free pull it up and start jigging.
Beaverfan
Hey good idea- now that you say it- DUH!!!
Hey good idea- now that you say it- DUH!!!
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