Power Pro & a Downrigger (a story)

[Dan in Alaska]

On the maiden voyage with the downriggers, we had an incident. We got one hung up on the bottom and lost the cable and everything attached to it - weight & 2 releases. Not wanting to be without a downrigger for the rest of the day, I refilled the downrigger (with LOTS of line tension) with 125 feet of 100# Power Pro off of one of my halibut rods. I had an extra downrigger weight and releases, so we were back in business in less than 5 minutes.

Aside from the lost gear, this incident did provide us with a side-by-side comparision of the Power Pro vs. SS cable. My observations:
1) The downrigger with the Power Pro did not make a sound. This was really nice; no singing or humming.
2) The Power Pro downrigger did not flag as much as the cabled downrigger. They both had the same weight and were set to the same depth. The Power Pro stayed much more verticle than the cable.
3) I did notice a fray in the Power Pro, near the swivel, and retied the swivel just to be safe. Retying was very easy, and I did not need to use a terminator. Perhaps a heavier weight version of Power Pro would prevent this?

I was pretty impressed about how well the Power Pro worked. After this trip, I am going to make sure I have a extra spool of 150# Power Pro on board for the downriggers. And, when the SS cable finally does wear out, I will replace it with Power Pro.

[soltydog]

Interesting. What ever works !!

[JVLII]

Lots of guys are trying this on the Great Lakes, the trend started about two years ago. By the way, #250 is what is used here. Depending on the day, the wire hum and associated turbulence turns the fish on w/ the cable, but other days the PP will work. Same logic why some days our wire dipsys way outperform fireline and/or PP dipsys. We seem to experience the same amount of blow back w/ each though. We run 4 riggers everyday, so we have lots of time on this setup. Consensus seems to be to stick w/ cable.

JVLII