Downrigger Help Needed

Thank you pmmpete! I will leave it and not shorten the boom. Pointing it backward on my revo is probably the ideal thing to do. 

Thank you pmmpete! I will leave it and not shorten the boom. Pointing it backward on my revo is probably the ideal thing to do.

On my revo I didn’t shorten it, but had it mounted on a track in front of the cup holder pointed back toward me. The angles and length worked out great.  On my outback with how I mounted it it was beneficial to shorten and bend the boom to put everything at a length that was comfortable for me.

So depending on your mounting location and arm length etc I would experiment with mounting options before cutting up your downrigger. I tried some suggestions which other people liked and ended up hating them so keep messing with it until you find what you like.

Thanks Threemoneyj! Definitely I prefer not shortening it if I can make it work.

I’m curious what is the recommendation length cut off for the laketroller boom?

One option is to leave the boom of your Scotty Laketroller at its original length, and to point the boom forward or backward along the kayak so the cable hangs only an inch or so from the side of the kayak.  You will want to position the downrigger where it's easy to crank the cable reel without reaching way forward or backward or stressing out your shoulder, and it's also easy to grab your downrigger weight and release.

If you decide to shorten the boom of a Scotty Laketroller which you intend to mount on a pedal kayak, you will have two challenges:

1. The cable pulley is attached to a plastic fixture which is molded to the end of the downrigger's boom.  You can't remove and relocate the plastic fixture.  If you saw off the end of the boom, you'll need to devise a way to attach the cable pulley to the shortened boom.

2. The boom on a Laketroller positions the pulley so it feeds the downrigger cable into the center of the cable reel.  If you cut off part of the boom and re-attach the cable pulley to the end of the shortened boom, the cable pulley will end up positioned below the level of the cable reel, and the cable will bend and rub over the edge of the cable reel, which is bad.  So you will need to bend the shortened boom up so it positions the cable pulley where it feeds the cable into the center of the cable reel.  If you shorten the boom too much, you'll need to bend the boom up very sharply to get the cable pulley high enough, which will be difficult because the boom is made of very stiff metal.  So you need to figure out how much you'd need bend up the boom in order to position the cable reel properly for various lengths of boom.

If you want to mount a Scotty Laketroller or any other downrigger on a paddle kayak, you'll have another challenge, which is that you need to find a place to locate the downrigger's base, and a direction to point the downrigger's boom, where the downrigger won't interfere with paddling your kayak.  Because most of us have only two arms, and you need both arms to paddle a kayak, if you mount the downrigger next to your thigh, you'll be able to control the descent of the downrigger weight by leaning your thigh on the edge of the cable reel while you paddle forwards with both arms.

When I mounted a Scotty Laketroller on my 13' Ocean Kayak Trident, which is a paddle kayak, I decided to leave the boom at its original length, but point it backward to position the downrigger cable only couple of inches from the side of the Trident.  Then, to get the cable closer to the side of the kayak, and to get the boom further out of the way of my paddle stroke, I bent the boom sideways.  I didn't bend the boom down, because that would have resulted in the cable bending and rubbing over the edge of the cable reel.  A couple of pictures of the way I mounted a Laketroller on my Trident are shown below.

You don't by chance have a few images of this in action with the rod hooked up?  Your the first Paddle Drive I have seen with a down rigger.  What obstacles have you come across when paddling?  Thanks!

A few years back I think a couple of NCKA'ers tried using old sections of rod and with a reel mounted in the seat for trolling.  What ever happened to that concept?  I am curious as it would seem to be a better overall concept (faster retrieve?). I would be interested hearing the results.