Save your arm from your DR and use a Shuttle Hawk instead

I've heard about them for years as a way to stack two rods on one DR and seen some members be able to successfully use them this way. Last year I started using the DR a lot more and the only complaint I have is having to reset the DR every time it pops the line off and when using a lake troller, that means pulling it all the way back up and re-deploying it.  A mistake in tension or deployment and have to start all over again.  The other day it dawned on me that I should try using the shuttle hawk to send my line down and decided to give it a shot.  Here is a quick video:




So I took the dr clip  off of my weight, and just used the shuttle hawk with my trusty scotty clip.  It comes with a different designed clip that you have to set tension with a screwdriver, but I didn't have one on me so just swapped it out.  You may notice in the video that Gary uses a rubber band to keep it from coming off of the DR line.  It doesn't come with it for some reason, so be sure to add it so you don't loose your SH.

While it sort of looks obvious how this works if you watched the video, I'll still sum up how I used it and what I liked and disliked about using it.

For me, it's sometimes hard to count the turns of the DR as the line pays out and I hear the clicker go and line pulls out of the reel.  But with this setup you deploy the DR to the desired depth, and then you use the SH to send your line down.

To get the SH to dive, you have to have tension on the clip to your line and lift up, which will give the nose a downward direction to force it to dive down to the stopper or the end of your DR line.  So at first it feels odd but you lift up and it starts to dive down, and using a clicker it pays out line pretty easily as it goes on it's way down.  Best part about this is once it's going you can slip it into your rod holder and just keep trolling and it will dive itself down until it reaches the end and then you can give a few quick winds to tension it.

Resetting is a breeze since the SH returns to the surface but you do not have to touch the DR crank at all, you can re-clip and let it pay out and send itself back down.  This makes it so I crank that DR arm so many fewer times each day, and at the end of the day, have no pain. 

Hopefully someone else gives it a try and finds it helpful!

+1. I've used them many times on my buddies boat when fishing for Kings in Folsom Lake. They work as advertised and save a ton of cranking.

Thanks for the info and video Al.

Thanks for the tip and the video -- looks like it'll make running bait for salmon less of a chore. I often choose to run junk just so I don't have to check it as often and rest the downrigger each time

Cheers,
Brad

cool, I've seen youtube milt do essentially that with a 1 oz weight as well, just keeps dropping them down his DR line, then when he finally cranks up the DR, he retrieves all the 1oz weights as well.