Tested on the water. Built to pull. — by Capt. Joel Elliott · Elliott's Tackle & Rigging
Capt. Joel's complete field guide to rigging downriggers, dialing your troll, and putting more fish in the boat. Free with the crew newsletter at Elliott's Tackle & Rigging.
1. From the Helm
I've spent better than forty years running saltwater out of the Pacific Northwest — chasing kings and coho off Port Angeles, fighting current in the straits, and learning most of it the hard way. This guide is the setup advice I wish somebody had handed me on day one, before I wasted a few seasons and a lot of gear figuring it out myself.
I'm not going to sell you on magic. Catching more fish comes down to a handful of things done right: getting your bait to the depth the fish are actually holding, at the speed they want to eat, with a spread that stays fishing instead of tangling. That's it. The rest is patience and time on the water.
Everything in here is field-tested — no theory for theory's sake. Read it once before your next trip, keep the checklist at the end handy, and you'll rig with more confidence than most folks who've been at it for years.
2. The Downrigger Setup That Actually Works
Your downrigger is the tool that lets you put a bait at an exact depth and keep it there. Get this dialed and you've solved half the puzzle. Here's how I set mine up.
Mounting and placement
Mount your downriggers where the booms can swing clear of each other and clear of your rod holders — you want room to run two or three lines a side without them crossing. On most boats that means the riggers sit at the aft corners, angled slightly out. Bolt through a solid backing plate; a rigger under load will rip out a thin gunwale. If you're on a smaller boat, a clamp-mount works, but check it every trip — salt and vibration loosen everything.
Boom length and spread
A longer boom pushes your weight further from the hull and widens your spread, which matters when you're stacking rods or running a big flasher that swings. Short booms keep things tight and are easier to manage solo. I run longer booms on the outside riggers and keep the spread wide so lines don't argue with each other on a turn.
Cable vs. braid
Stainless cable is the standard — tough, cheap, and it doesn't stretch, so your depth reading stays honest. Braid (like black downrigger braid) is thinner, cuts water with less blowback, and is quieter, which can matter in clear water on pressured fish. The trade-off is braid needs more care and the right sheave. If you're just starting, run cable. Upgrade to braid when you're chasing every last advantage.
Choosing weight for depth and current
The faster you troll and the deeper you fish, the more your cable 'blows back' behind the boat — which means your bait is shallower than your counter says. Heavier weight fights blowback. In calm water at slow speed, a 10–12 lb ball is plenty. In heavy current or when I'm pushing speed, I'll go 12–15 lb to keep the cable vertical and the depth honest. A weight with a fin (like a Cannon or Scotty fish-shaped ball) tracks straighter and blows back less.
Capt. Joel's tip: Rule of thumb: if your cable angle is more than about 30° off vertical, you're getting blown back hard — add weight or slow down, or you're fishing shallower than you think.
Stacking rods without a tangle
Stacking — running two rods off one rigger cable at different depths — doubles your coverage. Set your deep rod first, clip it in, then send the ball down and clip your second (shallower) rod above it with a stacker release. Keep at least 10–15 feet between the two so a fish on the top rod doesn't foul the bottom one. Reel the top rod's slack tight so it doesn't sag into the prop wash.
3. Speed, Depth & Temperature — the Trolling Triangle
Three variables decide whether you're catching or just dragging water: how fast you go, how deep you fish, and the temperature of the water your bait is swimming through. Get all three in the strike zone and the day turns around fast.
Speed
Most salmon-and-trout trolling lives between about 1.8 and 3.5 mph over ground, but the number that matters is speed through the water, not GPS speed — current can add or subtract a full mph. Watch your bait or flasher action at the surface before you send it down; if it's rolling instead of swimming, you're going too fast. When the bite's slow, change speed before you change gear. Nine times out of ten, speed is the fix.
Depth
Fish hold at a depth for a reason — bait, temperature, light. Start where your sounder marks fish or bait, and if nothing's happening, work the column. I'll stagger my rods across a range (say 40, 60, and 80 feet) until one starts producing, then move the others to that depth. Let the fish tell you.
Temperature
Salmon are fussy about temperature and often sit right on the thermocline — the line where warm surface water meets the cold water below. Bait stacks there, and predators follow. A temperature sensor on your ball (or a temp-at-depth gauge) tells you exactly where that line is so you can park your bait on it instead of guessing.
Capt. Joel's tip: When you find the thermocline, fish it. That transition line is the single most productive piece of water in the column on most days.
4. Reading Your Electronics Like a Captain
A fish finder isn't a fish-catching machine — it's a tool that tells you where to put your bait. The captains who out-fish everyone aren't running fancier gear; they just read the screen better. Here's what to actually look for.
Bait vs. fish
Bait shows up as clouds or clusters — dense balls of little returns, often suspended. Predators show as bigger, harder individual marks, frequently under or beside the bait. Find the bait and you've found the pantry; the fish won't be far. A screen full of bait with a few big arches under it is exactly what you want to troll through.
Set your ball to your sounder
Here's a trick that changes everything: watch your downrigger ball on the sounder. Most units will show your weight as a mark at its depth. Now you can put your ball — and therefore your bait — right at the level of the fish you're marking, in real time. When you see fish rise to the thermocline, follow them up with the rigger.
Don't drown in features
Side imaging, down imaging, live sonar — all useful, but master the basics first. Depth, temperature, bait, and fish marks will catch you more salmon than any premium feature until you've got the fundamentals down. If you're shopping for a unit, buy a bright screen you can read in full sun and good CHIRP sonar before you pay for the extras.
