My wife and I have fished just about every kind of fishing in Washington over the years, including jigging for botoomfish and getting an occasional salmon while jigging. But until now we've never owned a boat that was good for trolling and using downriggers.

I've been salmon fishing one time using downriggers and while I have a decent idea of how to set them up and get them down, I have absolutely no idea how to use them "properly".

For example, assuming we have 2 downriggers down with lines out and one gets a strike. Do you simply stop the boat and fight the fish, turning the boat into the fish?

Or should you stop the boat, yank the empty line off it's downrigger, crank up both downriggers, all while the other person if fighting their fish? I'm kind of assuming this is the best method simply because of the chances of the fish tangling up in the downrigger lines, but on the other hand that makes for a lot of cranking on the downriggers and maybe tangles like that don't happen if you position the boat properly.

Sorry to sound ignorant but since we know very few salt water fishermen it's hard to find someone to use as a source of good information.

Thanks!

Braz