[fishing bear]

Went out to my favorite little lake this morning kind of a shake down for some new stuff I got for my boat. First I scored a Luhr-Speed trolling speed indicator at OE on the bargain table awhile back for 25 bucks 1/2 price. Been looking at downriggers lately and thought how tough would it be to build one. Used a piece of 3/4" conduit for the boom found a pulley that fit in the end and mounted a old Penn 209 on it that has 80lb. braid on it that I put on last year bought a 6lb. ball and a release clip and marked the line every 5' I now have a downrigger that works like a champ. The design is a little rough but I will refine it now that I know it will work. I made a board that mounts across the back of my boat to hold the downrigger and my pole holder that worked sweet. Now that I have saved the money for a downrigger it's fish-finder time and look out Kokanee this year.

Oh by the way no fish were caught today might be a little early yet.

 

[Slowleak]

Love that ******* engineering Tup: In the '60's, before down riggers were really popular, my buddy and I made one out of a tricycle front wheel, conduit, a hardware store pulley, SS safety wire for cable and then a split ring for the release. We just drilled a hole in the forks and stuck a rod through the spokes for a stop. It looked like something Fred and Barney built but it worked pretty good for trolling deep for silvers in Lake Mead. We did the same thing; marked the wire every 10' with yellow paint and we used a homemade sandcast ball made out of melted wheel weights.