5. Building a Clean Spread
A spread is all your lines working together without fighting each other. Four-plus rods fishing clean out-produces two rods any day — but only if they're not a tangled mess. Here's how I keep order.
Rod-holder angles
Angle your outside rods out and slightly down, and your inside rods higher and tighter to the boat. That staggers your lines across the water column and out to the sides so nothing overlaps. Adjustable rod holders (like Scotty or Cannon) let you fine-tune the angle for conditions — spread wider in calm water, tighter when it's rough.
Release tension
Your release clip should hold the line firmly enough that trolling drag and a flasher's pull won't trip it, but light enough that a fish pops it clean. Too tight and you'll miss soft bites and never know it; too loose and every wave sets it off. Set it, watch it for a few minutes, and adjust. This is the setting most people never bother to dial — and it costs them fish.
Managing four-plus lines
Set your deepest, furthest-back rods first and work in and up from there, so you're never dragging a new line across one that's already fishing. On a turn, the inside lines slow and drop while the outside lines speed and rise — know that, and don't panic when the inside rod loads up on a hard turn. Half my bites come on the turn.
6. Terminal Tackle & Rigging
This is the business end — the leaders, flashers, and rigs that actually get bit. It's also the stuff that lives in your tackle bag and gets swapped constantly, so it pays to keep it simple and organized.
Leaders
Leader length behind a flasher matters more than most folks think. Short leaders (say 20–28 inches behind a flasher) give your bait a tight, aggressive action driven by the flasher's swing — good for kings. Longer leaders let the bait move more naturally — sometimes better for finicky coho. Carry a range and change it when the bite is off. Fluorocarbon for clear water and wary fish; mono when you want a little stretch.
Flashers and dodgers
A flasher rotates a full circle and throws a lot of flash and vibration — it calls fish in and gives the bait its action. A dodger swings side to side without rotating, for a subtler wobble. Bright water and aggressive fish, go flasher. Clear, calm, pressured water, try a dodger or a smaller flasher. Match the size to your speed — a big flasher at slow speed just spins lazily.
Bait vs. lures
Cut-plug herring and whole anchovy will always have a place — nothing beats the real thing when it's rigged to roll right. But spoons, hoochies, and plugs fish clean, don't wash out, and let you cover water fast without re-baiting. I run bait when I've got time to fuss and fish are picky, and lures when I want to keep lines wet and cover ground. Carry both.
Capt. Joel's tip: Capt. Joel's confidence rig: a proven flasher, a 30-inch fluoro leader, and a green or pink-glow hoochie or a well-rolled cut-plug herring. When I don't know what to run, I start there.
7. Rig the Boat Right — Power & Safety
None of the above matters if your gear quits or the boat lets you down. Rigging the boat itself — clean power, solid mounts, and the safety gear you hope you never need — is the part nobody brags about and everybody should get right.
Mounting electronics and trolling motors
Mount your electronics where you can see the screen from the helm without turning your back on the water, and where spray won't hammer it. Use the manufacturer's mount and a solid backing — a display that vibrates loose offshore is useless. For a trolling motor, get the shaft length right for your bow height (too short and it ventilates in chop; too long and it drags) and wire it to its own battery, not your starting battery.
Wiring that survives salt
Salt water eats connections. Use marine-grade tinned wire, heat-shrink every crimp, and keep connections up out of the bilge where you can. A little dielectric grease on your plugs goes a long way. Fuse everything close to the battery. Ninety percent of the electronics 'failures' I've seen were really corroded connections — not the unit.
Safety gear that's non-negotiable
A working VHF radio, life jackets you'll actually wear, and — if you run offshore or solo — an EPIRB or a personal locator beacon (PLB). Register the beacon so a signal comes back to your name and your boat. This is the cheapest insurance on the boat, and the one piece of gear whose whole job is to bring you home. Don't cheap out and don't skip it.
8. Capt. Joel's Pre-Trip Checklist
This is the list I run before every trip. Tear it out, screenshot it, tape it to the console — whatever keeps you from being the guy who launches and realizes the plug's still in the truck.
- ☐ Drain plug in — seriously, check it first
- ☐ Batteries charged; trolling-motor battery topped off
- ☐ Downrigger cables/braid inspected; weights + fins aboard
- ☐ Release clips checked; spares in the bag
- ☐ Leaders pre-tied in a range of lengths
- ☐ Flashers, dodgers, spoons, hoochies sorted and reachable
- ☐ Bait rigged or ready to rig; brine and ice aboard
- ☐ Electronics powered up and tested at the dock
- ☐ VHF radio checked; life jackets aboard and accessible
- ☐ EPIRB/PLB present and in date; float plan told to someone ashore
- ☐ Fuel + reserve; weather and tide checked one more time
9. Tight Lines
That's the playbook — the same setup I run and the same advice I'd give you standing on the dock. Rig your riggers right, dial the trolling triangle, read your screen, keep a clean spread, and take care of the boat. Do those things and you'll spend more days bent over a fish and fewer days wondering what went wrong.
If you've got a question about your own setup — what weight for your water, how to rig a particular flasher, which unit to buy — reach out. I answer these all the time, and I'd rather help you get it right before you're on the water than hear about the one that got away.
The gear I trust and fish myself is the gear we carry at Elliott's — hand-picked, nothing on the shelf I wouldn't run on my own boat. But whether you buy it from us or not, get out there and use this. Tight lines.
— Capt. Joel Elliott
Ready to rig? The gear Capt. Joel trusts is at Elliott's Tackle & Rigging. Questions about your setup? Reach out — we answer these all the time.
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