I used to fish with banana weights and was able to get pretty deep. the problem was the amount of line you have to let out to get their. The nice thing about down rigger is it takes the guess work out of it . Their still is a little bit even with a downrigger but not much. I remember looking at my line when i had just a lead weight on it trying to figure out now is that 45 or 50 degrees?? Not anymore 15 lbs. of weight a quick look at the line counter , look at the fishfinder yep I am their. Of course back the old days we didnt have a fishfinder either so who new where the fish were. We would just count pulls