Mooched Pt. Defiance last night from 7:00-10:30 with nothing but dogfish & other riff-raff. Didn't see any fish caught, word on the dock was only 4-5 fish all day. Caught by trollers, all deep.

My "new" boat is nearly setup for trolling. A couple newbie questions on downriggers after limited experience:

1) If you loosen the brake on the fishing reel for the trip down, do you leave it loose while trolling (so you can adjust depth without adjusting the brake every time) or do you tighten it to fish-fighting tension once you're at the desired depth?

2) When adjusting the depth of the ball to accomodate changing bottom contours, do you adjust the amt of fishing line out as well? For example, if you bring the ball up 15 feet do you crank in fishing line as well or just leave it be? Sometimes there is so much drag on the line when at depth that I accidentally release the clip unless I back off the throttle to compensate.

Loking forward to more salmon, less dogfish...

Sideoff