Setting Up Your First Downrigger Guide

Joel Elliott
2026-04-29T14:41:37-07:00

A no-BS walkthrough of the seven things every new troller gets wrong on day one — and how to fix them before you blow $400 in cannonballs.

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Don't lose your balls

Watching someone set up a downrigger for the first time is like watching someone parallel park in San Francisco — there's a lot of confidence, a lot of wheel-turning, and usually somebody's bumper ends up worse than they started.

I've taught maybe forty guys to run downriggers over the years. Almost all of them made the same handful of mistakes on day one. None is fatal. But all of them cost gear, and a couple will cost you fish.

Here's the list. Go through it before your first trip out, and you'll save yourself somewhere around $400 in lost cannonballs, terminal tackle, and pride.

1. Mounting it in the wrong spot

This is the one nobody tells you and everybody screws up. Most folks mount their first downrigger wherever there's a flat spot on the gunwale. That's wrong.

You want the rigger close enough to the helm that you can reach the boom and the release without leaving the wheel. You want it angled so the boom clears your motor and your kicker. And you want it back-far-enough that when a fish hits, the rod tip doesn't whack the side of your cabin or your radar arch.

Sit at the helm before you drill a single hole. Pretend the rigger is mounted. Pretend a fish is on. Reach for the release. Reach for the rod. Now imagine doing all that in three-foot chop with one hand on the throttle. That tells you where it goes.

2. Using the wrong cable

Stainless braided cable is fine for fresh water. In salt, it'll start working its way to failure within a season. The braid traps salt deep inside, the inner strands corrode, and one day at 180 feet you hear a 'twang' and your $40 ball is gone.

Run coated cable or solid stainless mono cable in salt. Yes, it costs more. Yes, it lasts five times longer. The math isn't subtle.

3. Skipping the cable counter calibration

Every electric rigger has a counter that tells you how deep the ball is. Every counter is wrong by 5–15 feet straight out of the box. Most of them stay wrong forever because nobody calibrates them.

Here's how you do it: take a measured length of cable (a 100-foot tape works), drop the ball to that exact depth, and check what the counter reads. Adjust the calibration screw or setting until it matches reality. Do this once per season. Bring a 9/16 wrench.

If your counter says 80 feet and you're actually at 95, you're trolling above the fish. That's not a gear failure. That's a homework failure.

4. Running the wrong release tension

The release is the clip that holds your fishing line to the cable. It needs to release when a fish hits — but not when a wave hits.

Most beginners crank the tension way up, because nobody likes a release popping for no reason. Then they wonder why they're missing strikes — the release is so tight a 6-pound coho can't trip it.

Set it tight enough to not pop in normal swell. Loose enough that you can pull the line free with steady hand pressure. If you can't pull it with one hand, a fish can't either.

5. No backup release on the boat

The first time a release fails on you (and it will), you're going to want a spare. Carry at least three. They're $8 each. Lose one to corrosion, drop one in the bilge, watch the third one explode when you accidentally crimp it in the cable. That's a normal Tuesday.

6. Not running a stop bead

A stop bead is a tiny piece of rubber or plastic that goes on your cable above the snap. It keeps the cannonball ball from slamming into the boom every time you bring the rigger up.

Run one. They cost a quarter. The boom they protect costs $200.

7. Trolling too fast

New trollers always go too fast. They're worried about being boring, they want to cover water, they're nervous about staying still. Then they wonder why nothing's hitting.

For salmon in salt, you're looking at 1.8 to 2.8 knots over ground. Coho on the slower end, kings a touch faster. If your rod tip isn't ticking with a steady action, you're either too slow (current pushing you) or too fast (overrunning your release). Watch the tip. Adjust the throttle. Keep adjusting all day.

Run one. They cost a quarter. The boom they protect costs $200.

The honest summary

None of this is hard. All of it is stuff I learned the expensive way.

Mount it where you can reach it. Run cable that survives salt. Calibrate the counter. Tune the release tension. Carry spares. Use a stop bead. Slow down.

Do those seven things, you'll be fishing instead of fixing on day one. And that's the whole point.